Found a great deal using hotel points, and I very excitedly booked a trip for Jan 4-8 yesterday and soon after clicking, ‘Book Now’, I realized it’s marathon weekend! We plan on renting a car and we always rope drop. Typically, we do a morning in the parks, take a break in the afternoon, and then head back to the parks in late afternoon.
I’m reading that road closures getting to the parks in the morning could be a real headache if we rope drop. For all you experts – is it doable (and still enjoyable!) to stay offsite, drive, and rope drop during marathon weekend or should we see about rescheduling?? We scheduled Jan 4-8 and would probably be in the parks on Jan 5,6,7. I could see about rescheduling to Jan 2-4 if it would be a better experience. (I should note – although we haven’t used it before, we’re also planning to purchase Genie+ if that makes rope dropping less necessary)
It will absolutely be a problem on that Saturday and Sunday as the races wind through most and all of the parks and a lot of the roads are closed into park opening hours. The 5k and 10k will have minimal impacts as they start and finish so early in the morning. Epcot may be an issue every day since it’s usually the start/end point for a lot of the races.
I’ve done two marathon weekends, one where I ran and one where I didn’t. We had fabulous wait times for attractions at both. I don’t think runners spend that much time in the parks. We had no trouble getting to any park except Magic Kingdom, that took forever this year. I think you avoid that park on the weekend you’ll be mostly okay.
The one I ran was 2020 so precovid and then we went this year.
I’m posting late, but leaving for posterity that I accidentally went during Princess Marathon in 2024 and it was a surprisingly great time. I got there mid-afternoon on Friday and hit Epcot. Epcot was pretty crowded, but I did Guardians and a few things, then monorailed to MK and stayed until close. The park was DEAD at 10 pm. I decided to do 7 Dwarves before I left the park and it was a walk on.
I rope dropped Hollywood the next day, also completely dead! It turns out that being in the parks while the runners were running or sleeping before their 2 am buses was an excellent strategy.
