It's embarassing to say that I spent about two years stuck in the second room of the Bottle Grotto and two more years trying to enter Kanalet Castle. Other than that, I completed it pretty quickly. Around 12/30/02, I finally found the last Heart Piece. I played using the original Game Boy version - not DX.
Beat the original Link's Awakening when I was a kid. While I never got the chance to play this version of the game, if given the chance I would take it. (And to think that I beat the original Link's Awakening at the Day Care that I was going to at the time. Ahh, the memories...)