I think the thing to remember - especially if the birhtday girl/boy is a child...
Don't expect anything!
There are lots of ways the CM's can make the day special, but if you're expecting lots of stuff, or tell a child they'll get free ice cream - or whatever, they might be dissappointed.
Here are some of the things that happened on our dd's birthdays in '02.
dd7 - at character breakfast got birthday wishes, but no candle in a cupcake like dd5 did 8 days later.
dd7 - got a "call" from goofy while we were at the HISTK playground....since we knew about this, we stopped by City Hall on dd5's birthday to get her call.
dd7 - got quite a few "happy birthday"s - but I really don't remember anything special.
dd5 - got to sit up front at Country Bears - the whole audience sang Happy Birthday to her.
dd5 - got the attention of the talking trash can in Tomorrowland - he talked with her and then had the crowd sing "happy birthday"
dd5 - also got a lot of happy birthday wishes from CM's
dd5 - got a special certificate from Mickey and friends - delivered by the CM who monitors the Living Statues (Epcot - France). He saw us and told me to come back at the next statue time and he would have something special for her.
So - you can see that dd7 didn't really get that much, but was a real trouper when her younger sister was getting all of the special treatment on her birthday. The hardest thing was the lack of a cupcake/candle at Cinderella's. I don't know why one got it and the other didn't.
As you can see from my signature, we'll be there again for their birthdays. We'll not be expecting anything, we'll just have them wear the button and let the restaurants we visit know we're celebrating a birthday. Dd- turning 9 will celebrate at the Hoop-de-do, dd-turning 7 will celebrate at Cinderella's.