wdw marathon and crowds

[katrina1122]

I just found out we are booked for the week of the marathon, I believe it is on Jan 11th? We'll be there from the 10th to the 17th or the 18th. The 19th is a holdiay so we'd rather not go that week. I'm wondering will the crowds be really bad during the week of the marathon? I went to WDW once from Jan 4-10 and other than a bad day on the 4th the crowds were really light and we were told the week after was even better, which is why week picked the week we did. Now I'm really confused
Has anyone been there during the marathon? What are the crowds, lines etc like?

 

[Geoff_M]

We were there before the Marathon in 2001 and left the day of the event. We did notice a pick-up in the crowds at MK a couple of days before the event. There were more than the number of usual people wearing jogging outfits and nice cross training shoes that was the tip-off. But I've read from other sources that most of the Marathon crowd holds off doing the parks until after the event so they can save their strength beforehand.

 

[mkutch]

We were in the parks during the 2002 Marathon--no problem with crowds. MK maybe was a bit more crowed but it was a weekend at that time.... It was a great time to go--weather was beautiful.

 

[wdwrich]

We visited during the 2003 marathon and the crowd level was comparable to those times when we visited in October (i.e. low crowds). Things got much busier the folowing weekend for the 3-day Martin Luther King holiday weekend.

 

[Taurus]

Our last day at WDW was the first day of the 2003 marathon (we were there a full day and took a late flight home). I didn't notice any bigger crowds at MGM but the main street was blocked off part of the time while the runners came through. The hotel had more activity but we didn't have any problems there. Someone I know who ran in the marathon a few years ago said they mostly ran in out of the way behind the scenes areas - January seemed pretty low attendance so mabey adding the marathon crowd doesn't make a huge difference? Hope you have a fun trip!