Marathon Weekend 2026

[princesspirateandrunner]

SAFD:

Les Halles (haven’t been to Via Napoli, but want to go)
Ronto Roasters
Skipper’s
Satu’li

 

[Mr_Incr3dible]

First, I commend anyone who wants to run a marathon. I also really love that Disney has created weekends that support people in becoming active. What I have an issue with is with people registering for the race and not taking it seriously. According to TrackShack there were 12,532 finishers for this year's marathon. I can't seem to find the exact number of bibs for that race (news articles say 30,000 but I think hat is across the entire weekend). But let's assume there were 15,000 marathon bibs available (I suspect the number is higher), that means 16.5% of people either did not start or did not finish. A 83.5% finisher rate is significantly smaller than the majors (which is I believe is closer to 98%). I remember in 2018 when there were 25,000 who started but around 20,000 finishers. This seems unfair to those who are going to take the training seriously.

No argument. And I *hate* the idea of a bib going unused when there was someone who wanted to run who wasn't able to get one.
But from Disney's perspective, they have the entry money and that many fewer runners to feed and hydrate, and that many fewer runners to get out of the parks since they don't seem to really want us in the parks much anymore.

 

[FFigawi]

Because DHS opens later than AK, you may have more luck with accessing single rider or LL lines on those rides as day guests won't have a lot of time to get into the queue yet.

You need to be careful not to get there too early. I hit ToT this year somewhere around 915-930, and they were not letting runners on. There were cast members blocking you from heading over to RnRC as well. They did open both rides to runners about 30-45 minutes later.

 

[Barca33Runner]

Casually following along the DNS/DNF aspect of the fallout of the annual “not enough places for everybody/there has to be a better way” registration discussion and cross-referencing with the annual post-race weekend “the course is too crowded” discourse I’ve come to the likely conclusion that rD both builds into their registration numbers and relies upon a relatively large amount of attrition in the form of DNS and DNF participants (particularly DNS). I think they oversell every event relative to the number of people they actually want on the course with the expectation that a decent percentage of those registered will not toe the line on race day.

With Disney’s overwhelming company wide focus on data and analytics I’d actually be pretty shocked if they don’t have internal numbers that let them know exactly how many “extra” bibs to sell to end up with their target number of runners on the course on race day. It would be inefficient and wasteful of them not to take advantage of that knowledge. They can plan for the target number with the expectation they can still pull off the race even if the worst case scenario of everyone showing up happens.

All that to say, I’m not sure that DNS/DNF registrants are really stealing bibs from people who would finish the race. I’m both optimistic and cynical in the way I come to that conclusion. Optimistically, I think the vast majority of DNS/DNF registrants had every intention of finishing when they signed up and that the decision to DNS/DNF is gutting when it is made. Cynically, I think Disney wants to claim every dollar available to them and since they know the percentages of how many people historically DNS their races, they oversell their races to capture that revenue.

 

[FFigawi]

Casually following along the DNS/DNF aspect of the fallout of the annual “not enough places for everybody/there has to be a better way” registration discussion and cross-referencing with the annual post-race weekend “the course is too crowded” discourse I’ve come to the likely conclusion that rD both builds into their registration numbers and relies upon a relatively large amount of attrition in the form of DNS and DNF participants (particularly DNS). I think they oversell every event relative to the number of people they actually want on the course with the expectation that a decent percentage of those registered will not toe the line on race day.

With Disney’s overwhelming company wide focus on data and analytics I’d actually be pretty shocked if they don’t have internal numbers that let them know exactly how many “extra” bibs to sell to end up with their target number of runners on the course on race day. It would be inefficient and wasteful of them not to take advantage of that knowledge. They can plan for the target number with the expectation they can still pull off the race even if the worst case scenario of everyone showing up happens.

All that to say, I’m not sure that DNS/DNF registrants are really stealing bibs from people who would finish the race. I’m both optimistic and cynical in the way I come to that conclusion. Optimistically, I think the vast majority of DNS/DNF registrants had every intention of finishing when they signed up and that the decision to DNS/DNF is gutting when it is made. Cynically, I think Disney wants to claim every dollar available to them and since they know the percentages of how many people historically DNS their races, they oversell their races to capture that revenue.

Agree with this 100%. If we can estimate the DNS and DNS percentages, you know that runDisney does so as well with far more accuracy and history. Considering the number of entries used to be in the 25,000 range, I have no doubt they're using all kinds of data to create and run models that set the number of entries with an highly predicted amount of DNS to arrive at the targeted number of runners on course to maximize revenue, minimize complaints about course crowding, and optimize what their sponsors are willing to provide for food, fuel, etc., all within the limitations of what roads, paths, and portions of parks they can use for a course. Having 25,000 people on the current course would be a recipe for disaster. Having 16,000 runners on the old and more wide open courses would mean leaving money on the table.