We stayed at Desert Inn and Suites. It wasn't bad, but kinda reminded me of an old apartment rather than a hotel.
I see you walked by Desert Palms... we stayed there on our last trip to DLR. It was a bit more of a walk..but still doable. The time before that we stayed at Residence Inn... we walked that..but often it was too much so we used the ART (Anaheim Resort Transportation) It was so worth it especially with our (at the time) very small toddler
WOC... OMG, you took the BEST pictures. We watched it... we preordered the picnic packs (which were yummy) and got seating in the yellow section. Looking at that map, we were actually standing right where those two yellow stars are. I had a hard time taking picture though because of the water spray.
Your character breakfast looks like so much fun. I had wanted to try and do that on our last day, but for lunch... well.. they don't do lunch.
It is different for dinning there though, I agree. We walked up and got breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen without any problem and were seated immediately. I know were were super tired, so I may have missed it.. but there didn't seem to be the same level of character interaction going on there that you got.
Oh..and on WOC, did they do a Brave segment while you were there? It was my favorite.. along with the part where Captain Jack mentioned not doing something again!