WDW Passholder's First Visit

[only hope]

I have been a local WDW passholder for many years, and recently took my first trip to DLR with my mom. I wish it didn't cost so much to visit out there, it was a lot of fun. I don't like either set of parks better; they are both different, each with its advantages over the other. Some thoughts:

• We liked the ease of park hopping, in that all you had to do was take a two minute walk. However, the bag check lines and lines to get into DL were quite long and annoying. It has never taken us longer than five minutes to get through bag check at WDW; it took us 15-20 minutes at DLR. Same with the line to get into DL in the morning. There should be more CM! It really is mind boggling as to why they would not want to speed things up. Park hopping from CA to DL after WOC was particularly aggravating, as they had a ton of exits open but not many entrances into DL. They know to expect a wave of people hopping; why not turn some of those exits that are barely being used into entrances for 15 minutes?
• Though I had read on here the walkways at DL were crowded, I was still surprised by just how crowded they were- and how slowly people walked! By our last day, we were getting very tired of it taking so long to get anywhere. There really is no advantage in the smaller park footprint, because unless you're going to the attraction right next to the current one, it takes just as long to get anywhere as it does at MK.
• All of the rides that have a companion at WDW, that we did, were better at DL except for IASW. I was a little dissapointed by Snow White, which I had been really looking forward to. It was not as good as the one MK used to have, as it was missing some scenes in contrast to other DL rides which had more scenes than their WDW counterparts. The additional scenes in Pirates and BTMR were great.
• I loved the Tomorrowland sign; we have nothing like it. It was rather strange to be able to see Astro Orbiter, the castle, and the signs for Frontierland & Adventureland from the same spot.
• The fireworks are much, much better at DL- both regular and Halloween. The projections are awesome. The night parade, in my opnion, is not. While I did enjoy most of the floats, the music was terrible. I hate remixes of classic Disney songs, high bass, etc. I think the Main Street Electrical Parade found the right balance of electronic sounds still making a nice melody you want to tap your foot to.
• We took the Welcome to Disneyland tour. I was a bit dissapointed that there wasn't more trivia type information. It was mostly, we are in this land now which features these attractions. That being said, the tour guide was very good at her job; friendly, bubbly, seemed very happy to be there. I do wish the tour had been a little later in the day, so we had time to do something before the tour and crowds. The park opened at 10 and the tour was at 10:30.
• We had breakfast at the Plaza (that was our one real splurge), and then dinner so we could try the chicken and enjoy the inside as we were seated outside at breakfast. I was thrilled with the amount of characters that came by, though I must say the Fairy Godmother was a bit strange. She didn't feel like a character to me; just somebody wearing a costume. I've met face characters before and never felt that way. The food was excellent.
• The Aladdin musical was spectacular. It is just as good as the Festival of the Lion King, and I never thought I'd see a theme park show that could rival that. I can't believe they're replacing that, and with Frozen of all things. No mass appeal with that.
• Fantasmic was indeed much better, though the viewing situation was not. I am glad there are FP's now, but still, compared to the ease of simply walking into the stadium at HS, it was...chaotic and crowded. The second night we watched it, on 10/16, we had to use stand by. On 10/11, we obtained a FP for the second show and I asked the CM what time FP usually ran out. He said they "never" run out. Well, on 10/16, we swung by early afternoon and they were all gone! Standby viewing is pretty bad. There was a sign for the Tom Sawyer rafts in the way. The only upside was we got to see the last part of the Hook and Peter portion clearly.
• The Halloween party was much better. Unlike MK, they did not oversell it. Except for Mickey & Minnie, the character lines were short (I'm sure the villians were long from what I've read here, but we never checked). We actually met Prince Ali and Genie with no line; just had to wait for the current group to finish. Pirate Chip & Dale was about 10 minutes. At MK, all the lines are consistently 30mn or longer; you kill the entire party meeting just a few and don't get much else done.
• We purchased photopass+ and it was real nice to not have to drag my camera everywhere and constantly be handing it to CM. I did take it in some of the days, to get pictures of things not included on the CD and at the character breakfast. The photo spots in CA were really neat, I wish we'd had time for more of them. It was nice to have ride photos though I wish more rides had photos. A ton of them do at WDW.
• I thought I had done my homework and picked a less busy time to go, but I either didn't see or didn't think fall break was a big deal. We went Oct 11, Oct 12 for the party, Oct 13, and Oct 15, and it was packed. I did hear/read some people commenting it was busier than normal though. We waited in just a few long lines because we just skipped something that was more than 20 minutes until the last day, when there were things we still hadn't done. I thought we'd be able to easily ride and see everything, with many repeats. In reality there were some things we didn't do and we didn't do as many repeats as I had hoped; and that was with riding several things with little wait during the party.

I really hope we win one of those sweepstakes trips, as I can't afford to go back anytime soon and would love to see the diamond celebration things again. We also never got to meet Mickey and Minnie in their special outfits.