Marathon Weekend 2025

[Cabius]

I never have issues with my WiFi with daily life - we can have multiple devices streaming at the same time without issue. But I feel like it HAS to be the WiFi, right? What else could possibly be so limiting over and over??

ETA: I should add that I never had any issues registering in the past, using iPad, laptop, or phone. Same WiFi performance? Who knows - Spectrum has a history of throttling to get people to pay more for higher speeds, so…

I don't think your wifi or choice of browser has any impact.

If what Disney said on the website is true, for those who entered the pre-queue before 10AM, we were all randomly assigned a place in the queue. Folks who jumped in at 9:50 didn't have an advantage over those who jumped in at 9:59. You are either in, or not.

Once you have a Queue ID, everything else about your progress is all managed internally within the RunDisney servers. Your QueueID is 11,317th in line, or whatever, and they keep track of moving it up until it's your time.

So it's rotten luck to have three or four devices with below-average randomized results, but assuming those pre-10AM IDs really are randomized as Disney says, I don't think using a different browser or changing wifi providers would make any difference.

 

[Barca33Runner]

I had the following - don't throw things at me:

Computer - on home Wifi (not VPN)
(2) Firefox: 1 regular, 1 incognito
(2) Chrome: 1 regular, 1 incognito
(2) Edge: 1 regular, 1 incognito
(2) DuckDuckGo: 1 regular, 1 incognito

Laptop - Work VPN
(2) Firefox: 1 regular, 1 incognito
(1) Chrome: 1 regular
(1) Edge: 1 regular

Phone, Android - on Express VPN
(1) Chrome: 1 regular

Mom's Phone, Apple, - Cellular, not VPN, not WIFI
(1) Chrome: 1 regular

Friend - NordVPN
(2) Firefox: 1 regular, 1 incognito
(2) Chrome: 1 regular, 1 incognito

I connected these are different times, a few at first Marathon link available (which was 9:45am eastern) then every 5 minutes I would open a couple more. I then waited for last one at 1 or 2 minutes after 10am.

They ALLLLLLLL started with "more than an hour". About 20 minutes into it only one of those changed to 58 minutes...and I was freaking the heck out. I then had one go to like 45 minutes, but then I was able to get a link from one of you (holy cow that saved me). I even had times go down for a few minutes and then they jumped back up a couple of times - that double freaked me out.

I had a very hard time managing my extra links and sending them to people, especially with the wait time limits that you can't make posts too quickly. It was hard to manage sending people links and making sure they get used as opposed to just lost - which is why I really need to get my butt in gear and make some link sharing system.

In the end, about half of those windows never changed to anything below "more than an hour", so I closed them. The ones that dropped down to reasonable values I tried to share as much as I could.

OK, I know you want to throw things at me, but understand I am desperate to have something in my life and Dopey is basically all I got. So I know I look like a jerk for having so many windows open, but not sure what life would be without Dopey and sadly I'm not perfect (in life nor in runDisney Dopey).

No need to apologize. It’s the system runDisney has set up. Until they change it, everyone is forced to adhere to the relatively silly behavior it encourages.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Aaaaaan flights down to MCO are booked. The points value was too good to pass up (13k points each, from a smaller regional airport with a short layover in Chicago) so now I just cross everything that they don't cancel THIS flight, because I know they will axe at least 2 they are currently offering.

 

[Kerry1957]

OK, I know you want to throw things at me

Disagree...I want to salute you! The current rD registration system encourages and incentivizes this "behavior". My DD and I each have around 8 browsers open and it is not unusual for only 1 or 2 of them to get a decent wait time.

Your sharing point is also valid; if we attempt to share good links, then we benefit the dis board community. It certainly could be argued that this hurts the "general community", but I'll leave that discussion for another day.

Congrats for another Dopey run, and I hope to see you at a HH or before race meetup!

 

[kps7795]

I had a t shirt issue when I signed my wife up. It wouldn’t let me pick a size and wouldn’t let me proceed without picking a size so I had to get out and get back in. Thankfully it didn’t sell out.

We had the same issue trying to sign up for the 2023 Wine and Dine Challenge. My wife was trying to sign our daughter and me up for the challenge and sign herself up for the 10K. Because of the shirt size snafu, the 10K had sold out before she could get to the payment page.

 

[Stitch&Co.]

I had 6 open across various devices. Fortunately, my laptop came through first and I got registered around 10:20. In for the 10K & Full. I only had one other screen start to move off the "more than an hour" so I offered that one up. Hope it worked. None of the others were moving so I closed them out hoping it might help somebody else move up.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Your sharing point is also valid; if we attempt to share good links, then we benefit the dis board community. It certainly could be argued that this hurts the "general community", but I'll leave that discussion for another day.

There are other communities that definitely share links; we are not the only ones that have figured this "hack" out.

