While they don't really advertise it, there is a dining plan at Disneyland but DO NOT get it. It's basically a voucher system. If your meal costs more than the amount of the voucher, you need to pay the difference. If the meal is less than the voucher you don't get any money back.

Disneyland is much easier to do than WDW and doesn't need as much planning. As was mentioned before, dining can be booked 60 days out, but most restaurants you don't need to book that far in advance. I'd also mention that the quick service restaurants (with one or two exceptions) are really ver good.

Disneyland uses the old paper fastpass system but they did just implement the Maxpass system for $10 per day or ticket. You need to purchase it AFTER you go through the turnstyles and buy it each day, so you can choose to only buy it certain days of your trip. I was really reluctant to try it because I felt it was just a money grab, however I used it when I was down there for the Super Heroes marathon weekend and it turned out to be really time saving (and helped with cutting down on added walking).

The crowds at DL are more based on annual pass holders than tourists. Weekends and afternoons are noticiably more crowded. If possible try to find times when the annual pass holders are blocked out.

Staying at a Disney hotel will get you early morning entry into one of the parks each day. You can also have merchandise shipped to the hotel rather than carrying it around. (But you can always have your purchases shipped to the front of the park and pick it up at the end of the day.) I do recommend staying at an offsite hotel that's in easy walking distance. The cost will be significantly less and some of the offsite hotels are actually a shorter walk than from the Disney hotels! Most tickets that I've purchased will give you one magic morning that you can use as an offsite guest.

I highly recommend getting the park hopper option. The two parks are litterally just across a courtyard from each other and it takes about three minutes to get from one to the next.

The Star Wars land is supposed to open sometime next year so keep that in mind with your planning.