For me, what hooked me and what keeps me coming back now are two different things.
The trip where the Disney bug bit me was back in 2003, and it was with my whole family. My parents were both in their 40s, and my younger siblings were 6 and 4. I was a teenager, so I was very much at an age where I typically was "too cool for school" and would have preferred a vacation to somewhere that wasn't, in my mind, "for little kids." I expected to have a perfectly pleasant time, but nothing really more than that. By the end of the trip, though, it hit me. We had five people who were in very different age brackets and had very different interests within the parks. And yet, all five of us had a blast. There really was something for everyone- even a moody teenager.
That realization was what pushed me into paying my own way to Disney when I had a steady income and could afford to do so.
What keeps me coming back, though, is the way it makes me feel while I'm there. It's largely indescribable, but I'll try. Most vacations, even though I have several other places I like to go on vacation, have enough reminders of the "real world" that I spend much of my time on the trip thinking about work, things to take care of at home, and fretting about the trip coming to an end soon. But in Disney, i don't do that. I'm truly able to let everything else go.
Also, for all the rude guest behavior, for all of the crabby people you encounter in the parks who are tired, hot, and irritated with their families, you can't help but feel the supportive Disney community around you. I can proudly walk down Main Street wearing a bright red shirt with Donald Duck's face plastered on it, and no one so much as gives me a second glance. You can be a full-grown adult and stand 35 minutes to meet costumed characters and everyone understands.
Frankly, some of it is also how well Disney takes care of their guests. Once I get off the plane at MCO, Disney scoops me up and takes me anywhere I need to go on property. Do the buses take a little bit longer than I'd like sometimes? Sure, but it beats coordinating my own transportation or paying for a cab or Uber, in my mind. Are the monorails sometimes a bit more crowded than I'd like? Sure, but they're kind of an attraction on their own, and it's pretty cool to be able to leave MK and get over to the Poly for a drink at Trader Sam's in a relatively convenient way.
It's often hot, it's always humid, it's always crowded, there are hurricane risks in the summer, downpours are seemingly always on the horizon during all seasons, and sometimes you get sticker shock when you eat on property, but there's just nowhere else that makes me feel the way Disney does.
