Hosed at the Disney Half
Race Report: Walt Disneyworld Half
Marathon
Orlando, Florida
January 7, 2001
I entered this race the previous April,
and with great anticipation I was looking forward to enjoying the Disney theme
parks once again. Disney does many things well, but my half-marathon experience
seemed to be fraught with inconsistencies. Disney has developed such an
untouchable reputation -- almost like a secular religion -- that it is
difficult not to sound like a hardened cynic when one criticizes them. However,
at the risk of speaking heresy, I came away from the Disney Half Marathon
feeling like a cog in a vast money-sucking corporate operation.
I flew to Orlando from Baltimore on the
Friday before the Sunday race. In order to get to Orlando early enough to spend
the day at one of the attractions, I booked a 6:30 AM departure. That meant
waking up at 3:30 AM, which was enough of a shock to my circadian rhythms that
I was tired for the next few days. I was able to deplane in Orlando, get a
rental car, and make my way out of the airport by 9:30 AM, so that part of the
plan worked reasonably well.
I met my sister Peggy, her husband Steve,
and their four children at the entrance to the Universal Studios theme park. We
had an enjoyable day there, and the park is a manageable size so that we could
go to most of the rides within a few hours, including Back To The Future,
Twister, a trained animal actor show, and other less memorable ones.
In the evening we checked into the All
Star Movies Resort on the Disneyworld properties. At least we tried to. As
everything at Disney that weekend, this entailed standing in line for 20
minutes or so before we could talk to a clerk. The Disney registration service
had inexplicably canceled the reservation for my room (without notifying us)
because (they said) it was not paid in full. My confirmed reservations in
writing on Disney letterhead and a paid $200 deposit were of no avail. It was
11:00 PM before they managed to cancel the first reservation, laboriously
rebook it, and get me into another room. While the All Star “resorts” had big
pools and nice public and outdoor areas festooned with fun three-story-tall
Disney characters, the rooms were cookie-cutter cheap and tiny motel rooms with
no amenities but Disney posters. No blow-dryer, no little shampoo bottles, no
coffee maker, and surcharges on every phone call.
While waiting to get the room reservation
straightened out (without success) we went to our dinner reservations at Mickey’s
Grill at the Contemporary Resort. That was a fun meal with a huge buffet and
abundant Disney characters coming to the tables for photo ops. I was able to
teach my young nephews the best use of large black olives: stick one on the end
of each finger and wiggle them around.
The next morning we went to the Disney
sports complex to pick up our race packets and go shopping at the race expo.
With crowds and parking just doing that entailed a lot of walking, and the expo
was quite small for a race of 14,000 runners. We were extremely disappointed in
the race T-shirts: a plain, 10% polyester long-sleeved gray shirt, with only a
small Donald Duck half marathon symbol on the left chest, a sponsor’s name
emblazoned along the sleeve -- but no year, no date, no nice graphics, no
nothing. Cheesy and cheaper than anything you would expect at any local race.
If you want a nice race T-shirt at Disney, don’t expect to get it with your
race entry -- you have to pay extra and BUY another one.
My nephew was collecting information for
a 4th-grade report on the marathon, and so my brother-in-law took
him to interview some of the race staff and learn all about the details of
planning the event. One of the race coordinators spent a huge amount of time
with them, patiently answering all his questions and explaining about all the many
details it takes to organize such a huge event. They earned our appreciation
and a warm thanks for taking time out of a very busy day to help out a curious
kid doing a class assignment.
In the next afternoon (after spending
another hour attempting to resolve the motel booking problems) I took my
5-year-old niece around the Magic Kingdom. That’s exactly the right age for
Fantasyland, and despite long bus rides and enormous lines, we had a fun time
going on the old tried-and-true rides: the carousel, It’s A Small World, Peter
Pan, Sleeping Beauty, and so on. The boat trip across the lagoon and the train
around the Magic Kingdom ended up being more fun than any of the rides. For
lunch I bought her an enormous roasted turkey leg in Frontierland and passersby
were amused watching her attempt to consume an object nearly larger than her
head. Unavoidably, we did a lot of walking too, many miles more than I had
hoped on the day before a race.
Getting back to the pre-race carboload
dinner was a lengthy operation too: after allowing 45 minutes for the trip, I
was informed by the Disney transportation desk that no buses went directly to
the sports complex from either the Magic Kingdom or the Transportation Center.
We ended up taking a boat to the Wilderness Resort, and then taking the bus
around to four other resort stops before we could straggle into the dinner very
late.
I had been looking forward to the
pre-race dinner, as well B the only reason that we stayed on Disney property
was because it was required to get tickets to the carboload meal. Fortunately
my exhausted niece and I were able to quickly rendezvous with my sister’s
family and meet with a bunch of fellow Penguins and Connectors at the dinner. I
was very disappointed by the dinner itself, however: staged as a mass
production in a huge dark tent outside, basic salad and pasta with only water
to drink and no dessert. NO DESSERT!? What could they have been thinking? The
dinner cost more than the character dinner the previous night and the food was
less than half as good.
