Marathon Weekend 2023

[AgentMama]

Are all of you other InknBurn fans as disappointed as I am? Check your email for the newsletter—they are going away! I can’t believe it!

I was so disappointed when I opened the email last night. I bet the last couple of style releases they put out go fast too

 

[BigEeyore]

Are all of you other InknBurn fans as disappointed as I am? Check your email for the newsletter—they are going away! I can’t believe it!

I'm heartbroken - InB is the only running clothes I own, with the exception of one pair of plain black tights I got at Target several years ago. Love the quality and designs - I have stuff that I bought over 5 years ago that I'm still using.

 

[RunWI1265]

If you have run Dopey in the past, can you give a quick breakdown/approximation of your overall spending MINUS getting to/from WDW? (As in, leave out the flights, gas, overnight drive hotel stop costs.) Or if you make a budget for the trip what your estimations are?
Some thing like
-Registration cost
-Expo/souvenir costs
-Lodging (I know some of you are DVC)
-Food costs
-Other significant category I'm forgetting?

This was my first Dopey, or RunDisney event for that matter. So things like the expo included splurges that I imagine I won’t spend next year. I also extended my stay beyond the race but only have included what I spent during what would be the race stay. I also have an AP so I did not pay for park tickets and had discounts on some items, like 20% at the expo.

Registration: Dopey $640
Hotel: Gran Destino Tower (loved it here) 6 nights (one night with an AP discount) Tuesday-Monday $2302.22
Expo: $318.95
Food: This includes shipt (+$6 resort fee), park snacks, two QS, and three restaurant pick ups $209
Misc: One area easy to overlook is extra cash for tips. Bell services, housekeeping, Lyft (expo), mears ($16 each way, only took it to hotel), etc. I brought around $100 in cash just for things like this. I did not soend
Approximate total: $3570.17

 

[Baloo in MI]

Good morning runDisney All-Stars! For today’s SAFD I need to give credit to @sandam1 who suggested the question.

With as expensive as Marathon Weekend can be it can be difficult to budget all the expenses of the race weekend. Do you save up for Marathon Weekend, if so how? Do you have to give up other things to set money aside? Do you have any suggestions or money saving hacks that you use?


My answer: Sadly, I am not going to be very original here. As a family we set aside money each month that goes into our Disney vacation fund. We pull from this account when it is time to pay for tickets and we use a credit card associated to this account for ADR’s, souvenirs, etc. Given that we are now DVC members our annual dues get pulled from this fund as well. This does help us to plan ahead and not over spend…. Yeah right. The only hack I can think of is that I do keep all my coin change anytime I buy something with cash. At the end of the year I take that money and deposit it. It usually adds up to a couple hundred dollars that we use for spending money In the parks. Have a good week everyone.

 

[princesspirateandrunner]

SAFD: We have the Disney Visa credit card, which gives us money back that can be put on a Disney rewards card, as well as a few discounts while we’re there. I use the card for as much as possible, so there’s usually enough by trip time to pay a nice chunk toward tickets or the resort.

 

[GirlfromTN]

Well, I am with you and agree it should be it's own thread for all the reasons you state. Also, making a separate thread opens it up to other runners who may not be running MW but would want to join in. The SAFD information is great and fun, but I agree it is a pain sifting through it all to find discussion about marathon weekend. I made the same suggestion as you 2 years ago when Lee asked if we should continue SAFD...Like you said, we are the minority here, so, oh well...

https://www.disboards.com/threads/marathon-weekend-2021.3786394/post-62344824

Agree, I ended up “ignoring” this thread because I get too many notifications that are just the SAFD posts. While those may be great for the people who participate, it doesn’t seem relevant to the Marathon discussion.

 

[marty3d]

SAFD: being based in Canada and subject to the ups and downs of currency exchange rates, I buy Disney eGift Cards from target (5% discount with Target RedCard) about once a month. The discount helps with the exchange rate. (Also, as a bonus, charging Genie+ and ILL to the gift card seemed less painful then charging to my credit card because that money was already “spent” - I know thats purely in my head).

