Hi Elizabeth,
Welcome back to planDisney and thank you for asking us another great question! I’m lucky enough to be able to participate in almost every
runDisney race weekend, so I completely understand your concern about the impact that my fellow runners and I will have on crowd levels at the Disney Parks.
Although crowd levels can be hard to predict, I’d be surprised if the crowd levels during this year’s Springtime Surprise Race Weekend will have a significant impact on your family’s Disney Day. First, most runDisney races start at Silly O’Clock in the morning (usually around 5 am) specifically in order to avoid disrupting Theme Park operations, especially at
EPCOT, which is where the races start and finish.
Second, and more specifically in your case, the race on Sunday, April 16th is the
Disney Pixar Toy Story 10 Miler. This is a slightly shorter distance than a half marathon (13.1 miles) or even the full marathon in January (26.2 miles) which means that it should be over more quickly. If you arrive at EPCOT when it opens, the biggest impact you’ll see will be that some walkways are a little more congested than usual for about an hour or so to allow the final runners to make their way to the finish line (which is located outside of the park in the EPCOT parking lot), but even that should be largely done by 10 am.
In short, I don’t recommend switching your EPCOT visit to another day, just because of the race. If you do decide to switch your
Theme Park Reservation to another day, please bear in mind that there is a 5K race on the Friday and a 10K race on the Saturday, and both start and stop in EPCOT’s parking lot. Again, based on past experience, I don’t foresee major impacts to non-running Guests for those races, either.
Please don’t hesitate to come back and see us if you have any other questions!
Have a Magical Day,
Lynne