We tried to make an early night of it and
fortunately, after all the walking we did, it wasn’t difficult to get to sleep!
The difficult part came again at 3:30 AM when I had to get out of bed, get
dressed, and get out to the bus for a 4:00 AM departure to the race start. The
last bus was due to depart the motel at 4:30 even though the race wasn’t
scheduled to start until 6:00 AM, 90 minutes after the last bus. I had laid out
all my clothes the night before so I was able to quickly put on my warm running
tights, my shoes with Championchip already attached, throw on a Coolmax
turtleneck, another shirt over that, a vest, and then buckle on my waistpack.
The finishing touch on my race outfit was a large fluffy pink and white silk
flower lei B to wear for fun and as part of my training for the Maui Marathon
which I will attempt to run in March. I was out the door and had plenty of time
on the bus ride to eat my PowerBar and banana breakfast.
Usually at race starts I am a little
excited, nervous, and full of simultaneous eagerness and dread at the prospect
of a long hard effort. When we arrived at the Disney race staging area, all I
felt was cold and overwhelmed. It was about 32 degrees and everyone was chilled
to the bone. People were packed shoulder-to-shoulder and we were forced through
a checkpoint to wait for an exceedingly long time squeezed into one fenced
corral, then we were finally released to walk a half-mile to go through another
checkpoint to be squeezed into the start corral. The Penguins with pink hats
managed to find each other and the rookery huddled together in the dark for
warmth. The course was divided into two huge sets on either side of a divided
roadway: the faster group with blue race numbers, and us in the back of the slowest
part of the other group with red race numbers.
The long-awaited starting festivities
began with a few fireworks and the surprise of Sorcerer Mickey being raised and
spotlighted on a cherrypicker on a bridge over the crowd. He made some
prerecorded comments over the loudspeakers and hammed it up a bit, but it was
fun, it was Disney. Then there were a few more fireworks and we slowly started
off from the last corral of the slowest runners, about 20 minutes after the
race had been supposed to start. More than two hours of standing around in the
cold and dark and trying to simply get to the starting line took their toll on
everyone B we were all tired before we even began the race!
I had agreed to stay with my sister for
this race for us to take photos together, while her husband ran on ahead with
the “fast” people. At first in the race it was difficult to stay together,
since it was extraordinarily crowded and very dark, despite many huge banks of
lights set up with generators along the roadways. We had decided to take it
easy on the course and alternated jogging segments with walk breaks.
The course began with two miles along a
highway and then turning into Epcot just as it was beginning to get light, with
the huge glowing ball as a beacon, still adorned with the year 2000 numbers
along the side. Unfortunately on our course we were only permitted to run
straight into Epcot to the lake and then immediately turn out again on an
access road, without running past any of the nation exhibits. That was a big disappointment
for many people who had looked forward to “running the countries” in the
prettiest area of Disneyworld.
That brief taste of Epcot gave way to
seven full miles of totally unappealing highways between miles 3 and 10. Disney
had promised entertainment along the route, but all we had was canned music
from loudspeakers, a dopey comedian making remarks into a microphone at a
couple of places and wooden cutout characters along the roadway. The water
stops were very well-staffed by cheerful Disney employees, though. Our course
had several sections of very long slanting ramps, which made for difficult
running, along with a couple of fairly steep ramps. An armadillo roadkill near
the Contemporary Resort added a little local flavor. One of the monorail cars
slowed down above our heads to watched and we waved and motioned for the riders
to come join us. We passed one pond next to the road where a group of ducks all
had their tails in the air, feeding, and I made some of the other runners laugh
by commanding, “Butts up, everyone!”
On the way into the Magic Kingdom a
couple of employees were showering runners with “pixie dust” - that is,
Mickey-shaped confetti. That gave us a fun boost after a long boring spell --
we should remember this when we support other runners at races! We stopped for
a few sprays and kept a few pieces as souvenirs in our waistpacks.
Immediately upon entering the Magic
Kingdom along an access road we came upon Mickey and Minnie offering photo ops.
We stopped and got our picture taken with each, by helpful staffers with both
of our cameras. Then we wandered on down Main Street USA, which was just
starting to fill with tourists and race spectators. Somehow Main Street never
seemed so short before, it went by in a flash! We turned right into
Tomorrowland and took a few more photos with Sleeping Beauty’s castle as a
backdrop. Then we rounded a corner and who should be waiting there but one of
our heroes, Buzz Lightyear! We stopped for another quick photo and went on. I
realized later that Disney had to position the characters in odd spots so that
they would be available to the runners and not mobbed by tourists. However,
there were lots of closed-off roads that they could have done this on, long
before Mile 10!
