It’s been a super busy week in the runDisney universe and I had to take a pause to decide what to comment on first. Springtime Surprise course maps were released, and I have plenty to say about that, but since 2024 Marathon Weekend is almost upon us, I figure it’s best to share my thoughts on that first.
Registration times:
- Club runDisney Gold & Platinum: Begins Tuesday, April 4 (via email link)
- General Registration: Tuesday April 11 at 10:00 a.m. ET
I’ve got to say that the artwork for Marathon Weekend is adorable! Our mascots remain the same as last year:
- 5K – Pluto
- 10K – Chip & Dale
- Half Marathon – Donald & Daisy
- Marathon – Mickey & Minnie
There doesn’t seem to be much of an obvious unifying weekend theme. All the images have park references, so I guess we’ll go with “running in the parks”.
One othe piece of good news is that the prices for most events have only increased a few dollars over last year. Still not cheap, but at least they are trying to keep the fees stable.
Even though I am part of Club runDisney, I am still battle-scarred from the Disneyland and Wine & Dine registrations. I attempted to get the Disneyland 5K for my daughter and myself during general registration. I really didn’t get great queue position, but did eventually get to the registration form. I got my info in, but when I went to add the second registration, I tried and tried but for some reason could not select a T-shirt size on the second person’s registration. I got error messages on the form and try as I might could not jigger things to get the T-shirt size option to appear. I took the form’s failure as a sign that registration was already sold out, and I gave up. Sure enough a few minutes later the race was sold out and I assumed that my hypothesis was correct.
Fast forward a few weeks later when I was again attempting to get my daughter and myself registered for the Wine & Dine 5K, and this time the pressure was immense. You see I’d promised my daughter that after missing out on Disneyland, I would do everything I possibly could to get her into WD. Well the stakes hit the stratosphere whe the themes were announced because the WD 5K was none other than Alice in Wonderland, her all-time favorite movie. The weight of responibility was heavy…
Even though I was traveling for work, I lugged an extra computer to Las Vegas with me to improve my chances of getting a good position in the virtual queue. I had to contend with 1 computer not connecting to the hotel wifi, running that computer on a hotspot, and trying to field a bunch of phone calls that came in at the exact same moment that registration opened.
I did get a decent queue position on one of my browsers and confidently jumped into the enrollment form. Except… I could not select a T-shirt size on the second person AGAIN!! Since I was within the first 10 min of the window opening, there was no way it was sold out yet. There was clearly a problem with the form, that seemed to be my special problem.
There are several ways to hack your way through the form quickly… most fields can be updated later. For example, the emergency contact name and phone number, and all those relevant extra questions … “Are you military divistion?”, “Are you traveling with children?”, “What is the velocity of a laden sparrow?” You can put anything in those fields just to get through the form faster, but I can’t for the life of me understand why the T-shirt is a showstopper, but it is.
I was getting form error messages that told me to refresh, and I’ll be honest I was absolutely terrified to do that. I was afraid I’d lose everything and be kicked back into the queue. I wrestled with this for at least 10 minutes, thinking my head was going to explode and ready to throw my still-ringing phone against the wall. Feeling like my daughter’s dream race was slipping through my fingers, I finally surrendered and hit the refresh button, expecting the worst.
And… success. The form reloaded all the T-shirt sizes were available for both people, and I submitted before I had an aneurysm.
That was my story, which seemed to be pretty unique to me. I read numerous accounts of people getting the error message when they go to “I’m ready to pay.” I sure don’t have a fix for that. I don’t know if the refresh would work at that point, but if you’re registering multiple people I’d say there’s quite a bit of risk refreshing then as you have to enter all the info again (insert eye-roll). The other thing that seems to happen is that every time you hit the pay button, your credit card is authorized, whether or not the transaction is successful. Usually those authorizations fall off the credit card in a day or two, but if you’re close to your credit limit or using a debit card, that could be a problem for you.
So to summarize my top tips of the moment:
- Get through the form as fast as you can – don’t waste time on the accuracy of the extra questions (but be very precise on names and birth dates!)
- If you get stuck on T-shirt size, refresh the form
- NEVER refresh the waiting room page
- Multiple devices / browsers are a must
- Use a credit card with plenty of room on your credit limit in case you have to submit more than once to get a confirmation
I’ll be attempting to register some other folks as well on April 11, so I will be heading into the General Registration fray again. Maybe it will be smooth. I can always wish upon a star.
Do you have some registration tips? Drop a comment to share your wisdom!
Disney Park Runner 