Definitely check out the
Disneyland forum on here; it was very helpful. Hotel situation is very different from WDW, as you probably already know. Onsite hotels are very expensive (at least for my budget). However, I am picky about hotels, so I haven't tried any of the motel style places closest to the parks. We stayed at the JW Marriott 2 years ago, which was brand new at the time. We loved it and it's only about a 15 min walk to the parks. Although, I did Uber a few times to save the steps. Last week I stayed at the Westin, which is also about a 15 minute walk. However, from the opposite side of the resort because you enter through Downtown Disney. I preferred the Westin over the JW.
Plan to rope drop, be at security by 7:30 am at the latest. You will definitely need
Genie+ and purchase ILL for Cars since you've never done it. I skipped Rise since I have done it several times at both parks, but purchase the ILL if you want to do it. That will free up your rope drop and night's end time to do some of the others with longer waits.
Prioritize your must dos in each park and then research over on the DL forum. That will allow you to have a plan going in, but be prepared to be flexible in case of unforeseen issues. I would recommend park hopper for max flexibility. Sometimes the wait times are significantly lower in one or the other. Everything I read said slow season had begun, but it was packed Sat-Mon last week (weekend after Labor Day), with Mon being the most crowded.