Marathon Weekend 2023

[jpeterson]

I booked Caribbean Beach last week in hopes I was getting into the Half (which I did!) If you call they can book room only reservations. Online doesn't allow yet.

I'm a super optimist, I booked Caribbean Beach right after I returned from MW 2022

 

[PrincessV]

For posterity:

I had a tab open on Chrome and a tab open on Edge at 9:45. I added a tab each at 10am.

At 12:30pm., those original tabs were still in queue with the message to stay put, but I also opened a fresh tab in Edge right at 12:30.

Wanna guess which opened first? Yep, the fresh 12:30 one. The others weren't terribly far behind, but still: the ones that rD said to stick with were behind the brand new one. That bothers me a lot.

 

[WDWfeelslikehome]

So not the best experience today, and I know that I'm not alone, but RunDisney just keeps amazing me....I got all the way through Marathon Registration and clicked the pay now button only to get the message that the Marathon was closed. Now an hour later my credit card has alerted me that RunDisney billed me pending charges for not 1 but 2 Marathon Registrations. I double checked my email (No Confirmation) and my RunDisney account (No Registrations), so I guess I need to really thank RunDisney for the double reminder that I didn't get in today.

 

[camaker]

runDisney is getting hammered on social media.

Good - as it should be!

They seem to be taking a hammering for two issues:

1. The registration site fiasco - Hammer away. They weren't prepared for the demand and it took FAR too long to resolve. Major fail.
2. How fast everything sold out/people didn't get the race they wanted - Not really a RunDisney issue. There are a finite number of spots available. Demand exceeded supply. People have been predicting this (to some degree, at least) for months. Nothing they can do about it. Caveat: if it should come to light that registration was artificially limited to drive CrD membership sales, then hammer away.

 

[The running raven]

When I said I’d let the queue decide which race I was gonna do I really didn’t think the result would be absolutely no in person race for me. I was in before 10! I sat there the entire time! I listened! And when my spinner finally stopped spinning guess what! Every single stinking thing they got is sold out woo hoo. Virtual here I come!

 

[mollygirl13]

I'm a super optimist, I booked Caribbean Beach right after I returned from MW 2022

Yay!!

 

[RunWI1265]

1. The registration site fiasco - Hammer away. They weren't prepared for the demand and it took FAR too long to resolve. Major fail.

This part was a little shocking to me. I admit, I don’t know anything about IT and whatever it entails, but I thought it was strange it took so long for it to get figured out. Like, they didn’t have any solutions if things got backed up? Were they that confident everything would go smoothly and they were caught off guard?? Who knows.

 

[kps7795]

It might be charity-by-charity based, but I ran for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in 2015 and already had my half registration. They just let me make an account with them and I didn’t have a fundraising amount I had to meet.

Did you coordinate with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention or runDisney or both? My wife and I want our daughter to raise money leading up to her half marathon. We figure it would be nice and might look good on her college resume that she raised money for XYZ charity.

 

[Let's Get Kronk]

Lolol, the "Contact Us" site on runDisney is conveniently having "errors" and not accepting comments or questions. Seems fitting.

 

[marty3d]

For posterity:

I had a tab open on Chrome and a tab open on Edge at 9:45. I added a tab each at 10am.

At 12:30pm., those original tabs were still in queue with the message to stay put, but I also opened a fresh tab in Edge right at 12:30.

Wanna guess which opened first? Yep, the fresh 12:30 one. The others weren't terribly far behind, but still: the ones that rD said to stick with were behind the brand new one. That bothers me a lot.

Similar experience. I had 4 tabs (3 on Mac- Safari, Chrome, Edge) + 1 on iPad. All opened around 9:45.

Once everyone started reporting the 7 Dwarfs I opened a Safari Private browsing tab. I finally got into a queue on that tab sometime after 11 (I don't have the exact time but its when everyone who had the 7 dwarfs page were finally able to get into the queue). When the countdown finally started, it gave me a 4 minute wait. I was able to complete my registration (which took a while as I'd forgotten to enable pop up windows). When I was done, all my other tabs were still at 50+ minutes.

FWIW I'm pretty sure this happened to me last year too - the tabs I opened before 10am were slower than the one I opened at 10.

 

[Novatrix]

Did anyone note what time the Castaway challenge sold out?

 

[Z-Knight]

This part was a little shocking to me. I admit, I don’t know anything about IT and whatever it entails, but I thought it was strange it took so long for it to get figured out. Like, they didn’t have any solutions if things got backed up? Were they that confident everything would go smoothly and they were caught off guard?? Who knows.

i can tell they were recycling servers multiple times - because I was monitoring my login status and periodically had to update my login to make sure I was logged in when it was time to do registration. And a few times I was logged out after only a few minutes while other time it was like 30 minutes or an hour, so at the end they may have been rebooting more often and clearing login session.

 

[wdwjoe13]

The fact that some of the initial spots in the queue showed that the wait was an hour plus. Yet, 30 minutes later, anyone could get straight to a registration page while those that were on at the start time (10 am or 12:30 pm) were still in a queue that showed a wait time. The system was not working correctly.

 

[DisneyBelle27]

Somehow managed to get registered for the half this morning!

Seeing how quickly everything sold out I got paranoid and called to book a hotel. 5 nights at Pop here we come! Only took about 4 min of hold time on the phone too!

 

[kps7795]

I think a lot of people may have wanted Dopey but when it sold out they settled for Goofy and marathon. Idk though!

My plan all along was the HM for my daughter and Goofy for myself. I figured that I would have a few days for Goofy, not a few hours!

 

[Ariel484]

I wonder if some of this is everything hitting all at once.

1. Life is getting back closer to whatever the new normal is.
2. Pent up travel demand.
3. Pent up race demand especially given uncertainty with runDisney and the pandemic.
4. 30th anniversary marathon, which also means 10th anniversary 10K, 10th anniversary Dopey, and possibly Chip and Dale being new to races.

I had the same thoughts as you. I’m surprised Goofy sold out…and before the marathon! Crazy.

 

[kps7795]

You can always sign up if you already have a bib. Most charities have an option with no minimum fundraising requirement:
View attachment 663589

I feel thick, but where are you finding that screen. I can't find that anywhere.

 

[azrivest]

I feel thick, but where are you finding that screen. I can't find that anywhere.

I screenshotted the registration via Sophie & Madigan's Playground, one of the charities available. The whole list is here:

https://www.rundisney.com/plan-your-trip/disneyworld/travel-providers/disneyworld-marathon-weekend/

 

[lookingforsunshine]

Did you coordinate with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention or runDisney or both?

It was through AFSP but might have been linked on the rD website. It was so long ago I don’t remember well.

Lolol, the "Contact Us" site on runDisney is conveniently having "errors" and not accepting comments or questions. Seems fitting.

Not suspicious at all…

 

[lookingforsunshine]

Only took about 4 min of hold time on the phone too!

I called to edit my reservation and was on hold for an hour.