Marathon Day - should I avoid parks?

[Stockmom123]

We are going Jan 3-6 (Wed, Thur, Fri, Sat). The half marathon starts on Sat. We want to get a 3 day hopper pass. Normally, I would put a non-park day in there but with the marathon, should we not attend on Sat? What parks are affected? Are they more crowded just because of the runners or do all the watchers and runners stay in the parks? Help!

 

[rkandmjsmommy]

We went on the actualy marathon day and the parks were Great, I am not sure about the day before. Hope someone can help you out

 

[PCFriar80]

We are going Jan 3-6 (Wed, Thur, Fri, Sat). The half marathon starts on Sat. We want to get a 3 day hopper pass. Normally, I would put a non-park day in there but with the marathon, should we not attend on Sat? What parks are affected? Are they more crowded just because of the runners or do all the watchers and runners stay in the parks? Help!

Hi Stockmom!
I'm running the 1/2 this year and did so last year. This year the 1/2 starts in 3 waves, 6:00, 6:10, and 6:30 meaning the last runners/walkers will be finishing by 10:00. The 1/2 only runs through MK and EC, mile 5 - 6 in MK and just before the finish at EC, up the gut of FW past the fountain, around the Christmas tree and back out to the parking lot past the kennel. The impact to either park will be the traffic getting to/from. The parks themselves are not drastically impacted. If you are driving yourself you may run into delays
getting to MK and I would say definitely EC. You may want to hit AK or MGM
early and then head over to the other 2 parks if that's what you desire.

Bottom line, you should not have any crowd problems in any park, but traffice may be an issue if you are arriving early at MK or EC.

 

[susykt4]

This year we went to AK on Sat (half) and Epcot on Sun (full.) We would never have known about the half marathon- park not busy, no extra traffic. It took slightly longer than usual to take the resort bus to Epcot. We stayed on the Land side of future world all morning and when we crossed to the other side the marathon was over. Epcot (where the marathon ends) wasn't busy that day. I wouldn't worry about it at all! Especially if you take the resort buses.

 

[Deb & Bill]

The only thing I would avoid for Sat and Sun would be early morning ADRs at the MK. It will be hard getting to the MK before 9:00. After that it should be much easier.