Let's hope it's the drought of good ideas.
Funny side story, my wife and I went to dinner with a couple. The my friends wife has never been to wdw, this has been the only reason in the past 2 years that I want to go. For some reason the thought of going with a first timer is still intriguing.
From a long-time DL person who finally landed in Florida last year, it was interesting to see the sheer SIZE of MK and the overall layout but the differences were immediately evident. The lack of trees and greenery (hanging flower baskets, shrubs, etc) on Main Street is the more glaring quickly followed by the huge castle which has this giant open ...courtyard, basically, in front of it and a stage plopped in front that matches absolutely nothing and makes no sense for it's existence if there is not a show going on at the exact time you find yourself in front of it.
I understand why MSUSA is so wide, but that also takes away from the charm of DL MSUSA, of feeling like a tight knit little town and you're literally walking down Main Street, USA. At MK, it feels like a wide expanse of concrete with no benches nor shade and there's ...almost the feeling or urgency to walk through it quickly. It's not as welcoming as DL is.
That said, there are some pluses MK has. I really like MKs castle more than DL, but I love the way DL s castle opens into a new world, whereas MK ...I didn't even realize you were able to walk through it. But going around the side, it doesn't have that one-two punch of entering a new realm. Size isn't always a good thing.
Words can't express how much I love the peoplemover, and miss it at DL so, so much.
I also liked splash mountain at MK over DL. Then again, I saw it a month after a fantastic refurb, so there's that.
Lopping this ridiculous post back to yours, I think you would be surprised what a first timer has to say about wdw. There's a lot of glamour of the parks, but the reality is, there's always comparisons and...well, they're not always pretty. People notice flaws whether they've been there a thousand times or just once (the smell of the monorails will never, I fear, leave my nostrils) and whether they've read Internet forums or not.
I think I had a leg up compared to someone who has never read up on wdw, and just went in basically blind. But I research the hell out of everything...vacations, computers, my next cable package, before buying. I sorta knew what I was getting into, however it had less of an impact because it was so new and fresh, as a first timer.
Even still, you learn quickly.
