We had a lot of issues with the monorail this trip too. The best thing about the Poly is that you don't have to switch monorails going or coming from Epcot. That added a lot of time.
1. They increased the variety of runDisney Merchandise (whoohoo!) while effectively decreasing there capacity by going from two Disney Merch areas to 1.
Last year runDisney Merchandise was in both buildings. Not only did it reduce the load it also made sure everyone went into the building with the other vendors.
2. Signage was really lacking and the people directing seemed like things needed to be better thought out. They didn't have marked queues set up outside indicating bib pick up lines. They had that last year. The entrance to prepurchased merchandise was indicated well and they didn't have an organized queue setup for the Merchandise line. They did little to try and prevent people from jumping into line with people that were crossing the road when they were called into the building.
This is my fourth or 5th MW 5k and I have yet to wear one of those shirts. I wish they would make them gender specific tech t's and then I'd get some use out of them.
Agreed... Disney knows how to do lines, look at FOP. I have no idea why they messed this up so bad.
It's Disney so it's the perfect place to be all about Grey stuff.
Yeah, I agree that consolidating all the official merchandise in one location didn't help things. I have to think it impacted the other vendors as well since they weren't getting as much traffic I suspect. And, yes, the whole mess of that big pickup line just baffles me. It really looked to me like participants had just figured out how to make the switchback line work on their own. Crazy.
I saw that girl with the Up costume shortly after mile 1 of the marathon! Great costume but I couldn’t imagine carrying that for 26 miles!
Jiminy Cricket was one of the two character stops that I regretted not stoping for that weekend. Had a short line for Horace myself!
We saw here around there in the marathon as well. I've got a picture for later in the report. It looked like it wasn't working out according to plan, but i give her a lot of credit for trying to make it work. It was an ingenious idea.
Yay for the 5K! So fun to meet y’all in real life! Love love your pics around world showcase! I was too cold/lazy to take my phone out for pics that day (or any day until the marathon).
It really was sooooo cold. I was struggling getting my phone in and out as well and then Chris finally reminded me I had a zipper pocket in my shirt that made it easier.
Oh that 5K looks like a blast! I love how much fun you two have together! (#howtodomarriage)
Chris is such a good sport. He's always willing to do whatever silly thing I can think up and he even thinks up some of it himself now!
Your 5k experience sounds super fun! I admittedly called Horace Clarence when he first got in line for his stop.
I dunno, Clara...Clarence...it just made sense haha! It's funny because I heard someone behind me do it too!
I saw the costume change lady during the half! She was squatting down at the mile 5 marker digging into her back up- didn't really get what she was doing at the time until I saw someone post about her afterwards. Would be interesting to know what all her costumes were- it wasn't a very big back pack so interested to hear how she worked that one out!
Interesting take! I forgot that you used to be able to get runDisney merch in the same building as bib pick up. Hopefully they learn from this and reorganize for next year.
WE sort of looked for her during the half but never saw her. I'd love to see some pictures of her various outfits. She was super nice and seemed pretty excited about it. When we first stopped for Horace, I thought it was Clarabelle and didn't realize it was him until we were up at the front of the line!
Just joining in. Enjoying it (I’m on page 2 hehe)
Welcome!
Wow. That doesn’t make me want to go to the expo. (I dream of doing the 5k during the princess weekend)
I've gone to the expo many times and while there are lines and it's crowded, it's never been like that before, so hopefully they learn from this experience and fix things back up to the way it used to be. I bet the 5k during Princess weekend would be great!
It wasn't until I started doing this report that I realized we didn't have one. My bib was all crumpled up at the end, but Chris' should have been visible. Who knows??
Great pics! I almost stopped for some phone booth photos too, but had a hard time getting to them with the crowd.
I saw the woman with the UP costume in the first couple of miles of the marathon too. I didn't realize she was cutting a balloon off at each mile marker, I thought she was cutting them ALL off thinking she had made a costume mistake, LOL.
We got lucky and were on that side coming up to the phone booths, so it was pretty easy to stop there and we just had to wait a minute for someone else who was getting pictures. The Up lady was definitely have difficulties when we saw her and when we saw her later in the race, things had really gone awry.
Luckily Chris is a very good sport.
and on Citricos - one of Will’s favorites but i think there are better signatures at WDW.
