WDW Half and Marathon Email and Phone Alerts-Did you get them?

[ultramickeymouse]

I was curious who got theirs? I setup my and my DW's email and her phone for alerts both days and got NOTHING either day

How was everyone else experience? It worked great in 2010 but a bust this year. Very disappointed for DW who was 3000 miles away awaiting how I did especially after food poisoning from Ohana's Thursday night.

 

[FFigawi]

That's surprising because my wife got mine no problem. In fact, she complained they were coming on time this year and the constant beeping from her phone at 6am kept waking her up. They weren't exactly on time, but as an example, by the time I had picked up my Goofy medal and post-race food, she had already texted me about my finish.

 

[Ronda93]

I signed up for five people. Results were very disappointing.

Of the five, three were Goofy.

I got full reports on two of Goofs for both races, but that's it. So out of eight "races" they delivered on four. Out of five people, the delivered on two. FWIW, the two that worked were men, the three that didn't were women.

Back to the drawing board.

 

[Rupert B Puppenstein]

The text messages came close to actual time, but the e-mails came much later. I have an iPhone through AT&T as did everyone I signed up for the updates so I don't know if your service provider and phone type had anything to do with it.

The Runkeeper Pro Live feature worked especially well...until my battery died on the iPhone!

 

[cruisin'Mike]

I set my wife up to get texts (iPhone) for myself and our friend (one male, one female) for the half. She got all of texts throughout the race. We didn't try the email.

 

[TnTsParty]

My tracking updates on my phone came not too long after I went over each timing mat both days. My sister who I signed up to get my updates as well got them no problem as well. The only one that took a little time to come through was the finish of the full but I knew what my time was on that before I got the update since I was keeping track on my watch.

Also this year they had where you could track a runner live - my sister did that for me and my cousin for the half since she went on too late to sign up for updates for my 16 year old cousin who ran her first half marathon with an impressive time of 2:09!!!

So no I didn't have any issues with the tracking - glad I had it since my Runkeeper pro didn't want to work for me on Saturday and kept shutting off. So I used the Runkeeper free version I still had on my phone on Sunday and it worked without a problem except I forgot to shut it off at the end and had an extra mile on it by time I realized and turned it off.

 

[verticalchaos]

My texts and email came through just fine, as did the ones my sister and friends had sent to them.

 

[MelindaRuns]

The text alerts did work. I ran the half marathon, and set them up for my husband and kids. They got the alerts for the half at 5k, 10k, 15k, and finish. I tried to set them up to go to my phone and my friends phone after I had set my husband and kids up (same night - after Christmas but still in December) but it wouldnt let me. I was trying to set up text alerts for a total of 9 people but it only worked for 7 of them. I guess that's not too bad. There may be a limit of how many you can set up. The last two (my friend and I) never got any confirmation texts at all, so we weren't expecting any texts on race day.

 

[rubato]

Hubby says he got everything just fine. So good, in fact, that he could tell I was struggling at certain points and was texting me to make sure I was okay. Hint: Don't text someone while they're running Goofy!

 

[DisneyParrothead]

I've found in the past it doesn't really work. The last time I signed up for the text alerts I got one for the start and one for the 5K split, but nothing else until a couple hours after the runner had finished.

For anyone with a smart phone, active.com keeps track of these races and I've found it to be more accurate. They also have an ETA so if you're at the finish line you can know when to expect the runner to come through.

 

[Disfan11]

When did you sign up for these alerts?
I'm doing the Princess next month.
Will they send me information ahead of time?
Thanks!

 

[Rupert B Puppenstein]

When did you sign up for these alerts?
I'm doing the Princess next month.
Will they send me information ahead of time?
Thanks!

I signed up for mine a few days in advance. They sent instructions prior to the race as to how to do it. It was pretty easy. But, to be on the safe side, I would just make sure that anyone you are meeting knows what your projected time is and where you will meet. I find the more prepared I am for problems to happen, the less likely problems do happen!

 

[Goofed98]

I signed up 3 phones and an e-mail on the Friday night before the race, and we had no problem. The texts were right on time, and the e-mails were timely. Not as timely as the texts, but not as bad as last year.

So far, over two years, texts have worked much better.

 

[stitchfan18]

I was tracking 5 runners, and set my alerts only to come when they finished. I noticed in the initial text from disney after I set it up that there was a 10 text max. I'm not 100% sure what that meant, but perhaps that is why the tracking only worked for a few runners on those people tracking multiple people.

 

[Bephus]

I set up texts and e-mails for several people to track me plus my own phone for e-mail. All of the alerts came in pretty close to when I stepped on the pads.

 

[IamTrike]

I signed up for texts during the half and my wife (AT&T) got no texts. Thankfully Runkeeper live worked well.

The friends we were travelling with signed up for emails during the full (AT&T) and they got them all close to the time each event was triggered. They were also using Runkeeper live which stopped posting updates at about mile 12. When Runkeeper Live failed we switched to "track my iphone". That seemed to have issues when we were in parts of Epcot that had less than stellar 3g coverage.

 

[airman]

My DW received the text alerts back in Michigan, it didn't work during the Wine and Dine.

 

[Deb & Bill]

I was at the race watching my husband, son and our friend and got their text messages almost immediately. Except for my husband's finish for the full marathon. It came in about 45 minutes later. But all the Half messages and the Full messages, except for that one, came very quickly.

I used the messages to calculate where I needed to be and when. And they really worked. I saw my son enter Epcot as I was getting off the monorail from the TTC at Epcot. Stepped out of the monorail at Epcot, walked about ten steps and he ran by.

 

[evhorizon]

I ran the 1/2M and family didn't get any texts or emails at all. They were kinda disappointed, especially getting up that early.

 

[sap1227]

I got the texts almost right after I crossed the mats (for the half), but did not get the emails until much later (in fact, for the 4 runners I was tracking, I got the finish emails the next day).