I have stayed at Hotel New York, Newport Bay, Sequoia Lodge and Cheyenne. (would love to stay at the
Disneyland Hotel but it is just too expensive....maybe one day!)
Of these, my personal favourite is Sequoia Lodge - I love the wildnerness lodge theme, the colours, the trees and the bar and pool areas. This is purely a matter of personal taste: many people on these boards and elsewhere prefer the Newport Bay theme. Both are nice hotels of similar quality, of roughly equal walking distance to the parks. One thing that put me off Newport Bay was that when we stayed last year we were given a room which was the furthest possible point from reception. Due to the huge size of the hotel, this meant a 15-20 minute walk from reception to our room which was awful at the end of a day in the parks!
A few years ago I would have said Hotel New York was my favourite but as you may have seen elsewhere, it is looking a bit run down at the moment compared to the others. This is because they've been refurbed fairly recently: it's Hotel New York's turn next and it will become a Marvel themed 4* hotel.
You can often get a Golden Forest (club level) room at Sequoia Lodge for around the same price as a standard room at the Newport Bay, with extra benefits including a lounge, inclusive breakfast and fastpasses - I'll be staying Golden Forest for the first time next week and posting a review.
No matter where you stay, I recommend a visit to all of the hotels whilst you're there - they all have nice themed restaurants and bars. We tend to do a cocktail crawl of the lakeside hotels on at least one evening during our trips!