I am assuming you're on the
DDP - 1 TS and 1 CS and 1 snack a day (not deluxe). If so every character meal is one TS. Most people prefer to use their TS for dinner and if that's the case with you, there are not as many character dinners (more breakfasts).
With the character meals I prefer the breakfast because I think the food is better. Charactrer meals are usually buffets and sometimes dinner and lunch buffets are not that good. Where as with breakfast it's hard to mess up eggs and cereal and pasteries and such.
If you want to use a character meal for dinner why not try Liberty Tree Tavern? It's a family style dinner with turkey, ham. roast beef and has all the trimmings. I believe Minnie, Goofy and such are there. My sister went and said it was good.
My SIL recently went to Chef Mickey's for dinner and didn't like the food at all.
For character experiences...If you go to Chef Mickeys you will hit the big 5- Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto plus Chip N Dale I think.
Then if you go to Hollywood and Vine in DH you get to see Playhouse Disney characters (Jo Jo, Little Einsteins)
At the Crystal Palace you get all the Pooh Characters.
So with those 3 you will see most of the big characters your children like. If they really like the Princesses then it's CRT (which may be 2 TS) or Norway.
For breakfast, I think you're fine with any character meal choices as the food is fine for all. Also breakfast is the cheaper of the character meals and maybe you can do one or 2 OP so you can use your TS for dinner.
Personally I love Cape May - the food is very good and it's a very nice restaurant. Also I originally had Chef Mickey, but changed it for Crystal Palace mainly because we'll see most of the characters from Chef Mickey's at other character meals and Crystal Place is the only place we'll see all the Pooh Characters.
Also - double check - someone here can confirm. Not sure is Donald's Breakfastsaurus is still around. Tusker House in AK now has a character breakfast which I heard is wonderful.
I know it's a tough decision. I'm bringing my son for the first time - he will be 2 when we go and he loves many of the characters as well and I think the character experience will be a highlight for him especially at his age. It was getting so frustrating I just booked a different character breakfast every morning and decided to go with the Deluxe Dining plan (3 meals a day) because we wanted some nice dinners as well.
It's a bit of a splurge but the character experiences for my son are worth it. I'm mostly paying the extra money so my son can see characters more than for the food - but it is his first trip and we did save alot of $ by renting DVC points so why not?
You choices look fine. Also a big factor is what parks you plan to be in what day and how easy it will be to make the ADRs.
Good Luck
