Marathon Weekend 2023

[jpeterson]

Just to provide a counter piece of anecdotal evidence. I had 8 total tabs/devices open, including some from after the servers came up. The first tab I opened came in as my lowest in the queue by far.

 

[Dom497]

Also keep in mind that Marathon Weekend has a big international draw. Last year there were still a lot of travel restrictions in place, which would only increase international demand now that things are normalizing along with the extra draws of the anniversaries and theming.

As a Canadian who wanted to do Dopey last year but didn't pull the trigger (but got a spot today!), I can validate this. Traveling within Canada was one thing but trying to plan for an international trip was just a massive logistical nightmare and risk.

 

[Baloo in MI]

I could be wrong, but I think it's first in, first out once the opening time for the event/registration hits. It's only random when people go into the waiting room prior to opening. It's not like showing up and camping out in line at Best Buy the night before a launch. I think it may seem random for those that hit right at opening, too, as the system has thousands of people hit essentially simultaneously and the system has to place them in some sort of order.

And this was likely the biggest issue today. If it is truly random prior to “opening” - 10am EST - and then goes to a first in first out process after “opening”; the system crashed before it could officially open. This trapped people with open browsers in the “lottery” to get a registration link. And then there was no chance for any type of first in first out as the system was down for two and half hours. And it left many of us to be part of one mass opening regardless if you started at 9:45am or 12:30pm. Some got immediate entries and many got “more than an hour”.

It is what it is, and I am thankful for getting Dopey and at least one race for my daughter. But it seems that a company with the money and resources of Disney could identify these types of issues ahead of time and set up response plans. Or better fix the issue before it impacts the customer. I mean really, we all knew there was going to be huge demand and this type of outcome could happen. Disney should have been ready for it. For runners who did not get registered this must have been sooo frustrating and made worse by a substandard system that failed.

Ok, rant over...

 

[lookingforsunshine]

The first tab I opened came in as my lowest in the queue by far.

Same here. And I opened it at 9:45 am.

 

[PirateSnowmen]

Just to provide a counter piece of anecdotal evidence. I had 8 total tabs/devices open, including some from after the servers came up. The first tab I opened came in as my lowest in the queue by far.

Same here. Actually I opened in Safari first, then Firefox right after. Both around 9:45am. Watched the pages spin for 2+ hours. I got in with the original Firefox browser first, but my Safari browser still said 45+ minutes to go (the time was actually jumping around; it went from 32 minutes to 54 minutes to 45 minutes).

At one point when the dwarves went away I got in on Chrome, my phone, and an iPad. My phone was the next closest whenever I did finally get in. My Chrome browser was last to get a time, so I tried going back to the homepage & re-selecting register since people were saying they got right in when they did that. Every time I tried my wait was over an hour.

 

[CP3uhoh]

Well, the comments on Twitter are….interesting

 

[luv2cheer92]

Well, the comments on Twitter are….interesting

I'm afraid to look.

 

[iheartglaciers]

Same here. Actually I opened in Safari first, then Firefox right after. Both around 9:45am. Watched the pages spin for 2+ hours. I got in with the original Firefox browser first, but my Safari browser still said 45+ minutes to go (the time was actually jumping around; it went from 32 minutes to 54 minutes to 45 minutes).

At one point when the dwarves went away I got in on Chrome, my phone, and an iPad. My phone was the next closest whenever I did finally get in. My Chrome browser was last to get a time, so I tried going back to the homepage & re-selecting register since people were saying they got right in when they did that. Every time I tried my wait was over an hour.

Yeah I was confused why people thought the 12:30pm people were getting right in. Were those people clicking register exactly at 12:30pm? I opened my browsers around 9:40am and they ranged from ~23 mins to over an hour. I did one closer to 12:30pm, but not right at 12:30pm and I didn't get a lower time.

 

[The Expert]

You'll all find this funny after today. DH is currently applying for a new job and has been looking at Disney openings. There is a job posting to head up what is basically Disney IT. Based on his experience watching (and helping) me register for Disney races and events over the last 20 years, he decided against applying even though he's immensely qualified. As he put it to me "there is something fundamentally wrong with the culture or directive on that team" considering they haven't fixed ANY of this that amount of time. They can't possibly have hired nothing but idiots, but it sure seems anyone with a good solution can't get it in place and either gets the boot or runs screaming.

 

[jpeterson]

You'll all find this funny after today. DH is currently applying for a new job and has been looking at Disney openings. There is a job posting to head up what is basically Disney IT. Based on his experience watching (and helping) me register for Disney races and events over the last 20 years, he decided against applying even though he's immensely qualified. As he put it to me "there is something fundamentally wrong with the culture or directive on that team" considering they haven't fixed ANY of this that amount of time. They can't possibly have hired nothing but idiots, but it sure seems anyone with a good solution can't get it in place and either gets the boot or runs screaming.

I would agree with your husband's assessment. There is clearly a culturally issue within the company that prevents fixes from getting done. It could be executives that don't value IT work or it could be a revolving door of contractors. But it would take a strong leader with lots of executive support to turn it around.

 

[stitchsnk]

Guess who got into 0 races
I was at the parks today and tried from 10-11 and then gave up and that stinks. I should have paid more attention.

