Elias wrote:
After more research and my wife saying "We're going to Disneyland more than one day" I think we'll stay close and then spend a couple of days at the ocean.
You really do need more than 1 day at Dizzyland to see the whole park and ride the rides.
Also, having been born and raised on the beach spending a lot of time surfing in SoCal, I always found that the nicer beaches were south in Orange County into San Diego County or north of Los Angeles.
Laguna Beach has some very interesting beaches to visit...look online for Thousand Steps. This beach was one of my favorites for just hanging out at the beach wandering around, beach combing.
At Thousand Steps, make sure it is low tide and that there are not big waves breaking...but go down the 10 or so flights of stairs, turn left and keep going past the 3 or so different coves. You will come upon a cave in the rock structure. Go into the cave and there will be an exit on the ocean side a little ways in. When you come out, look south and back towards the beach sandy area and there will be some houses down lower to the ocean and areas where multiple sea pools were built. You can't access this area from the road, private roads, so it can only be accessed via the cave...or at least access used to be available via the cave but I would see no reason for it being blocked via the cave...it's public.
Very cool area and not something many tourists are aware of. I spent a lot of time there in my youth.