Marathon Weekend 2024

[Herding_Cats]

Oh geez! I'm still waiting for Southwest to open up their fares!

For us to fly southwest, we have to drive 2.5 or 4 hours each way and pay for parking for the whole time we are gone, and that pretty much eats up any savings we may have had over flying our of our local airport. Ahh, the joys of rural living.

 

[Disneyhanna]

My Delta flights have finally been dropping to reasonable amounts. Was able to get a RT in November for under $400 and booked my one ways to Florida for MW and from there to LAX for Disneyland. Still need my flight home though. After the horrible weather we had before Princess I'm not going to chance going home in between the two race weekends. Wish I could fly nonstop to Orange County on Delta! I think the Delta flights were really high right after they started the 15% off award flights for cardholders, and they're finally starting to come back down.

 

[nekonekoneko]

My Delta flights have finally been dropping to reasonable amounts. Was able to get a RT in November for under $400 and booked my one ways to Florida for MW and from there to LAX for Disneyland. Still need my flight home though. After the horrible weather we had before Princess I'm not going to chance going home in between the two race weekends. Wish I could fly nonstop to Orange County on Delta! I think the Delta flights were really high right after they started the 15% off award flights for cardholders, and they're finally starting to come back down.

When are you jumping from WDW to DL? My flight has just been going up since I booked it. I haven't seen it drop at all.

 

[Disneyhanna]

When are you jumping from WDW to DL? My flight has just been going up since I booked it. I haven't seen it drop at all.

Monday! Delta dropped to $244 at its lowest, it does keep bouncing around. Going a day or two later is much cheaper but my room is only through Monday and I don’t want to switch hotels multiple times.

 

[nekonekoneko]

Monday! Delta dropped to $244 at its lowest, it does keep bouncing around. Going a day or two later is much cheaper but my room is only through Monday and I don’t want to switch hotels multiple times.

Ok! I'm jumping on Wednesday. It opened at $199, and has only gone up to $249 since I booked.

 

[BigEeyore]

Ugh W&D registration chaos has me worried about getting registered for MW

 

[Grabnar]

Ugh W&D registration chaos has me worried about getting registered for MW

Same!

I'm hoping that my 35 incognito tabs on 4 devices strategy works again...

 

[azrivest]

Is it just me or did it just seem less chaotic? My confidence level hasn't increased, but my stress about the actual process has gone down.

I'm just looking for that 1 registration for Dopey, and most ppl seem to have had issues when they tried to pay for multiple registrations at once.

 

[DopeyRunner486]

Is it just me or did it just seem less chaotic? My confidence level hasn't increased, but my stress about the actual process has gone down.

I'm just looking for that 1 registration for Dopey, and most ppl seem to have had issues when they tried to pay for multiple registrations at once.

It was less chaotic but took long. Meaning the wait times in the queue were longer than I have previously seen. That is why my theory is they let less people into register at a time.

 

[nekonekoneko]

Is it just me or did it just seem less chaotic? My confidence level hasn't increased, but my stress about the actual process has gone down.

I'm just looking for that 1 registration for Dopey, and most ppl seem to have had issues when they tried to pay for multiple registrations at once.

What it seemed like about paying for multiple registrations is the credit card company declining the transaction due to it being rather "weird." It's a huge money transaction for something people don't normally do, so they're wondering if the CC was stolen.

So the best thing to do is to contact the credit card company before registration day, or to pay with gift cards to bypass the CC.

 

[Grabnar]

What it seemed like about paying for multiple registrations is the credit card company declining the transaction due to it being rather "weird." It's a huge money transaction for something people don't normally do, so they're wondering if the CC was stolen.

So the best thing to do is to contact the credit card company before registration day, or to pay with gift cards to bypass the CC.

Or just spend a lot of money in the weeks before so they're used to it

One weird trick, financial planners hate him!

 

[PrincessV]

The fact that W&D - which is not eligible for C2C and has historically not been a super fast seller - sold out so quickly makes me think MW may be just as fast or faster. And that fast sellout means a LOT of people on a lot more devices waiting in randomized queues, which seems to result in more people getting shut out. I’ve been doing these things for more than a decade and I was surprised by how messy W&D was this time. I still had one device saying “more than an hour” wait long after everything sold out. (Two other devices did get through, but neither as quickly as the queue URL a DISer gifted me - and I’m pretty confident I’d have been shut out of either the Challenge, the 5K, or both, had I waited on my own original queues.)

My beef with rD’s system is that no matter when you enter the queue, your place in it seems to be randomly placed: being quick on the draw does not mean you’ll also get a short wait in the queue. I know people who didn’t even try to enter the queue until 10:10 and got through faster than I did at 10:01.

 

[GollyGadget]

Ugh W&D registration chaos has me worried about getting registered for MW

Same! I'll be on my last day of vacation. I was hoping to not bring my laptop but now I might to increase my chances of success.

 

[marty3d]

Ugh W&D registration chaos has me worried about getting registered for MW

I suspect you're right. I got what I wanted from W&D but even though I had 10 windows going, it was a "gifted" link that got me in as well.

