Princess marathon weekend

After recovering from the shock of our holiday being on presidents weekend (we’re from the uk so didn’t know) I’ve just realised the princess Marathon weekend is at the end of our holiday. I’m feeling like I’ve not done my research properly this time! Can anyone provide advice on how to best manage this and how we’ll be impacted? Our plans are MK on the fri, AK on the sat and MK for a last few hours on Sunday after 9am chef mickeys breakfast. Thanks

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Where are you staying?

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" Crowd Impact
the Princess Half Marathon brings a significant amount of people to the resort, but doesn’t necessarily increase the wait times on any of the attractions. Being in the parks during this event weekend you may notice more people wandering the pathways, many of them with brand new, shiny finisher medals."

I have been in the world often that week. Road closures on Sunday could be an issue. I believe they are changing the marathon route? Do any runners have insight if the Princess Half route will remain the same?

The race course map shows the Half still starts and ends at Epcot and goes through MK, and the castle (of course). So Sunday morning traffic to and around MK will be affected, though runners should be out of the park by 9am or so. But they’ll (we’ll!) be running back on World Drive to Epcot…

The 5K and 10K are run in and around Epcot, so less impact on traffic and parks, and they should be done well before park opening times on Friday and Saturday, respectively.

Thanks @DumboRunner. I am going to then say I am concerned about @gp2017 Sunday plan unless you are staying at a monorail resort, WL or FW. Last year I was leaving WL the Sunday of the half around 8:30am. I had a rental to take back to the airport. Once I left WL I encounter gridlock. Although some people will tell you that on Disney buses it is possible to get to the MK on that morning I think you would need to plan to be on the bus 60-90 minutes? If you are off site I don’t think you should attempt it at all.

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I agree. Disney does have back routes and detours, but they are obviously less efficient and lots of lanes are lost with runners on them and service routes for the runDisney operations. I actually would avoid MK altogether until 11am or noon-ish, but if that is not in the cards I would avoid surface transportation if possible, and if that is not possible build in lots of travel time.

And as one of the people mucking up your plans @gp2017 I’m sorry :woozy_face:

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I’m going to have to agree with @PrincipalTinker & @DumboRunner that you are going to “run” (pun intended) into difficulties with going to MK on Sunday. In the past we have gone to Disney Springs or Hollywood Stuidios during that weekend. This year we are planning on going to MK on that Sunday but not leaving our resort until noon.

Sorry @gp2017

Can I jump on here too and ask a question? I am there that weekend too. My days are planned out as MK on the Thurs, HS on the Sat and EP on the Sunday. Any ideas about any problems that I might find? I am staying at POR, using their buses and have planned things to be early at the parks on these days.

Thanks all. I’m going to try and get a later time for chef mickeys, as we’ll be getting the bus from AKL, and hope that helps. We only want to do breakfast and a couple of MK rides, as it’s a bit of a tradition on our last day

I think that is a very good plan. There are no races on Thursday, Saturday at HS there might be a bit of traffic around HS because of the 10K at Epcot so get an early bus, and as long as you are not trying to drive and park at Epcot the closed access should not prevent you from getting there – again give yourself plenty of time by getting an earlier bus than you might normally. And if you RD at Epcot you might be held at different points where runners are on the paths but runDisney has a good system – you wait a few minutes till they clear a path and then move. And most runners should be out of Epcot by 10am, if I understand the schedule correctly.

I was at wine and dine race weekend and I booked Epcot for that Sunday. I’m sure food and wine was also a factor but crossing from future works to FEA took forever! Then Epcot was packed the rest of the day. I’ll be there Star wars weekend and I’m not going to Epcot that Sunday, although was my original plan!

We were there during Princess Marathon weekend. I was really worried about it impacting crowds but we didn’t notice any difference. On the Sunday, we slept in so we didn’t have to deal with traffic issues.

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