I had crashing as a consequence of the initial Snowy Escape patch, but it was fixed for me in the hotfix patch on Nov. 17th.
Since then, I've had no worse lag than I had before the patch, and if anything, I've had fewer issues since actually installing Snowy Escape than I did between the 17th and when I installed it on the 29th.
Gameplay-wise, I find it keeps my interest than Island Living, which also has key gameplay features tied to the world, but that may be because it's new. It also does a better job (imo) of conveying a sense of culture than Island Living does, though not to the extent that Jungle Adventure does.