All Stars Sports or Coronado Springs for WDW marathon weekend 2021

[chantaldb]

Okay, I know the WDW 2020 marathon weekend is still only halfway, but I like to plan ahead....Received hotel information for the 2021 WDW marathon weekend from the official travel agent in the Netherlands today. Choice of hotels is the All Stars Sports or Coronado Springs. Any recommendations? Which resort would be the most convenient for the early morning buses to the start?

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Okay, I know the WDW 2020 marathon weekend is still only halfway, but I like to plan ahead....Received hotel information for the 2021 WDW marathon weekend from the official travel agent in the Netherlands today. Choice of hotels is the All Stars Sports or Coronado Springs. Any recommendations? Which resort would be the most convenient for the early morning buses to the start?

I can’t speak to All Star Sports as we’ve never stayed there, but we stayed at Coronado Springs for the Wine & Dine Half Marathon weekend this past year (2019) and thought it was a GREAT race weekend resort. Coronado is relatively centrally located within WDW and is a straight shot via bus to most of the parks. We were staying in the new Tower, but it seems like my experience would fit with the other room types there as well.

We enjoyed the beautiful resort grounds, pools, and abundant food options - it was a nice place to be in between races. It was also quiet, which was nice for those early bedtimes.

We did ‘struggle’ a bit finding some decent carb options the night before the half marathon - a lot of the restaurants there have more Spanish/Latin inspire menus. And while delicious - that wasn’t on our priority list pre-half. We ultimately found they had a special pasta dish being served at the quick service (blanking on the name of it right now).

I had never been to Coronado prior to this trip, but we left impressed and very satisfied with our stay.

Edit to add - the only somewhat of a nit I’d mention is that it’s a multi-bus stop resort. Meaning, buses make several stops all the way around - great if you’re the first bus stop, adds time if you’re not. It wasn’t a big deal in our experience, but it gets mentioned frequently around these parts.

 

[SarahC97]

CSR hands down. It's a wonderful resort.

 

[Xperiment626]

Buses have not really been a problem at either resort in the morning, now that Disney/runDisney has had some time to polish and fine tune the process. Larger, multi-stop resorts do take a little more time to travel, though. Also, you may want to consider which resort is closer to the starting area. There have been some issues in the past with accidents/traffic causing buses to get stuck, and people rushing to the corrals only to be placed in the last corrals, (this can always be mitigated with being one of the first ones on the bus, but then you have to be there really early, and if it is cold/wet you can be miserable waiting to start).

Being old hat at the runDisney stays, my opinion would be based on how much time you would be staying at the resort, versus going to the parks each day, (Not sure what races you will be running, and how you fare after the runs). CSR is going to be much more comfortable to hang out at and has had less "non-runner" families staying there. If you are planning on hitting the parks for the day, All Star Resorts are fine as you will really just be sleeping there. Although, bring some ear plugs as there may be some noise as "non-runner" families return from the parks each night.