Take this for what you will, but I'd like to make a suggestion that may save you some time in line.
On our first trip we waited in numerous lines (long ones...Ariel alone was almost 2 hours) to meet characters. After waiting for numerous character meets at the begining of our trip, by the end we were done waiting...the kids were antsy in line, DS (11 months at the time) was fussy, DD (then 7) was whinning because she wanted to meet, but not wait, DH was "missing optimal ride time," etc., etc. By the end of the trip, we had quit waiting to see characters.
By the time our Grand Gathering rolled around, I had figured out how to meet the specific characters the kids wanted to see (we had ours, plus DNiece & DNephews) without the hours on end wait. Plan to eat at places that have characters you want to see. We ate at Liberty Tree & Tusker House (Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Daisy & Donald), AkerHaus (saw the princesses-minus Cinderella), Hollywood &Vine (Little Einstiens & Jojo).
We did have the dining plan and I did make ADRs, but some of them were at off times. Liberty Tree we had the first dinner time ressie, Akerhaus, Tusker House, & Hollywood we ate around 10:30/11:00 which was the last of breakfast, but because we ate late (not to mention a ton) we had our dinners later those days and were fine having brunch vs. lunch. It saved a lot of time and aggravation having the characters come to us, instead of standing in multiple lines with a bunch of crabby kids and crabby adults!
I did buy a book that had which characters were at which restaraunts and that helped with the planning.
HTH
ETA-I just thought of something else. DNephew3(at the time) was afraid of the characters at first, but because the character meets are a little more "intimate" they were able to coax him a bit. There wasn't the rush to get on to the next person in line. By the end of the trip, he was waving the characters to our table.

I don't think he would have come around if we had been standing in line for hours on end.