I’m looking to stay at the AKL during star wars race weekend next year, does this mean it will take ages to travel between AKL and the parks all morning on those 3 days? From the AKL can we leave WDW without too much trouble or will that also be rather congested? When they do the half and run through the parks, can you cross the running path or are large parts of the parks closed?
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The worst-case scenario for travel is that they have Osceola parkway reduced to one lane in each direction until they clear the course on 1/2 marathon day, from AK to the All/Star to the BB/CSR exit.
The shorter races will easily be cleared well before RD, as all the races have a 5:30 AM start; the 10K will be finished by ~8:00.
What little of a race will still be happening when a park opens will have several crossover points, managed by CMs, so you don’t need to worry that you’ll be forever stuck. And the 1/2 marathon should be finished by 10:30ish, anyway. And that’s based on a 7:30 start for the last corral and the last people lagging lots after they pass the last sweep; because they require a 16 minute/mile pace (3:30 1/2 marathon finish time) to be maintained.
runDisney is very aware that they are not the only people using the parks during a race weekend, and does a fantastic job of minimizing the impacts to the rest of the WDW guests.
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Thank you, for answering all my questions
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We are already planning for next years spring break trip- we are going to move to Universal for the weekend, I do not want to deal with the transportation issues I see posted on chat a lot during race weekends. I know you want to go to UOR during your trip, any way to plan UOR for that time period?
Yes, but that means Universal first and I’d just decided against that plan for numerous reasons. Would you definetely avoid it? For those 3 days I’m thinking we could leave WDW mid morning Fri & Sat and then AK on the Sun. I will give it some more thought.
I don’t think I would avoid it if you like your plans the way they are. I have never been at WDW during a race weekend (I have at DLR), I just know for my family we would rather avoid it. We drive to the parks and I don’t want any extra things keeping us from a timely arrival to the parks (we are not morning people and with the 3 hour time change I don’t want to wake any earlier just in case of traffic issues). It works best for us anyway, as it means Universal at the end of the trip which I prefer (so relaxing and low stress after being at WDW).
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We have been during the Dark Side race weekend the past two years and I never noticed any significant impact on travel those days. The races are early in the morning. And I’ve never thought the parks were that crowded. I’ll pay extra attention next week when we are there again.
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Thank you that would be great.
Here are the course maps for this year’s Star Wars Races:
Fri 5K:
Sat 10K:
Sun Half:
While next years courses won’t necessarily be exactly the same, they are likely to be very similar. Sunday morning traffic from AKL to other locations will be routed to take the connection between Blizzard Beach abd Cornado (you can see it on the Half map) and then back to “normal” once it reaches World Drive near HS.
Friday and Saturday, you should absolutely see zero impacts for rope-drop traffic.
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Somehow, our school breaks seem to fall during every race weekend, so we’ve been there for most of them. We received a notice in our room once at AKL about planning ahead for transportation issues and we didn’t experience any then and haven’t since. I went to guest services the night we got the notice because our first fastpass was 7DMT from 8-9am and there was no way I was missing that! But we left a few minutes early and had no issues.
Lots of signage for the races when we stay at BC, but that’s mostly the extent of it. That and seeing all the folks with medals in the parks, which DS thinks are pretty cool.
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Thank you that’s very kind
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Thank you, that’s good to know
We were at the Dark Side race this past weekend and we didn’t experience any issues with driving on property. We stayed at POR. I was particularly worried about driving to Epcot on Sunday which was the day of the half marathon (the finish line is in the Epcot parking lot). We had no issues. We were there at RD and the race was still going through the park. It took a few extra minutes to cross from one side of FW to the other. I also didn’t feel like the parks were crowded for the weekend.
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Thank you, that is good to know