Help plan my first trip

[WDWizard]

Airports: If you are staying in the Disneyland Resort Area, the closest airport would be John Wayne Airport in Orange County, although you will likely find cheaper rates for flights flying into Los Angeles (LAX), which is about an hour away from DLR.

How Long/Car Rentals: We visited the DLR theme parks 2 days out of our trip, but I recommend 3 days if you want to see it all since there's so much to do in Disneyland Park alone. If your planning on traveling around SoCal - renting a car is necessary.

Hotels: As far as hotel options go, any hotel in the Disneyland Resort Area would be ideal since most hotels are within walking distance to the parks and it's centrally located in the middle of SoCal - leaving you within close proximity to L.A., Orange County's beaches, and San Diego.

I highly recommend the Candy Cane Inn (an inn down the street from the main entrance) - very clean, nice hotel, friendly staff, decent rates, free internet, free transportation to the parks, free breakfast (the list goes on...)

What to do: Once you're done seeing Disneyland and DCA, take the time to walk around Downtown Disney and explore the GCH and DLH for a while on your spare time.

As far as non-Disney activities to do...we enjoyed driving down the Orange County coast visiting beach towns like Laguna and Newport along the way - which both offer beautiful beaches and lots of things to see and do.

We also took a drive down to San Diego, where we visited La Jolla (a San Diego beach town) where you can have a nice lunch and walk by the great beaches where you'll probably see a few seals playing in the sand. We also went to Mission Beach and drove down to Coronado Island where we explored the Hotel Del Coronado, a very nice historic resort.

In L.A., there is plenty to see in Downtown such as Chinatown, Olvera Street, etc. and of course the overated and very touristy but fun Hollywood Blvd where you can see Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Walk of Fame and the Hollywood & Highland complex (you can see the Hollywood sign from here). We also took the time to go to Studio City to see a tv taping of NBC's Americas Got Talent and took a look around Universal Hollywood's CityWalk (didnt have time to see the park). Other than that, we took a quick drive by Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Santa Monica Pier (which I do not recommend you visit).

Wow...I really got carried away and ended up writing a lot on this post but hope it helps !!

EDIT: Just remembered, Adventures by Disney offers a great tour covering Hollywood and the Disneyland Resort, although it is very expensive (starting at $2,079 per adult in value season, including hotel and most meals, airfare not included). Highlights of the tour include tours of Walt Disney Imagineering and Walt Disney Studios - the only chance the public has to view these facilities plus VIP tours of the parks. Find more info here.