Oh you poor thing. I had the same experience planning our first WDW trip! It was hard fo me to grasp what the WDW area looked like, and how big it really is.
I don't know if you have seen anything like this yet
Bret's Disneyland Lodging LinkMap take a look at this map. It's not the best arial shot of the area, but it gives you an idea of how much smaller the area is than WDW, and how close things are. They call it a resort area, but it's far from what 'resort area' is in my mind. Walk off property and you are on busy city streets with lots of hotels, restaurants and traffic. No open spaces and sprawling resorts like WDW. Even the 3 Disney owned hotels are not sprawling resorts. They are very nice and definatly have that Disney magic, but it's so not hte same as WDW.
The GN hotels have some standards that are set by Disney that they must fall into (not sure what they are) and since they run from very inexpensive motels to nice full service hotels, it's not an amenenties thing, unless it's a very basic thing.
Some of the smaller GN motels do not charge for parking at the motels, but you will be charged at the parks for parking. Like 626 said, the larger hotels (Marriotts, Sheratons, Hyatts, etc) do charge a daily parking fee, plus you will have to pay for parking at the parks. I *think* AAA has a deal where the parking at the parks is included if you book a package with them, but I'm not sure about that.
I do not know if the DLR 3 properties charge a parking fee (I'm pretty sure they do though) if you are staying there, but you would not be charged to park in the parks structures, BUT that would be silly to drive because the 3 hotels are RIGHT THERE, a very, very easy walk. It would take you twice as long to drive from your resort, park in the structure, take the tram, walk to the gates as it would to just walk to the parks.
Some off site hotels/motels offer their own complimentary shuttles to/from DLR (Candy Cane Inn, The Anaheim Sheraton to name two). There is also a shuttle (ART) that is a pay-for service that will maybe have 6 different properties on it's line to and from the parks. Not sure of the daily cost.
DL will put out it's hours on the calendar on the website, but they are subject to change. Like Andrea said, it would be to extend them. I haven't ever had this happen in all of my DL trips, though.
I hope this helps a bit!
