The Official Expedition Everest 2013 Thread

[hollieplus2]

Holy cow that's expensive!!! Not sure we can swing it with those prices

[Sehsun]

$105 is a lot for a 5K. Even the Royal Family 5K (part of the Princess Half Marathon weekend) is $55. I guess having the scavenger hunt may make the fee higher than a regular 5K, but it still seems a bit high.

I think I still want to do it, though. I wish I could do the scavenger hunt with others, but it is so expensive! Do you have to register officially as a team in order to do the scavenger hunt with other people?

[got2lovedisney]

$105! That's practically double what it was! I'm thinking I'll have to back out of this one.

[Princess on the Run]

It does include admission to the after party which is something like $49 to buy on it's own. Does anyone know if that was included last year? If not, I guess it accounts for the huge increase.

[twalton]

The after party WAS included in the price last year. $105 for a 5K - scavenger hunt or not - is insane. We will not be doing this one again next year...

[Dziactor]

I am in. Trying to find a second member for a team now.

[PrincessV]

Originally Posted by Princess on the Run

It does include admission to the after party which is something like $49 to buy on it's own. Does anyone know if that was included last year? If not, I guess it accounts for the huge increase.

It was included, and not worth the extra cost this year. Unlike the TOT, only a corner of AK was open and crowds were unreal. Wait times weren't too bad, but it was very congested and not all that fun. We only lasted maybe an hour (after spending an hour trying to find water that wasn't HOT and getting through bad check!)

[jeanigor]

Originally Posted by choirchic

This sounds like so much fun...If I can't find anyone to run as a team with me, is it worth the money to do by myself and just have DH at the finish? I am a new runner so this would be my first Disney Race.

I did it last year as part of a team, but would not give a second thought about doing it solo.

Originally Posted by PrincessV

It was included, and not worth the extra cost this year. Unlike the TOT, only a corner of AK was open and crowds were unreal. Wait times weren't too bad, but it was very congested and not all that fun. We only lasted maybe an hour (after spending an hour trying to find water that wasn't HOT and getting through bad check!)

It was crowded. There was a group of us and we decided to ride Kali River Rapids four times (they let us stay in the boat) to cool off. We were pretty much the last ones out of the party, partially because the bag check line was insane, we avoided it until the bitter end.

[Rupert B Puppenstein]

Originally Posted by got2lovedisney

$105! That's practically double what it was! I'm thinking I'll have to back out of this one.

Definitely off my list now that the prices are posted. It was fun, but not worth the costs of traveling there and the increased registration costs. Maybe they want to get rid of the race and getting less people to participate because of price will help them do that. Their excuse when people ask will be that not enough people signed up.

Got the Anniversary medal, so if it does last until year 10, I may consider doing it again at that time.

I think all Disney races are starting to follow a trend...increased prices and fewer amenities.

[McCoy]

Just thinking as to people mentioning the idea that Disney may be increasing pricing as part of a plan to 'do away with the race', I am actually wondering if the price increase this year is because Disney is actually listening to the runners from 2012.

My biggest complaint in 2012, and I seem to recall it was for many others as well (besides the warm water), was how overcrowded the race course was. So, if Disney listens to those complaints and decides to actually reduce capacity, logic dictates that Disney would then increase pricing to cover the losses. We certainly know Disney won't just reduce capacity without trying to make up for that lost revenue.

Without exact numbers, but for some reason I feel like I heard 2012 was like 5,000 runners, I paid $175 for my team plus fees. So, at $210 per team in 2013, they could reduce capacity to under 4,200 and still come out ahead.

So, anyway, my point is the substantial price increase may be a direct result of Disney listening to past participants. Just a thought anyway. But odds are more likely that they would still sell the full 5,000 even with the price increase, and have no problem selling out regardless, and not do anything about the overcrowding.

[Rupert B Puppenstein]

Originally Posted by McCoy

Just thinking as to people mentioning the idea that Disney may be increasing pricing as part of a plan to 'do away with the race', I am actually wondering if the price increase this year is because Disney is actually listening to the runners from 2012.

My biggest complaint in 2012, and I seem to recall it was for many others as well (besides the warm water), was how overcrowded the race course was. So, if Disney listens to those complaints and decides to actually reduce capacity, logic dictates that Disney would then increase pricing to cover the losses. We certainly know Disney won't just reduce capacity without trying to make up for that lost revenue.

Without exact numbers, but for some reason I feel like I heard 2012 was like 5,000 runners, I paid $175 for my team plus fees. So, at $210 per team in 2013, they could reduce capacity to under 4,200 and still come out ahead.

So, anyway, my point is the substantial price increase may be a direct result of Disney listening to past participants. Just a thought anyway. But odds are more likely that they would still sell the full 5,000 even with the price increase, and have no problem selling out regardless, and not do anything about the overcrowding.