We came out through the front gate of the
castle. I had expected to see official race photographers there, but I never
saw any the entire race. I don’t know if they were anywhere on the course. We
exited on another access road out the back of Frontierland. That was followed
by an interesting view of the parade float storage area and a water stop. After
that there were some more wooden cutout characters and some partial bodies of
characters inflated along the roadside, apparently leftovers from the parade
supplies. That was the sum of the real entertainment on the half-marathon
course, a few characters between Mile 10 and Mile 11!
The last 2 miles were along Disney
backroads, very quiet, non-scenic, and we were getting quite tired and footsore
by this time. We walked most of the last two miles, but we thought our time was
fine, we would be getting to the finish right around 3 2 hours. Just as we got
to Mile 13 they moved the cones along the road to herd all the remaining
runners into the half-marathon chute. They had completely cut off the marathon
participants from finishing, which was quite a devastating surprise to some
tearful would-be Team In Training and Team Diabetes marathoners. After the
finish line we all got awarded our Donald Duck medals, and went through a food
tent one way in assembly-line fashion to get some Powerade and a muffin and
piece of fruit. Later we found out that they had apparently turned off the
timing clock just before we crossed the finish line, since we were not reported
in the results, but should have had a chip time of about 3:37. That was fine
with us, a 16:24 pace, having walked and taken pictures along a lot of the
route, but I just wish I had known I had to go just a minute or two faster over
13.1 miles to get an official time!
The medals are huge, heavy, and sparkling
gold color (a Donald head for the half marathon and a Mickey for the full
marathon), and the ribbons are heavyweight and embroidered with a pattern and
the year. However, the medals are not dated, so while many people return to get
the other medal, there is no incentive to return to the same race for another
medal, since aside from the ribbon they will be identical. Again, this felt a
bit like being part of a mass-production effort.
Going anywhere after the race finish
again entailed either a long bus ride or long tired walk (we trudged over to
the Transportation Center and caught the monorail for Epcot). The marathon
finish was at Epcot so it was quite an effort to get over there for the finish
of other runners. My sister and I had plans to meet up with her husband (who
had finished the race over an hour before we did) over at Epcot, but again he
had a long delay on the buses and we sat around over an hour waiting for him.
We felt too tired to spend another $50 each to get into Epcot when we didn’t
have energy to go see any of the attractions. It seemed to us that Disney
should have provided free park admission that day to runners with a number and
medal. They certainly made plenty of money off of us at other times! We set the
kids loose in Epcot and went back to the nearest place we could think of, the
Contemporary Resort for a huge post-race meal.
Finally in late afternoon I went back to
my room. My sister and brother-in-law had checked out of their rooms, so they
cleaned up in my room and then headed out to pick up the kids and head back to
the airport for their flight home, in order to get back to work and get the
kids back in school on Monday morning. I simply rolled over and went to sleep,
and didn’t wake up until about 7:00 AM the next morning! I had missed a planned
dinner Penguin rendezvous, but I think that I was tired and out-of-synch enough
that I just needed the rest.
My trip home was uneventful. I was
somewhat sore in the leg muscles for a couple of days afterwards, but
fortunately didn’t have any residual joint pain. I felt sufficiently good to
get out for a slow four-mile jog on Wednesday, so I’m in good shape to get back
on the road to training for my next few races: the Myrtle Beach Marathon and
the B&A Trail Half Marathon in February, and the Maui Marathon in March, 2
days after my wedding!
I kept track of my costs, more or less,
for *one* person to go to
Disneyworld for the Half Marathon. YMMV, and these numbers are inexact, but I
think it would be very difficult to spend much less without staying
off-property, driving to Orlando, and/or not buying a Disney entry ticket at
all.
$ 35 Half Marathon Entry (marathon is $70)
$183 Flight to
Orlando (RT from Baltimore)
$ 28 Airport parking
at home
$142 Orlando car rental (includes $5 gas), 4 days
$ 22 Pasta dinner (which sucked B in a tent outside, only water to
drink, and no dessert)
$100 2 days park entry tickets, minor miscellaneous
$ 40 Other very minimal meal & souvenir expenses
$270 Cheapest Disney property lodging, 3 nights (All Star Resorts)
(necessary to get official pasta dinner ticket)
$820 Total
My advice is to THINK HARD about going to this race if you’re on a
tight budget. It’s a LOT to pay for a short mile or two of running through the
Magic Kingdom! If you want to take the kids to Disney, you’re probably better
off going some other time and not being distracted by all the crowds and delays
associated with the race! If you want to race, you can probably go to at least
two or three other major races for the cost of this one!
Nancy Deuel
(2001
WDW Half Marathon Finisher)
