HI. As I have only stayed at the Grand Californian in August 04, I can not compare hotels for you. However, I can tell you we absolutely loved the GC and even though it took many points per night, we truly were glad we stayed there on points. It is a beautiful hotel and the pool area was really nice. We did not have to pay extra for the parking, although we did have to walk a bit to our car. I believe they did offer vallet parking, but I can not remember how much that was. Sorry. Yes, we did receive a newspaper for free each day. We also had the park view which was really neat to see at night, with the lights on the rides.
Good Luck with your planning. I am sure you will have a great time which ever hotel you choose. As Bongo59 said DL is different than WDW in that everything is so close to one another, which is nice. Having been to WDW many times and DL only once as a child, I did like the fact that it was a quick walk to the parks. The GC has its own entrance to CA and Downtown Disney which is a nice extra touch. Have fun planning.