We are talking Disney here...they are increasing capacity for ALL of their races. They could care less about crowding on the course. If that was the case, they would have stuck with the counts last year for the Half and Full Marathon during Marathon weekend in 2013. Instead, they increased it by a lot! So, yay, I get to run arm and arm with a lot more runners next year...I have a feeling that Disney will increase the distance of Expedition Everest or get away from it entirely. It doesn't make the money that all the other races do, and people aren't going to make a vacation out of a 5K. A 10 miler maybe, a Half probably, a Full Definitely.

As far as the warm water, that is such an unrealistic expectation. In order to have enough water for all of those participating, they have to pour it in advance, and it is going to get to be the temperature of the surroundings. Personally, I would rather have warm water than no water at all. Work a water station at a race that size, and you will understand the reasoning a bit more...you get a slow trickle of runners at the beginning, but the middle of the pack comes and it is difficult to keep up just grabbing all the cups, but dealing with pouring too is a nightmare. It is like that "I Love Lucy" episode with the chocolate and the conveyor belt...I never thought it could be such a difficult job, but it sure is!

[PrincessV]

Originally Posted by Rupert B Puppenstein

We are talking Disney here...they are increasing capacity for ALL of their races. They could care less about crowding on the course.

I just did the Jingle Jungle 5K yesterday... PACKED. They even did actual corrals for the start (though all corrals started together, so I'm not sure what point there was...) Good thing I needed to mostly walk due to injury, since I had no choice but to walk much of it due to congestion on the course.

As far as the warm water, that is such an unrealistic expectation. In order to have enough water for all of those participating, they have to pour it in advance, and it is going to get to be the temperature of the surroundings.

I'm not talking about the hydration stations mid-course and we're not talking "warm" - the Powerade and water at the Finish was HOT, as in, sitting-out-in-the-sun-all-day-tasting-like-heated-plastic hot. Surely they could have put the bottles on ice, since they do it for far larger crowds in the parks every day.

[Rupert B Puppenstein]

Originally Posted by PrincessV

I just did the Jingle Jungle 5K yesterday... PACKED. They even did actual corrals for the start (though all corrals started together, so I'm not sure what point there was...) Good thing I needed to mostly walk due to injury, since I had no choice but to walk much of it due to congestion on the course.


I'm not talking about the hydration stations mid-course and we're not talking "warm" - the Powerade and water at the Finish was HOT, as in, sitting-out-in-the-sun-all-day-tasting-like-heated-plastic hot. Surely they could have put the bottles on ice, since they do it for far larger crowds in the parks every day.

Yeah, I didn't know you were talking about bottles. That I agree with, and Disney is really the only race series that doesn't seem to put them in huge barrels of ice water. At Expedition Everest, I didn't even see bottles of anything, so we bought stuff. It was so crowded and chaotic that I can't even say for sure what they had to eat and drink for the runners outside of stuff you could purchase. It was hard enough to get our medals. But, I did have fun riding Expedition Everest dozens of times when everyone left well before the 2 a.m. close!

That is a shame about the 5K. The medallion was really cute. It is supposed to be a bit relaxed, and shouldn't ever be one of those events you put a lot of effort into because it isn't timed, but it is never fun being on such a crowded course. Reason #1 that I have no interest in doing the Peachtree Road Race.

[choirchic]

Originally Posted by PrincessV

OUCH!!! That's a lot of cheddar for a 5K, even if it is at WDW. I'll have to think long and hard about whether I want to shell out that much...

Originally Posted by hollieplus2

Holy cow that's expensive!!! Not sure we can swing it with those prices

Originally Posted by twalton

The after party WAS included in the price last year. $105 for a 5K - scavenger hunt or not - is insane. We will not be doing this one again next year...

Agrees with the above posters...I'm think I will just work my next big vacation around one of the marathons instead of paying that much for a 5K. If I pay that much, I wanna be sure it's for a big deal kind of event. Thanks for the info everyone!

[niclodn]

I'm shocked by the price increase as well, but am still planning to run. But that's only because a friend of mine who just started on her weight loss/exercise path really wants to do it this time. If it was just gonna be me, I'd say no way as I am already registered for both the Tink and Princess Half's and am also planning to do ToT again in 2013. We are planning to register as individuals tho and hopefully get a better corral placement than I did last year as part of an all female team. Being in the 2nd to last wave and hitting a mass of people at the finish line was not my idea of a good time...

And I do agree with the water issue mentioned earlier. It was not just air temperature warm. It was HOT! I could've made coffee with that stuff. I will say that the ToT was much hotter weather-wise, but the water was acceptably cool. So, hopefully that issue will be much better in 2013