Disneyland is less crowded the week after Thanksgiving up until the week before Christmas - nice weather - nippy at night because of the water. June is very crowded because of all the graduation parties - JHIGH and highschool and college - school take entire grade levels and it is packed with kids. July is hot - although not like Florida (just went and it weather was miserable). Also very busy all summer- especially around the weekend of the 4th - so busy that annual passholder can not use there pass on the 4th. I would not recommend that weekend unless you are there strickly for the fireworks. Line will be long and although fastpass helps - the wait in fastpass seems considerably longer at DL than at MK in WDW.
Legoland was a blast for my two year old when we went the year it opened. We are considering another trip but if you are planning 8 days - it isn't worth it unless you have a
lego fanatic. THe designs with legos are great to see for half a day and they have added dome rides for older kids but still geared for the very young.
I suggest Sea World as my first non-disney park and Universal as my second the zoo as my third choice. The beach is a must - if you want to do legoland 1/2 day beach 1/2 day that is an option in Carlsbad CA since it is right there.
Everyone wants to go to Hollywood and I had fun but as a child there - I was disappointed. I though Hollywood was a fantastic fantasy place with glitz and fame and really it is old dirty and smaller than I imagines (again I was a child) I would have prefered my ideas of Hollywood to the real thing. Yes there are nice and bad parts to every city but as a child you do not think about that - my memory is not a good one.
HOTEL RATES - at DL are higher for weekends than mid week and the best prices are listed on various websights -not sure if I can list my favorite one here or not so I will skip it. DL packages seem to be a deal WDW pagkages not so much. Definately keep checking until there is a package deal for your time frame. I am happy at any of the 3 DL hotels but the actual Disneyland Hotel is my favorite - although not as nice as the newer CGH it seems more "Disney" to me.
When entering the park: outside the CG on the downtown disney bridge is a monorail station - use that entrance as it seems to be a shorter line than the actual entrance and it drops you off in Tomorrow land so you get a jump on the masses entering the main entrance to that side of the park (ride the big rides first and get out of there and see the rest of the park first to avoid the most of the crowd. The Matterhorn has no fastpass and the long will be 45 minutes within 10 minutes of opening - go there first if you want to ride it - the rollercoaster itself is not to fast or scary - my 2 year old was tall enough to ride it does have a couple of fake looking abdominable snowmen that she didn't like!!
I cn not think of any other questions that were asked - but I am willing to share my opinion if you are still planning.