 

[nekonekoneko]

Just to provide a counter piece of anecdotal evidence. I had 8 total tabs/devices open, including some from after the servers came up. The first tab I opened came in as my lowest in the queue by far.

I had 9 browser windows open on one computer. When the queue numbers opened, it was 7 in the lead, then 9 and 4. My first one was second to last. If I had just used one browser window, I would've missed out on everything!

 

[ckb_nc]

You'll all find this funny after today. DH is currently applying for a new job and has been looking at Disney openings. There is a job posting to head up what is basically Disney IT. Based on his experience watching (and helping) me register for Disney races and events over the last 20 years, he decided against applying even though he's immensely qualified. As he put it to me "there is something fundamentally wrong with the culture or directive on that team" considering they haven't fixed ANY of this that amount of time. They can't possibly have hired nothing but idiots, but it sure seems anyone with a good solution can't get it in place and either gets the boot or runs screaming.

As an It guy myself, I often wonder where Disney prioritizes their IT spend. How did Amazon even get into the cloud business? it had this extra capacity sitting around basically for the 6 weeks before Christmas they decided to rent out. Disney has to know today is the DAY for this site. Basic stress testing and capacity testing to ensure all the pipes are working is IT 101 stuff here. The site literally makes all of its money/revenue on a few days with Today being the literal Black Friday. The DVC site is not much better. Someone has some serious explaining ahead but this is how one loses one's job in IT fast.

 

[Barca33Runner]

It’s interesting to see all of the experiences. I had 5 windows open and this is when they were opened and my initial waits when things went live:

Computer, Chrome-1st in, barely after link went live initially at ~9:40. 2nd fastest wait at 49 minutes.
Phone-2nd in, just after Chrome. “More than an Hour”
Tablet-3rd in, just after phone. 26 minutes, quickly changed to 13 minutes. Link I eventually used
Computer, Edge-4th in, around 9:45. “More than an hour”
Computer, Chrome incognito-5th in, around 11:45 after website came back online. “More than an hour”

My mom and sister were in at the same time I was to start. My mom isn’t great with tech and only had a browser on her computer and one on her phone. Both were more than an hour so I chose to register her 5k when I did my registration. My sister had about 4 windows on different devices from what I gathered and her best was 42 minutes from one of the extra browsers she opened after the website came back online after 11:45.

Guess we ended up being luckier than we felt at the time. Five people and we all got the races we wanted. Now I have 8 months to continue preparing and to figure out a Monterrey Jack costume.

 

[Z-Knight]

I don't know if there is any rhyme or reason for the timing - I had 9 total windows open. One computer had 2 chrome (1 regular, 1 incognito), 2 firefox (1 regular, 1 incognito) and 1 edge (regular). A laptop on same network had 1 each of chrome, firefox and edge (regular) and finally a phone on cellular networked VPN'd to be in Miami - chrome browser.

All of these were opened initially before the start around 9:30am (EST) - 30 minute before first opening

In my case a majority opened with "over 1 hour" wait on them when the 12:30 EST opening came .....I also had some that were lkike 40 minutes, 30 minutes, etc....but one in particular caught my eye because it was "less than 1 minute". That was the one I used to login and it was my Chrome connection. I think that was pure dumb luck.. During Springtime Surprise I used a similar setup but had 2 phones on cellular then and the phones ended up having the better connection than my computer browsers - so it feels like it is just random.

 

[Joe90]

I opened a tab at 9:45 and it translated into over an hour when they got everything working.
I opened a new tab on a separate machine after they got everything working and I got a 50 min wait with the original tab still over 1 hour.
In the end, I got no race entries at all, everything was sold out by the time I got to log in.
Just for fun, I might just make a short youtube video about it. 3 and a half hours of runDisney race entry lottery. (I did video most of what happened.)

 

[mackel1994]

I decided to make a (what I knew would be useless) call to Run Disney to explain my situation (got up and waited in the queue from 11:45pm-2:30am Aus time - 9:45am-12:30pm eastern time) and that I had to give up and go to sleep so missed out. Also let them know that we were basing our entire trip to the US around the Marathon Weekend dates.
The lady I spoke to on the phone couldn’t have cared less and said they ‘didn’t know of any technical issues with the release’. When I asked if there was any way to get an entry she replied with “no”.
She couldn’t have sounded any less enthusiastic when she finished the call with “have a magical day”.

While I didn’t expect an outcome from the call, I also didn’t expect the rudeness and lack of sympathy either. Also, I find it very hard to believe she wasn’t aware of the technical dramas!

 

[dancingtodisney]

I have a question about the Marathon for anyone that has done it recently! The year I did it (2016) we made it to AK just after opening and Everest was open, we had to queue in the regular line but it was something we really wanted to do! Would love to hear more recent Everest experiences? Are they only opening the ride from park opening? I'm assuming with LL runners have to use the regular standby queue?

 

[luv2cheer92]

I have a question about the Marathon for anyone that has done it recently! The year I did it (2016) we made it to AK just after opening and Everest was open, we had to queue in the regular line but it was something we really wanted to do! Would love to hear more recent Everest experiences? Are they only opening the ride from park opening? I'm assuming with LL runners have to use the regular standby queue?

Everest was not open (down for refurb) this past January.

 

[lukemorenus]

When the random queue (finally) opened, I had 12 unique IDs active… coincidentally, the first one I opened (at 9:41 am) was the winner