I've never been really bothered by the lack of CS desserts for kids. Considering the amount of food available on the
DDP, I really don't want dessert at lunch to be part of the equation. In fact, I usually don't bother with the dessert included for adults. While I'm a huge chocolate fan, I really can skip a packaged chocolate cake at lunch, knowing that we'll stop perhaps and have a great snack mid afternoon.
That said, we often split 2 adult meals between the four of us, thereby skipping the kids dessert issue. If my 4.5 yo wants a kids meal, then I'll get him one, and not take the gelatin offered. Not worth it.
My main issues have become the TS meals (didn't think they would but they have). We've found that none of the appetizers appeal to either of my kids (they don't eat any veggies at all and don't like the soup because of the floating parsley all over it). The main items are often repetitive and if you select an entree from the all inclusive items, you're stuck w/ veggie appetizer and perhaps yogurt for dessert. Not what they enjoy. But often the pick your own items are also repetitive...m&c (my older one thinks this is just too gloppy), burger over and over. We enjoy LeCellier because he can get steak, like WPC because of the great pizza.
We're booked for free dining in August under the bounce back promotion offered late last year. However, I'm watching for a decent AP rate and if it's good enough, we might dump the free dining and take that instead, upgrading our hotel and purchasing our food OOP and offsite. My older son has stated that he's perfectly happy if we do that, hitting familiar restaurants off property for dinner. We might even split our trip and hit US for a few days (yes, I know, sacriledge but they are getting older) which would mean less days for DDP.
Some research showed me that AP rates have been in the range of $70/night off deluxe, which would bring my chosen hotel (BC) down to just about what I'm paying for WL including free dining. If that's the case, I'll just keep free dining and supplement my older son's meals with some other choices. The cost would not be much per day. The other option is upping him to adult status (he'll be 10 next February and we won't be back before then) and paying the adult price for the 1 day ticket, thereby getting him adult free dining status. Since we have APs, we would save the ticket towards a future purchase.
Guess I'll have to wait and see what kind of offers come along.