I know ALOT of people here are loyal to Candy Can Inn, so I'll start with dissention! We LOVE Park Vue Inn. Granted, our 3 kids are smaller than your three kids.
1. Price- Park ue definately wins this one! CCI is 125 at the cheapest, while PVI is hovers around $100 (or less)
2. Location- Again, goes to PVI. No other hotel compares. it is less that 700 steps to Main Street. Walk out of your hotel room, and you are AT the cross walk. CCI is about a 10- 15 minute walk, unless you want to adjust your schedule to try to catch their bus. Only good part of the walk...stopping at 7-11 for Slurpees on the way home for the night! Also related to location, you can catch the fireworks at PVI!
3. Ability to comfortably sleep 5. I will say...CCI rooms are slightly bigger. However, their basic configuration is two beds. At PVI, they offer a bunk bed room, in case you have a child who NEEDS to sleep alone. It is a twin over twin bunkbed, so you will still need someone t0 share somewhere, or bring an air mattress! So I think this catergory is a tie
4. Breakfast- I think they are about equal. Both are donuts, danishes, etc. Neither has any "hot" items that I can recall
5. Parking- If you like a themed parking lot, CCI is your place. The parking lot is cobblestone, with white bricks making the lines. they are very tight though- DH drives an F-350, and we took took up two spots. We had no problems parking at PVI when we arrived at 11 am, and leaving it there until we left the evening of our departure.
Its kind of obvious that I have a favorite. I was very excited to try CCI after all the gushing reviews on here, so I justified the additional expense. (we went in december, so it was around 140 for the room) On the first night, I just thought Candy Cane Ehh...wasn't impressed. It was pretty much an overpriced hotel. The shuttle bus leaves once an hour, so just didn't work for us. The one time we tried to take it back to the hotel, we waited almost 45 minnutes, and gave up. Later found out that the driver was on his dinner break.