I've decided that for MW I will not stress out over it - but that's easier for me as I've been flip flopping about doing MW at all this year (and just the half if I do). I'll try to register for the half but if I don't get in, I'll be ok with that. (I have also made myself a promise that I won't let the MW theme sway me to more/ longer races!)

Ask me a year from now when I decide to register for Dopey 2025 and my stress level will be very different!

 

[Let's Get Kronk]

I know people who didn’t even try to enter the queue until 10:10 and got through faster than I did at 10:01.

This is what irks the crap out of me. They specifically say on the queue page that joining the queue before registration gets you a random spot, but that joining after registration opens is an actual numbered queue. But we all know that's bull. People frequently get in faster clicking after registration opens than those of us who do the queue ahead of time. It's incredibly infuriating.

 

[Let's Get Kronk]

And you can add me to the list of people who are already freaking out about Dopey registration. I got locked out last year and even though I got a Goofy bib, I spent the whole week feeling "lesser than" because I wasn't doing Dopey. It didn't help that I was rooming with a friend from college who got into Dopey and he spent the entire week rubbing it in my face.

I have been looking into potentially going the charity route again, but I have my doubts I could raise the money. I ended up partnering with the LLS Team In Training for Goofy last year even though I had my own bib and loved raising the money. I also just finished raising the funds for my Wine & Dine challenge bib with Give Kids The World. But, I am afraid that I have exhausted my fundraising base with two fundraisers in the last year and that raising enough for a Dopey bib would be impossible.

 

[fatmanatee]

The fact that W&D - which is not eligible for C2C and has historically not been a super fast seller - sold out so quickly makes me think MW may be just as fast or faster. And that fast sellout means a LOT of people on a lot more devices waiting in randomized queues, which seems to result in more people getting shut out. I’ve been doing these things for more than a decade and I was surprised by how messy W&D was this time. I still had one device saying “more than an hour” wait long after everything sold out. (Two other devices did get through, but neither as quickly as the queue URL a DISer gifted me - and I’m pretty confident I’d have been shut out of either the Challenge, the 5K, or both, had I waited on my own original queues.)

My beef with rD’s system is that no matter when you enter the queue, your place in it seems to be randomly placed: being quick on the draw does not mean you’ll also get a short wait in the queue. I know people who didn’t even try to enter the queue until 10:10 and got through faster than I did at 10:01.

This is a problem that seems to have persisted for at least the last couple of registration days, to the point that I'd suggest entering the queue on a device/browser *after* the queue starts funneling people through to registration. Does RD want us to do this? Of course not. Have they given us any reason to do what they say and enter the queue on one device and only one device? Nope! Doing MW wasn't really feasible for me given my newish job and the DL half but I'm sort of relieved that I won't be enduring this process for awhile.

It's just baffling how broken this process is. Queue doesn't work the way it should and can't count on registration working once you get through it.

 

[marty3d]

This is what irks the crap out of me. They specifically say on the queue page that joining the queue before registration gets you a random spot, but that joining after registration opens is an actual numbered queue. But we all know that's bull. People frequently get in faster clicking after registration opens than those of us who do the queue ahead of time. It's incredibly infuriating.

This. Several people posted in the W&D thread posted they were able to get right through with no queue while some of us had windows still showing more than an hour.

 

[LSUlakes]

I was looking at DopeyBaders thread (Hope I got the spelling right) on how long it takes for the races to fill up and last years marathon sold out in a little over a hour. Any thoughts on why? It looked like in the past the marathon was one of the last races fill up? Was it fewer spots or just a high demand in a post covid world? Are yall expecting the same for the 2024 race? Unrelated.... A friend and I are entertaining the idea of 2025 marathon race and a short trip with our wives. If that would happen it would be my 3rd WDW marathon and his first marathon ever. Historically speaking, if I am running the WDW marathon its going be 72 and 100%RH that day, so if you are hoping for good weather run in 2024 or 2026 lol.

 

[DopeyRunner486]

I was looking at DopeyBaders thread (Hope I got the spelling right) on how long it takes for the races to fill up and last years marathon sold out in a little over a hour. Any thoughts on why? It looked like in the past the marathon was one of the last races fill up? Was it fewer spots or just a high demand in a post covid world? Are yall expecting the same for the 2024 race? Unrelated.... A friend and I are entertaining the idea of 2025 marathon race and a short trip with our wives. If that would happen it would be my 3rd WDW marathon and his first marathon ever. Historically speaking, if I am running the WDW marathon its going be 72 and 100%RH that day, so if you are hoping for good weather run in 2024 or 2026 lol.

Post covid has been a very different dynamic for runDisney. 2023 was the 30th anniversary of the marathon and 10th anniversary of Dopey. It was a big year for people to celebrate. The races are also still not where they were pre-covid either. I am not sure Disney wants it to be though anymore. We are looking at 13-15,000ish runners for the marathon vs. pre covid when it was well above that some years.