Princess 2018 was my first runDisney event, and we were at the expo for 5 hours
We did go the first day, as soon as they opened (after the early entry), which isn’t suggested but it was my first time and I wanted to see it all! They did let us in earlier than the announced time, but I did make some rookie mistakes.
First, taking pictures outside of the runDisney merch building. I don’t regret this at all, but I was thinking it was a good way to kill time before they let us in. If I had known they were letting people in early, I probably would’ve saved that for the end. We still got in the building early, so it wasn’t a huge deal.
Second, we passed by the pre-purchased items entry, because we didn’t know you could enter the regular merch section that way! I figured, let’s get in line for regular merch, the prepurchased things will still be there later. Biggest rookie mistake of the weekend! We got on the regular long line and snaked all the way around this giant room before we came to a stop on the other side, and waited, and waited, and waited until we were allowed in. When we finally got in we did some looking around, and then we tag teamed for the prepurchased items line and the Dooney/Alex & Ani line. Luckily they let us pay for everything on that line so we didn’t have to wait on another line!
Last rookie mistake was forgetting the printed waivers in the room. Not a big deal, because there was no wait at the computers, but a mistake none the less!
Bib pickup in the second building was quick and easy.
The last long amount of time was the vendor building. We waited on line at the Rock tape booth for the free application which was a decent amount of time but completely worth every second. Shirt pickup was quick and easy, and luckily no shirts needed to be exchanged!
We did a little bit of walking around in the vendor building, which was exciting but also a little overwhelming. Afterwards we did photos at the medal banners before leaving.
All of this to say, the time it takes is greatly dependent on what time you go and how much you do while you’re there!