Flights are always on airline Points.

 

[Naomeri]

SAFD:
I have a “Fun Fund” and some money from my middle-of-the-month paycheck automatically goes into it, as well as any cash back from my Apple Card (which I also use to pay for a lot of my travel expenses, which gives me more cash back to add to the “Fun Fund”). I also budget everything out with estimated amounts (until I know the exact amounts) and set savings goals for however much I think I’ll need.

 

[hotblooded]

SAFD: No, because I treat Marathon Weekend like a trip anywhere else. It’s just two of us at Pop Century for ~3 nights, two half marathon entries, 0-2 park days (usually 1), quick service breakfast and dinner, and $15-40 in souvenirs. I fly for free as an airline employee and my boyfriend uses points. It would be a different story if we did Dopey, stayed longer at a more expensive hotel, or went to the parks every day.

 

[FFigawi]

SAFD: we don’t do much in the way of budgeting for marathon weekend. The week at Disney gets rolled into our annual trip home.

 

[gosalyn_mallard]

SAFD: this is minor compared to overall expenses, but... We enjoy getting beer in the post-race area. So, we gear check the cups we get from Expo beers to save a few bucks on the refills after the races.

In terms of big money saving things... our cars are over 12 years old and look their age, but we keep driving them. I have nothing to prove with the car I drive. I'd rather spend money on vacations than get a new car.

 

[The Expert]

SAFD: We had already been traveling to WDW 2 or 3 times a year for many years before I got into rD, and thankfully by then we were in a position where I don't really have to budget specifically for races. We bought into DVC in 2001 and have been AP holders for several years, so those costs aren't incurred just for race trips. We have adjusted our travel schedule to be there for the runs I want to do, but I typically don't do every race weekend every year.

 

[Barca33Runner]

SAFD:

I’m a solo payer but I have family that also comes down for Marathon Weekend. Even with that, Disney hotels have basically priced themselves out of what we deem to be reasonable. We can rent a house with better amenities for far less per person/family per night. Disney transportation (specifically the buses) have gotten so bad, in our experience, that staying on property has lost a lot of the charm as well. Our commute was reliably less than 15 minutes this year from the moment we reached our car. I can’t remember the last time I reached a Disney bus stop and was where I wanted to be in 15 minutes. Staying off-site gives us options to save money on meals as well.

The other area where I control expenses is signing up for fewer other races throughout the year. I like a good race shirt and medal as much as the next person but running at home is free. It’s not a huge savings but it can make a difference.

Mostly, I just know this is a trip I like to do every year and I plan around it. I don’t have a separate savings or anything, it’s just always in the back of my mind.

 

[SheHulk]

SAFD: I used to buy tons of Disney gift cards from Target to save the 5%, but I stopped and I really don't remember why. Other than that, I pretty much only run races in years I have an AP.

I know I've gotten on this hobby horse before, but the new AP setup is making it less likely I do runDisney races, because the chipping away at one thing also chips away at the value of not-obviously-related things. Getting the race pics for free was a huge value-add. It made my race worth more to me along with making my AP more valuable. I am less likely to get an AP because of all the price hikes and cutting down of discounts, and also not very likely to pay extra to add Memory Maker to my single trip or an AP. And thus less likely to register for races if I'm not getting my race pics. Whenever I get a survey, they always ask, "How would it impact your trip if X happened?" And I answer truthfully, but then it's only later, when they enact something, that it's clear: Wow that little change affects all these other aspects of the trip in ways that I don't even know if their marketing team making the survey had predicted.

 

[lookingforsunshine]

SAFD

I use an app called You Need a Budget that has greatly improved my relationship with money. For this past year’s trip, I didn’t do too much budgeting in advance. I had enough money to buy my race registration in July. Once I knew what hotel we were staying in and the cost, I made sure to allocate enough money toward that category. With the exception of our Cinderella’s Royal Table meal, my DH paid for all of the food on our trip while I paid for registration fees, hotel, and park tickets (since it was “my” trip I took over a lot of the costs). We split Lyft/taxi costs for the most part. We mostly keep separate finances because of different debts and he has a kid who he pays child support for (among other things obviously). Our plane tickets were covered from a COVID cancelled flight trip credit. I also used a lot of my Christmas money from family to pay for miscellaneous expenses.
Since I am probably going to try for Dopey this year, I am trying to set aside money now since we do not know when registration will be. I also want to stay on property this time, so I am setting aside money for that deposit once I can book the room. I like the idea about gift cards with discounts and am contemplating just using my Disney savings each month to purchase a gift card— that way I won’t be tempted to use the money elsewhere and I will be saving in the long run.

