2011 Disney World Marathon Weekend

Coming this January 6-9th is Disney's Marathon weekend. ; I know a few of us ave talk about this event. ; I am personally very close to registering, but not 100% sure if I am going to go. ; Reasons being. ; I will in WDW the first week of December. ; I will be back down in WDW for the last week of January. ; With 2 family trips planned this will mean I will have to do this one solo (which I'm OK with, but would be nice to hang with others).
I'd love to here from others who have done this in the past and those of you that are planning on going down for 2011. ; How long are you staying? ; Where's a good place to stay on grounds? And what time do you really need to be at the start.
It sounds awesome and anyone I have talked to says its an amazing event.
Help me decide.................

 

Humm if only someone would do a podcast about the Marathon weekend (http://northernmouse.libsyn.com/index.p ... _id=583288) But seriously I did the race last year solo and stayed at POP Century. This year we are planning on having the whole family attend my wife will be running the 1/2 and I the full. There was not shortage of people to hang out with the only time I was really alone was the Tues and Wed after the marathon as most people left on Monday. I don't think there is a bad resort to stay at most had buses to the race start and I thought they were fast and efficient. I woke up at 3:30am and was at the bus stop for 4:00am the announcement came to walk to the starting line about 4:45am and I was waiting in the corral from 5:00am to the start of the race at 5:50am freezing by the way. Robb and Colin who also ran but they were smarter and didn't go to the start until much later. This year we may try staying offsite in a vacation home and drive in.

 

Realfam.. your not going to be solo .. I will be there(and i will be solo), Rob(should be solo as well) and Carlos ..


AND i am going down in Dec (again)

 

OK if you guys are heading down, ; I ; will too I guess. ; I'm thinking of staying at POP, the only thing I'm not happy with is they don't have a hottub. ; But I'll get over it while running around the parks. ; This will be my first trip to WDW solo. ; Also, the funny thing is were back down there for a week on January 24th. ; Looking like I'm gonna get my monies worth next year on my annual pass.
OK it looks like its time for me to go and register. ;D

 

Now that I'm registered for the half marathon I took a peek at flights. ; Southwest has their dates posted for the first few days in January. ; They had a flight from Buffalo to MCO for $109 (including luggage). ; Not a bad deal, except I need to find my december flights first.
Always planning, it would be alot easier if I lived in Florida........

 

Flights are booked for the marathon weekend! ; Were heading down on the 6th and returning the 11th. ; We got direct flights with southwest for $84 each way incl. taxes and luggage. ; Awesome deal!
Just need to find a place to stay now. ; Wont be using the DVC this trip, I wanna see what kind of discount I get with my annual pass......in the mean time gotta keep up with the training. ; Have Niagara Falls marathon in a few weeks.

 

Check with Rob.. I think he has some cool deals and I know Carlos got free dining

 

Free dinning is no good for me since I have an annual pass, plus its more food than I would normally. ; Some of the people that are running with me were looking at a WDW ad about free dinning and they were saying the marathon weekend dates are excluded from it. ; They are offering 25-30% off rooms right now, so were gonna book fairly soon. ; Were looking at All Star Music or Port Orleans. ; Not allowed to use my DVC on this one! Wife said sooooo....

 

We are going down on the 5th to take advantage of free dining. I have an annual pass to but you can keep the magic your way ticket and put it towards your renewal that way you can still take advantage of the free dining.

 

I just checked the free dinning on the WDW website and its showing you cannot get it from jan6-9. ; Have you already booked it and what are your dates.... and where did you book it

 

Right that's why I'm going down on the 5th (Jan 5th to Jan 12th) the last day free dining is offered. As long as you start your vacation when free dining is offered it is valid for your entire trip.

 

I see.......unforetunatey I cannot go a day earlier or stay later due to work. ; The bright side ; is I will be back on the 22nd of jan with the family!

Running any race here in the GTA during the fall?

 

I think I will be running the Angus Glen 1/2 Marathon, ; First week in November, I wanted to do the Toronto Marathon but it's too close to the wine and dine and I don't think I'll have enough time to recover.

 

Good stuff!!!!!! ; You definately wanna leave yourself plenty of recovery time. ; Keep up the training everyone and stay injury free......

 

OK booked my hotels today for the Marathon. ; We were planning on staying a Port Orleans French Quarter, but its already full up, so were staying at River Side instead. ; We were gonna just do a value resort, but decided we wanted a hot tub spa and boat access to DTD instead. ; I think it will be a good call to spend the extra money when we arrive.

 

Alex I thought you were coming down solo for that trip?

 

Well my original plans were to come down solo, but as word got around I was going were now a group of 4 coming. ; 3 running, 1 in the cheer squad
How about yourself? ; You solo or travelling with someone?
We'll have to hook up down there, sorry I ca't remember whats your december dates

 

Looks like I will be joining in the fun as well. ; Sean just signed me up last night. ; Wish Kailey would sit in a stroller for that long to enjoy the fun, but I doubt that would ever happen.

 

Excellent! ; You should join the Cheer Squad
Where ya staying? ; I'll have to get away from my group and meet up with guys for a bit. ; Are you still heading down in december?

 

Not sure where we are staying yet. ; And I can only cross my fingers that we still go in December. ; It seems to be all depending on Sean's work right now since he is super busy this time of year. ; I am sure we will know sometime this weekend where we are staying in January.

Just realized...

3 months from today is the half marathon!!!