 

[Z-Knight]

No need to apologize. It’s the system runDisney has set up. Until they change it, everyone is forced to adhere to the relatively silly behavior it encourages.

whats crazy is I had essentially 6 different connections that were spread over the entire country: 1 local wifi, 1 miami located vpn, 1 other vpn, 1 NASA vpn, 1 cellular and 1 friends house. Basically I was trying to spread myself out and maximize connection options but there is no rhyme or reason as to which connected first. I hope they don't institute a lottery though - because that is so hard to ever get into for other races. I mostly hope they open up the counts a bit more - I mean they had about 13000 finishers for the marathon (I think) this year, and there were years with races (like the half) having 20,000+. So I know they can handle more. Man today was stressful. lol

 

[Z-Knight]

Aaaaaan flights down to MCO are booked. The points value was too good to pass up (13k points each, from a smaller regional airport with a short layover in Chicago) so now I just cross everything that they don't cancel THIS flight, because I know they will axe at least 2 they are currently offering.

dang ... southwest has availability up till the day I need, Tuesday 7th for me. Oh well, gotta wait till april 25th

 

[Herding_Cats]

Group Costume, Anyone?​

During DATW this year, the idea of a group costume for one of the races for 2025 came up and generated some excitement with a few of us. So with that in mind, @The Expert and I would like to extend the invitation to anyone who might want to participate! It would be super fun to get a pre-race picture of all of us (at the morning meetup) and there is absolutely no obligation to run as a group. Right now we are thinking about doing this for the 10k, but are open to it being for another race.

We can either discuss ideas/execution in the main MW thread (here), we could start a new thread, or I could make a group DM for anyone who wants to participate.


Additionally, there's a birthday/unbirthday shirt proposal (On Birthdays We Run Marathons) out for the marathon.

 

[Naomeri]

Looking now because I like to check the temperature after things have settled and I'd describe it as "it could be worse". Seeing a few t-shirt complaints and the usual "I entered the queue at 9:55 why didn't I get to sign up for a race". One person saying it felt like signing up for a concert on Ticketmaster (true!).

At least with Ticketmaster, once you get in a grab a seat, they hold it for a few minutes while you enter your info

 

[PrincessV]

No need to apologize. It’s the system runDisney has set up. Until they change it, everyone is forced to adhere to the relatively silly behavior it encourages.

^This right here. I have NO issue with anyone who’s figuring out how to work this system and am very appreciative of the many who figure it out AND help others! I also wish rD would just go back to using Active, because while it was also chaos, it was a somewhat less chaotic chaos. Somewhat.

. I mostly hope they open up the counts a bit more - I mean they had about 13000 finishers for the marathon (I think) this year, and there were years with races (like the half) having 20,000+. So I know they can handle more.

I can’t believe I’m agreeing with this, but I am. Because even with reduced fields, the on-course crowding is every bit as bad as it was in the 20K+ deep field days. So if congested courses are going to be the norm, anyway, go ahead and open more slots and pack us in, I guess. My reversal on this topic is probably helped by the fact that I’ve gone from Slow to Really Slow But Not As Slow As The Sweep and a deeper field means more padding for my finish times, lol!

 

[Cabius]

I hope they don't institute a lottery though - because that is so hard to ever get into for other races.

I mean, they sort of did, right? Or at least, there was a lottery element to the sign-up process.

For those who entered the pre-queue before 10 AM Eastern, they assigned a spot in the queue randomly. So regardless of your browser or internet connection, once they had your details your place in the queue was assigned by lottery. (After 10AM, new entrants were assigned to the back of the queue.)

Now, that's not a true lottery, as the randomization only impacted those who were on top of it enough to be in the pre-queue holding room. If they shifted to a true lottery, you could have a much larger number of aspirants entering the lottery over a period of weeks (I'm thinking of my friends who tried to sign up a few months before, and were surprised to see it was already sold out). That would hurt the chances of those of us who are more aggressive about signing up.

Overall, I think the semi-randomization is nice, in that it levels the playing field for those of us who are really on top of it, especially those worried about wi-fi connections or browser types, while still avoiding the pitfalls and loss-of-control that comes with a full lottery system.

More capacity would definitely help more folks get in, though!

 

[Abbie485]

I had the following - don't throw things at me:

Computer - on home Wifi (not VPN)
(2) Firefox: 1 regular, 1 incognito
(2) Chrome: 1 regular, 1 incognito
(2) Edge: 1 regular, 1 incognito
(2) DuckDuckGo: 1 regular, 1 incognito

Laptop - Work VPN
(2) Firefox: 1 regular, 1 incognito
(1) Chrome: 1 regular
(1) Edge: 1 regular

Phone, Android - on Express VPN
(1) Chrome: 1 regular

Mom's Phone, Apple, - Cellular, not VPN, not WIFI
(1) Chrome: 1 regular

Friend - NordVPN
(2) Firefox: 1 regular, 1 incognito
(2) Chrome: 1 regular, 1 incognito

I connected these are different times, a few at first Marathon link available (which was 9:45am eastern) then every 5 minutes I would open a couple more. I then waited for last one at 1 or 2 minutes after 10am.

They ALLLLLLLL started with "more than an hour". About 20 minutes into it only one of those changed to 58 minutes...and I was freaking the heck out. I then had one go to like 45 minutes, but then I was able to get a link from one of you (holy cow that saved me). I even had times go down for a few minutes and then they jumped back up a couple of times - that double freaked me out.

