Just booked our 2016 trip, which will fall over marathon weekend. On the Crowd Calendar, it indicates that the marathon is a “blip in attendance” along with MLK weekend, but the crowd sizes for that weekend is still quite low (especially as compared to MLK, which is drawing 6-8 crowds). Just trying to reconcile the two. Is it maybe the case that the resort as a whole is crowded, but many of the people there aren’t focused upon touring, so it doesn’t really have much impact upon the wait times?
Thanks for any insight!
1 Like
We were there Jan. 6-14, 2015, and Jan. 7-15, 2014, so we overlapped marathon weekend two years in a row. The crowds were definitely better than when we went in the summer. If you go at rope drop, use FPP, and a touring plan, you will be great. Some of the rides still had long waits like 7DMT, TSMM, Peter Pan, Anna & Elsa, etc., so try to get FPP for those. Overall, the wait times were reasonable. We stayed at Pop, and the resort food court did get busy at certain times, but it wasn’t that bad. The 5K and 10K won’t have any impact on the parks, but the half, and full will. Getting to the parks will take longer because some roads will be closed. Definitely take a Disney bus (or walk if you’re at a close resort). If you go to EP on Saturday, the half will still be going on for about an hour or so after opening. On Sunday, the marathon will run longer. This year we were at HS, and runners went through the park until about noon. You can only cross the running path at certain places, so it will take longer to get around the park. Just plan accordingly, pack your patience, and cheer for the runners! Or, make Sunday a very late start day. Let me know if you have any specific questions. My DD and I are trying to convince DH to go again in 2016! (we did the 5K for the first time this year)
3 Likes
Related follow-up, now that our trip is starting to take shape a bit more. We check in at WDW (BLT, in particular) on Saturday, Jan 9. We had planned to spend a day or two at Universal before starting our WDW trip, staying onsite, location TBD. Options are:
-Fly in Thursday evening, check in to UOR hotel, spend all Friday hitting the two parks, spend Friday night at UOR, check out Saturday morning, and head to Magic Kingdom (which is a level 6 that day).
-Fly in Friday morning, arrive at the UOR parks around lunchtime, spend the rest of the day at the parks, spend Friday night at UOR, get up Saturday and tour UOR some more before heading over to WDW later, mid-afternoon or so, still targeting MK that night.
Option 2 is a bit cheaper, but not so much cheaper that it really moves the needle. Biggest factor, I guess, if whether WDW is going to be such a zoo on Saturday morning that we’re better off just waiting until later in the day to show up.
On another note, looking at the crowd calendar, it would appear that we’d be targeting MK (which we can walk to) and EPCOT (which we’d be taking the monorail to and from) during the weekend. Does that more or less eliminate transportation issues, or will those be impacted as well?