January Marathon and Crowd Levels

[was5]

Planning WDW in January 2018. Plan was to get there Dec 31 or Jan 1 and leave on January 7 or 8. We would be extending DD'S break a few days, instead of having her miss a whole week of school. She will be in 5th grafe. I have recently become aware of the marathon at WDW. The dates for the 2018 marathon are 1/3 - 1/7.

Looks like all the races are at Epcot and the pre-race activities are at ESPN/Wide World of Sports.

Are we going to be ok with crowds if we do Epcot earlier in the week (Jan 2) or will the holiday crowds still be huge at that point?

Thinking of just pushing the trip back to the last week in January (avoiding MLK crowds) and taking DD out of school for a week.

Has anyone been to WDW during the January marathon?

[beantrees]

We went last year from the 2nd-7th, so we caught the beginning of marathon week. It was waaay more crowded on our arrival day from the holiday crowds than the end of our trip from the marathon.

The only 'issue' we had was on our last day we were trying to get to BIG for a PPO and a huuuuge group of students from Canada there for marathon weekend were in front of us in the bus queue. But they were so nice! Squeezed us on to the bus and even held our stroller for us and gave us a place to sit! So polite.

[ribollita]

I went that week in 2015 and am doing it again in 2018. The marathon had zero effect on us. We did have the kids do the kid races and they loved it. I hope to do a 5-10k in 2018 too.

[mysticmuffin]

Just an FYI that 2018 is the 25th anniversary of the WDW Marathon, so this may affect crowd levels as well.

[was5]

Dec 27, 2016 13:36:25 GMT -5 mysticmuffin said:

Just an FYI that 2018 is the 25th anniversary of the WDW Marathon, so this may affect crowd levels as well.

Thanks for the heads up.

[stephm0188]

Race weekends don't impact the crowds much at all. You might see a small uptick at MK after the marathon because people like to do photos there in front of the castle, but a lot of time runners come in just to run. Many do multiple races and opt to chill out at the resort to save their legs for the next few days of races.

[was5]

Dec 27, 2016 20:35:07 GMT -5 stephm0188 said:

Race weekends don't impact the crowds much at all. You might see a small uptick at MK after the marathon because people like to do photos there in front of the castle, but a lot of time runners come in just to run. Many do multiple races and opt to chill out at the resort to save their legs for the next few days of races.

Thanks. That's what I was hoping. It wasn't on my radar until recently when I was looking at a January crowd calendar. That made it seem like the marathon activities had a big impact on crowds.

[ilikedonuts]

Usually there is a big event at Epcot the sunday night of marathon weekend so you'll see crowds increase that afternoon/evening. but other than that i'm sure it would be fine

[lishie]

I haven't done the marathon, but I've done Wine n Dine and Princess with my sister, and we visited marathon weekend in the past...it makes rooms a little tougher to get at times, but it's definitely not a huge impact on the park attendance levels.

We had a great time the year we went from 1/3 - 1/8. Our year it was very cold for florida, under 30 when we woke up some mornings. We met tons of people from Europe on the busses. Many of the people we met didnt' go back to school until the 9th (we were with my SIL, who lived in Rome), so that seemed to be their preferred week to visit the parks over their break.

[abs]

The marathon shouldn't have a huge impact on crowds. However, Christmas break can. Many schools were still out last week and the wait times were insane. An hour for Mickey's Philharmagic? Two hours for It's a Small World? No thank you. So just check to see when Christmas is.