I had a very hard time managing my extra links and sending them to people, especially with the wait time limits that you can't make posts too quickly. It was hard to manage sending people links and making sure they get used as opposed to just lost - which is why I really need to get my butt in gear and make some link sharing system.

In the end, about half of those windows never changed to anything below "more than an hour", so I closed them. The ones that dropped down to reasonable values I tried to share as much as I could.

OK, I know you want to throw things at me, but understand I am desperate to have something in my life and Dopey is basically all I got. So I know I look like a jerk for having so many windows open, but not sure what life would be without Dopey and sadly I'm not perfect (in life nor in runDisney Dopey).

(Please don’t throw things at me either…)

A quick report on what worked for me. I had the following:

iPhone Safari: 1 Regular, 3 Private
iPad Safari: 1 Regular, 3 Private
Laptop:
Safari - 1 Regular, 3 Private
Chrome - 1 Regular, 3 Private

I joined two of the Regular Browsers approx. 9:45am when the marathon box opened, and the other two at about 9:55am from the Dopey box. (Don’t know if it makes a difference) And same for the Private browsers, except for the 3rd of each where I joined right at 10am.

Everything showed over an hour until about 10 minutes in, then a few on my windows started dropping. (I first noticed the status bar move, then the time remaining adjusted) I got in first with the 9:55am Private Laptop Safari around 10:20am, then Private iPhone Safari and Private Laptop Safari around 10:35am, and Regular Laptop Chrome around 10:55am. The rest I shared or lost track of, but some didn’t move below more than an hour.

I really think everything you join prior to 10am is the luck of the draw, with the Private browsers seeming to move fastest. I also ran a test run during W&D and had similar luck with Private Safari Browsers.

 

[garneska]

@Herding_Cats personally for the group costume i would make that a separate thread. Things get lost and that will be pretty specific stuff.

I am not a costume person but i might be interested if i have the creative folks helping me out.

 

[intamin]

Did anybody else struggle using the mobile site? I got in on my phone first but when I tried to add other people, it wouldn't allow me to select a freaking T shirt size for the other people I was adding and also would not allow me to select the race I wanted them to join. Luckily we were all doing the half marathon so I managed to get in on a desktop afterwards but jeez it was stressful putting in the information. Also when I finally went and got it on my desktop, I apparently didn't select my own T shirt size.. and had to re-enter everyone's information all over again

 

[Grabnar]

(Please don’t throw things at me either…)

A quick report on what worked for me. I had the following:

iPhone Safari: 1 Regular, 3 Private
iPad Safari: 1 Regular, 3 Private
Laptop:
Safari - 1 Regular, 3 Private
Chrome - 1 Regular, 3 Private

I joined two of the Regular Browsers approx. 9:45am when the marathon box opened, and the other two at about 9:55am from the Dopey box. (Don’t know if it makes a difference) And same for the Private browsers, except for the 3rd of each where I joined right at 10am.

Everything showed over an hour until about 10 minutes in, then a few on my windows started dropping. (I first noticed the status bar move, then the time remaining adjusted) I got in first with the 9:55am Private Laptop Safari around 10:20am, then Private iPhone Safari and Private Laptop Safari around 10:35am, and Regular Laptop Chrome around 10:55am. The rest I shared or lost track of, but some didn’t move below more than an hour.

I really think everything you join prior to 10am is the luck of the draw, with the Private browsers seeming to move fastest. I also ran a test run during W&D and had similar luck with Private Safari Browsers.

On weekends I don’t charity run I open about 10-15 private windows on a giant monitor instead of multiple devices.

That said I’m in for Dopey with Dragon Master, about 1/2 way to my goal

 

[RunWI1265]

OK, I know you want to throw things at me, but understand I am desperate to have something in my life and Dopey is basically all I got. So I know I look like a jerk for having so many windows open, but not sure what life would be without Dopey and sadly I'm not perfect (in life nor in runDisney Dopey).

not a jerk!! We all do it! And sometimes we are the lucky ones who get in early and then share links. And sometimes we are the ones who need the help. As long as the system is set up for these shenanigans we will do it and don’t feel bad about it!

I was lucky this time and got in instantly. I couldn’t believe it. Same strategy as always, which in the past has left me watching the minutes tick by and hoping nothing sells out. I truly think it’s luck and doesn’t matter if you’re on WiFi or whatever browser you pick.

Registration was the last thing I needed. I already have my resort and flights booked! Dopey #4!

 

[2DisPrincesses]

Did anybody else struggle using the mobile site? I got in on my phone first but when I tried to add other people, it wouldn't allow me to select a freaking T shirt size for the other people I was adding and also would not allow me to select the race I wanted them to join. Luckily we were all doing the half marathon so I managed to get in on a desktop afterwards but jeez it was stressful putting in the information. Also when I finally went and got it on my desktop, I apparently didn't select my own T shirt size.. and had to re-enter everyone's information all over again

Yup. Exactly what happened to me on my phone

 

[azrivest]

We can either discuss ideas/execution in the main MW thread (here), we could start a new thread, or I could make a group DM for anyone who wants to participate.

Please include me!