 

[1lilspark]

SAFD:
Not so much the overall weekends but as far as non pre-ordered merch goes … while we don’t work for tips if a customer insists even after being told no twice we must accept it and so that money gets put aside in a mason jar in my closet labeled “running expo mad money”

 

[Herding_Cats]

SAFD:

we usually plan our trips about a year in advance. We jumped into a more concentrated effort to earn rewards points through various Chase cards over the past 2 years (and had fully funded a cruise for our whole family including airfare and overnight lodging with them before COVID restrictions stretch out enough that we cancelled) and will continue to work on those. DH is an electrician and it’s easy for us to meet the signup bonus spending requirements when he is wiring a new house or 2.
For the past trip we points them to pay for:
-our hotel in Detroit the night before our flights
-airfare roundtrip
-our rental car
which “only” left our dvc rental, food, tickets, and souvenirs. We could also use the points to pay off our credit card bill, and the other cards’ earning is a lot quicker than on a Disney 1% rewards card (though I’m considering a Disney card just for the 20% discount perk.)

our grocery store runs a special a few times a year where you can earn a $5 “reward” for every $50 in gift cards. Which we stack that deal with whichever card has a 5x point earning for grocery stores at the time. And that way we earn more points and use the rewards to help pay for current groceries. It’s a win-win. And I can spread it out over a few different major holidays, so I’m not buying $2-3k in gift cards at once.
When DH gets paid for a large job we have a trip jar he will put a few hundred dollars in. When he does a scrap-wire recycle trip he will cash that check and put that in the jar. I tend to squirrel away cash when I get it (returns, birthday, selling baby stuff on FB, winning my fantasy football league ) to fund the smaller up-front stuff like registrations.

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

SAFD:

We are dvc now. So I am using points to stay on. Then I am staying club level, so breakfast and dinner and drinks are covered so we only have to pay for lunch. I have the disney visa card that we use for gift cards. Then finally we have sapphire chase card for free airplane tickets.

 

[sandam1]

If you have run Dopey in the past, can you give a quick breakdown/approximation of your overall spending MINUS getting to/from WDW? (As in, leave out the flights, gas, overnight drive hotel stop costs.) Or if you make a budget for the trip what your estimations are?

I sat down to do a reckoning for the 2022 Marathon Weekend costs (not a bad thing, but not fun either). My costs were:

- Airfare - Flights were free on points, taxes $11.20
- Hotel @ Universal - Two nights at Royal Pacific and four nights at Cabana Bay (passholder rate) $1000
- Park tickets - Already have an annual pass
- Rental car - $254
- Hotel parking - $128
- Gas - $18
- Food - $163
- Souvenir - $336 (things from Disney were purchased with Disney Rewards from my credit card or discounted gift cards)

Total: $1910

If I do Dopey again, I don't know if I would stay at the more expensive Universal hotel. I thought that the included Express Pass and boat transportation would help save my feet for the race, but we barely got to the park on Wednesday (literally ate dinner and did the night show so no EP benefit) and only spent about 3-4 hours on the other two days. I got a really good AP rate so that's a good thing. But we didn't do any serious park time until after the race.

 

[nekonekoneko]

SAFD:

I make a budget based on things like lodging, food, park tickets, plane tickets, race fees, rental car, souvenirs, etc, and get what I feel will be the cost of those items. Then I'll divide by the number of months until the end of this year, and save up monthly. Then, as things become due, use that money to pay for what I need. If a credit card has a way of saving extra on Disney Gift Cards, then I'll buy some during that time