I think there area couple of things here, and the first is the Disney collectors phenomenon. Disney fanatics want to be the first of ANYTHING to do with Disney and will do these races just to get it. The first year of Dumbo was a madhouse and thus, maintained its popularity for the first couple of years. Now that people have had a few years to get their shot at Dumbo, the novelty has worn off. As they added challenges to other races, the same thing has happened.
I also think the competition has grown at other races: better medals, expos, etc. More and more you I am seeing challenge medal options at other races for far less than you pay at Disney. And as we all know, we can't run ALL the races, although we may try.
I am so grateful that RD was there to get me to start running. I"m not going to lie, I wanted that medal so badly. I saw the C2C medal when doing a Google search for a pin I was looking for and about fell out of my chair and started doing research. I had never run anything in my life. Lucky for me, they announced the first 10k that year and that was the beginning.
Now that I've done my first half and will be getting my C2C in Sept., I almost prefer running outside of the parks because the parks are just so congested in my slow corrals. But I will always want to do them. They are still a challenge for me. Do I wish they were less crowded? Do I wish they were cheaper? Of course! I also wish I could live with unicorns and rainbows! But I have started to limit my RD races and do some other ones locally.
