Crowds for WDW marathon weekend?

[mla973]

I am thinking about traveling in early January to WDW… I can't find the exact dates for the marathon in January 2015. I have heard that crowds are low even during the event. Can someone help me find those dates, and should be avoid them? It will be DH, DS4 and me. We are WDW veterans but have never traveled in January before.

Thank you!

 

[Goofy-Runner]

I don't think they've officially announced the 2015 dates yet, but it has always been the same weekend so I would plan for Jan 9-11 in 2015. While crowds aren't particularly high, the hotels get booked and driving around in the mornings is very tough. If you go, stay where you can either walk or take the monorail to the park in the mornings.

 

[kaybird]

rundisney.com will give the dates as soon as they are set. As a pp said, it is usually the morning transportation that is affected. The roughest place is usually the hub for the epcot monorail.

 

[DOOM1001]

The marathon weekend will start next year Wednesday January 7th through Sunday January 11th.The expo will run Wednesday through Saturday with races every morning from Thursday through Sunday.The races probably bring in as many as 100,000 people with 60,000 running the races,with that said the crowds at the parks will not be bad at all.You have to realize these races require you getting up at 2-3am for races that will start between 5:30 and 6:30am,after the races runners may go back to their rooms to shower and change and maybe go to the parks for a couple of hours but will probably end up having an early dinner around 5-6pm to then go back to sleep to get up early the next morning.I only ran the full marathon on Sunday but I also got up early on Saturday to go see the half marathon and to change my body's clock so I could fall asleep early on Saturday before running the full on Sunday.To give you an idea of how little I spent in the parks in 3.5 days the only rides I rode were Soarin with FP+ and Test Track in singles,and I have an AP.The main issue would be traffic backups early in the morning on Saturday and Sunday for the full which goes through all the parks.

 

[CanadianPaco]

The marathon weekend will start next year Wednesday January 7th through Sunday January 11th.The expo will run Wednesday through Saturday with races every morning from Thursday through Sunday.The races probably bring in as many as 100,000 people with 60,000 running the races,with that said the crowds at the parks will not be bad at all.You have to realize these races require you getting up at 2-3am for races that will start between 5:30 and 6:30am,after the races runners may go back to their rooms to shower and change and maybe go to the parks for a couple of hours but will probably end up having an early dinner around 5-6pm to then go back to sleep to get up early the next morning.I only ran the full marathon on Sunday but I also got up early on Saturday to go see the half marathon and to change my body's clock so I could fall asleep early on Saturday before running the full on Sunday.To give you an idea of how little I spent in the parks in 3.5 days the only rides I rode were Soarin with FP+ and Test Track in singles,and I have an AP.The main issue would be traffic backups early in the morning on Saturday and Sunday for the full which goes through all the parks.

Fantastic info! My friends and I are talking about doing the WDW Marathon next year! Just starting my research. THX!

 

[sets14]

Just returned from a trip over marathon weekend. It was great-no issues over the weekend. We went to AK on Sat and HS on Sun. Used Disney transport from All Star Sports. Made rope drop each day, cheered on the runners we saw in HS and had a great time.