What to expect during Marathon weekend

[Gillyrose779]

So the hubs and I decided to take a no kids trip- last minute- April 14-17. Well I just found out that is during the Star Wars marathon!

I have never been down during a marathon weekend. Is there anything we should stay away from? Thanks!

 

[rteetz]

So the hubs and I decided to take a no kids trip- last minute- April 14-17. Well I just found out that is during the Star Wars marathon!

I have never been down during a marathon weekend. Is there anything we should stay away from? Thanks!

You might still be seeing some increased spring break crowds as well. You're going to see a lot of runners but it shouldn't be incredibly busier than it normally is.

 

[HM2012Butler]

I think Reetz is right. I am anticipating crazy crowds. Star Wars anything is always a draw. It will be hard to avoid it. Just go in with a game plan

 

[Quellman]

Marathons increase the number of people in the area. Look on the runDisney site and see what nights the after race parties are. The parks will be a bit busier there those nights.

 

[wilkeliza]

This one is a new race. There is no after race party for this one (only Wine and Dine has a party now).

It is only a 5K, 10K, and Half and all happening overnight/early morning Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So this will be about half the crowd of marathon weekend.

The biggest thing to factor in is traffic delays. The morning races are harder to tell how they will impact regular guests because most runners will be asleep early and out of their rooms around 3-4 am for a 5:30 am race start. The half is the only race that may affect parks but we finish in ESPN so I imagine everyone will be forced to be out of the parks by park opening.

With that said it will be hard to tell if runners who aren't doing another race will be in the parks late or early. It seems to be a split on how runners spend their day before and after a run. A lot of runners come just for the runDisney event and do not actually go to the parks. They spend time hanging out at the resorts and boardwalk area.

 

[StefWalsh]

We can only go to DHS on the 17th so I'm hoping its manageable, but I know its going to be busier than I would like. We are going to try to get as much done in the morning as possible but we are offsite and there is an AM EMH that day so that's a bummer, but we'll make do! I'm just happy to be there at all!

 

[scrapquitler]

So the hubs and I decided to take a no kids trip- last minute- April 14-17. Well I just found out that is during the Star Wars marathon!

I have never been down during a marathon weekend. Is there anything we should stay away from? Thanks!

We were there during marathon weekend in November, and we will be there during the Star Wars Marathon weekend as well. Not because we were participating, it was just a coincidence.

The ONLY thing that we noticed in November was lots of people in line waiting for buses to the marathon start/registration (don't worry, they aren't going on the regular park buses, they are going on separate buses, so even though the bus stops looked crazy at the resort, it was a separate line and didn't affect us at all). And then once the marathon was over, and for the next couple of day we saw lots of people wearing their medals in the parade. Oh, and when we were on one bus ride during the marathon (it was at night, and delayed because of rain) we saw people running on the side of the street.