I am SO excited! On a family trip to California this summer my mom, sister and I are building in a day at DISNEYLAND!!!!! We will only have time and budget for one park on one day and of course we're going to the original and will save CA for another trip. The only downside - I know NOTHING about DL. I can plan a WDW trip in 2 seconds but I am so completely lost on this west coast deal.

Here are the only details I know about our trip so far:
We are staying in San Diego for about a week sometime in early July 2013 with our friends. On a weekday we will get up super early and be there in time for park opening. I am thinking we'll book a hotel for one night so we don't have to drive back to SD after a long day, and we'll have somewhere to go to take a break midday.

What are some tips and tricks to Disneyland I need to know? What hotels should I look at that are affordable? From reading other threads here there seem to be a lot of budget-friendly ones very close to the park entrance.

Other than attractions, what else should we check out, if we wanted to make an ADR where is a good place?

Edited to add a couple other questions: What will the weather be like? Will it be hot and humid, or just hot? Hot to us is anything over 80! Does it rain frequently? What are crowd levels usually like on a weekday in July?

Thanks in advance for all your help!!!