First of all, I just wanted to say that you will not go wrong with Silver Strand State Beach. We've been there a couple of times with relatives who live in San Diego. It's a really great beach!
Re: the USS Midway -
Friends of mine toured the Midway about a year ago on a San Diego trip. They LOVED it.
DL doesn't release its park hours or entertainment schedule until 60 days ahead of time. However, you can find historical DL park hours here on the DIS. Just do a search on the main wdwinfo.com website for it.
Re: Paint the Night -
If you take Fri 4/20 as an example, the parade is running 2x that evening: 8:45 pm and 10:45 pm. Fireworks at DL will be at 9:30 pm.
Usually by that time in the summer (i.e., your travel dates), DL is on its regular summer schedule, which means fireworks every evening.
Re: the afternoon DL parade -
My favorite place to see the afternoon DL parade is right in front of the Alice in Wonderland bathrooms. There's no parade viewing on the opposite side of the "street" at that spot, so the parade performers only pay attention to your side of the "street."
Re: fireworks -
If seeing the new fireworks are a "must do," then you need to try to see them on your first day there. The reason being is that fireworks are often cancelled because of Santa Ana winds at higher elevations. So if they're cancelled that first night, then you still have 3 other nights to give it a whirl.
Re: which days to go to DLR -
I think your plan of going Tues-Thurs is a good one. Since you'll have 4-day tickets, you will get 1 MM (Magic Morning) entry to DL. MM is on Tues, Thurs, or Sat. In the summer, DL usually opens at 8 am. That means that MM starts at 7 am. 7 am MM at DL is a godsend. Seriously. It is WORTH it to have your crew up and there for 7 am MM. We often get 5 rides done in Fantasyland in that hour.
If you'll be driving in from Garden Grove, then you'll probably be parking at the Toy Story lot. I think that the Mickey & Friends parking might be the only lot open 90 min before regular park opening on MM days. Check the
Disneyland website to make sure.
Re: summer crowds in DL -
None of the crowd calendars are very useful for DL. We usually go to DL in the summer, but it's often at the beginning of June. We have also been there in October, which was MORE crowded than June. We have had a wonderful time by following a few rules of thumb that I learned here on these boards:
- be there for rope drop
- If you can wake up early and take advantage of the MM on your ticket, then DO IT! Especially with a 7-8 am MM.
- Use FP. There are great sticky threads here that explain it.
- Go on rides all morning and you'll notice that around 11-11:30 am, it's starting to fill up.
- You might also notice on the week days that starting around 5 pm, it gets more crowded than it was earlier in the day. That's because of the locals who live nearby who left work early to spend the evening at DL.
- A lot of your standard WDW tactics for open-to-close will work at DL, too, in the middle of the afternoon. That's when you should see shows, spend some time in Animation Academy at DCA, take your time at Tom Sawyer's Island, etc., etc.
Of the last couple of summers, a lot of people here on DIS Boards have noticed that Saturdays in the summer end up LESS crowded than the week days...this is because of the So Cal APs. DL is phasing those APs out, which means that So Cal residents cannot buy NEW So Cal APs. Usually by mid-June, I think that the So Cal APs all have Saturdays blocked out. And the lowest level of So Cal AP has several entire weeks blocked out in the middle of the summer starting some time in June.
If you ARE really open to close people, then 3 days in a row at DL is going to be rough. I'd recommend 2 days on, 1 day off. Wednesday IS the best day of the week at DL.
There's a ton of stuff to do in So Cal. You could do a 2nd beach day. Or go to an aquarium...there are a couple in San Diego and a great one in Long Beach. If you have school aged children, there's a great children's museum in Orange County. You could also go to the California Science Center in LA. They have 1 of the space shuttles housed there. The permanent exhibits there are free, but seeing the space shuttle costs a couple of dollars per person. Next door is the LA Natural History Museum in case you have any dinosaur lovers.
And last but not least...
I'm sure if you realize this, but 1 of the original Disney Imagineers does bus tours once a month on the 3rd Sunday of the month. Bob Gurr's Waltland tour (which he narrates himself in person the whole time) happens to fall within your travel dates. But it's on Father's Day (Sun 6/17). The tour costs $105 and includes lunch. He's an amazing person. They've interviewed him before on the DIS Unplugged podcasts. If you're interested, you should go to
http://www.waltland.com/.
