The last couple of times we have stayed at Ramada maingate. You can get a room which comes with 2 double beds or a 'suite' which means there is a separate lounge/tv/sofa area. The suite costs more but was good for when ds needed a nap and I wanted to watch tv without disturbing him. It also gave us a bit more space.
I would call it a budget hotel, so not many frills. You can of course get much nicer hotels, but it depends what you want to spend your money on. We are on a tight budget and so prefer to spend our money on parks and days out using our hotel as a base. Their website says rooms from $99 a night, but obviously depends when you are thinking of going (you pay more for a suite). They tend to quite prices exc of tax so bear that in mind too. Also bear in mind if you book directly the price will be per room - the usual way they charge in the USA. If you book through a UK firm, they tend to charge per person which can end up being more.
The rooms all have a fridge and a microwave, it has a basic outdoor pool, laundry room, and plenty of restaurants near by. It also has a breakfast room and includes breakfast in the price (lots of american hotels don't so check that if you decide on somewhere else). I see they are having building works carried out at the moment, but that should be finished this summer it says. It was also a disney 'good neigbour' hotel when we went. But isn't showing up on the list on the disney website so not sure if it still is. It just meant we could get our park tickets etc at the hotel. But you might want to buy those in advance too.
The main advantage is that it was litterally a 2 minute walk across the road to the main entrance of DL so there is no travel/parking/fuel costs to get to both Disney Land and California Adventure. We could also pop back to our hotel if we were tired or it was too hot or crowded. We could then head back to the parks later without too much effort. It also meant we could take advantage of the late night opening in the holidays. We spend a big part of our holiday at the theme parks, as ds loves them, so that is why we chose thishotel.
We hired a car (as an add on to our BA flights - which we bought through the BA website when they were in the sale in January). That got us to/from the airport, and the driving to knotts berry farm and universal wasn't too bad either. There are water parks in the area too, but we were there in October and they were shut. So if you want to do those check they are open when you go. We looked at moving base to 6 flags, but it was only open the weekends in October which didn't suit us as we were doing Halloween disney stuff. So we have not been there but hear good things and will do it next time we go... If you want a day at the beach I loved Santa Monica, but there are plenty of beaches to choose from and not too far away.
So basically Ramada maingate does us fine on a budget (we often use travelodge type budget hotels in the UK, and this certainly has better amenities than they do). But there are plenty of hotels along that road oposite the park, and many more in the very nearby area, so you could easily find something else if you did a bit of research.
The last time we went we moved to the Disney paradise pier for the last 4 days. It was magical there and a big step up. It is Disney's cheapest hotel, but the 4 days there cost more than the previous 11 days at the Ramada! Disney's website shows rooms from $249 a night atm for paradise pier. It does have a fab rooftop pool with a slide and disney usual themeing everywhere. There was the usual disneyness everywhere and you can book character dining at the hotel itself too. Ds loved the hotel, but agreed next time we'd stay at the cheaper one so we could go out more. The walk from that hotel to the parks was actually much further than from the Ramada as we had to go around and through one of their other hotels to get there.