This is awesome. And totally supports why I was rather...annoyed...the morning of the half. I spent so much time weaving and even though I didn't stop for pictures (I think 1 or 2? I didn't have the patience to wait in the long lines), I still ended up with one of my worse times.
And that brings me to the ONLY problem I had during Dopey - corral placement. Since I did Dopey, I had to submit at least a 10 mile race for verification, but they used my predicted marathon time to seed me.
Submitted time: 2:15 (for a half)
Predicted marathon time: 5:00
Corral: K
According to that analysis (which matches the chatter I heard in the corrals), Corral K had a half time of OVER 3 hours (Corral J was at 3 hours) and a marathon time of 5 hours. My slowest half (and I've done several ha) was a 2:45, so I was clearly in the wrong corral for the half, but the correct corral for the full.
Don't even get me started on the 10k and I'd just rather forget the 5k.
The only way I can think to fix this is to have different bibs for each race, but that's not going to happen.
And yes, I'm going back for Dopey next year. The corral issue was no match for the awesomeness of the weekend.
Yeah, I had a projected time of 3 hours and I was in J for the Half. And I was sick sick sick, slow slow slow, and was still passing people.
I really feel for you.
But I think they were putting people in places with their opinion of what your race strategy should be in mind. Might be different than your own race strategy!
3. We will be flying in from the UK. Any ideas when to fly in? Ideally I would like to stick to UK time as a 3am start would be 8 am but I also don't want to be exhausted either. I have never raced after a long flight before.
That's the question, isn't it? My first rundisney race was last year's Tower of Terror, and what I SHOULD have done was to come in just the day before the run so I could still be on Pacific time. The same basic thing you're thinking of to stay on home-time so 3am doesn't feel like 3am.
Alas, the long flights aren't a great way to prep for a race, especially yours! Dehydration, not being able to proper nourish yourself, etc. It's a definite conundrum. All you can do is pick what you think will work for you, and then try to make that decision work for you.
I'm not into carb-loading, because to properly carb load you have to starve yourself of carbs for days ahead of time. I've studied it but that was a long time ago, and I only have the basics in my head from a post by Coach Charles some months back, but basically what we're doing when we eat a big pasta meal isn't really carb loading.
Fun, though!
As for breakfast character meals...Tusker House is on my list, especially if you have a later time and they start serving lunch while you're still seated.
My following up to an answer to a question is what got me to sign up for the Half. I had NO idea I was going to do this race again after a miserable one this year! And that's not even counting the Disneyland Half over Labor Day and the Wine&Dine 2 months later. Gotta hope the husband is sent on lots of work trips, so I can be sure to have the air miles! 
