Whew, it’s stressful out there in runDisney registration land lately!
Yesterday I jumped into the Annual Passholder presale virtual queue for next year’s Star Wars Rivals Half Marathon (take two). I won’t leave you in suspense: I made it! I’m registered! Hooray!
But holy guacamole, getting in was anxiety-inducing. Although anecdotal evidence suggests that the order to get through to the purchase page is randomized, I bounced into line as soon as it showed up around 9:50am. A couple minutes later, just to be safe, I fired up my phone too.
And then I watched the little waiting room spinner go round and round and round and round and…
I don’t know if runDisney is still limiting the number of bibs released to allow for social distancing if needed, but as each minute ticked by I got more and more nervous. I’d say my phone probably got through around 10:14am, and I was v. relieved to see that not only was the half still available, only the challenge by itself was sold out.
I FLEW through the registration process and a couple minutes later I was the relieved recipient of a confirmation email. (I can’t remember if I’ve already mentioned this tip, but: as you know, if you don’t move fast enough, a race could literally sell out while you’re putting in your credit card info. One way to speed up the process is to skip putting in your proof of time and making any decisions about merchandise add-ons. After you’ve registered, you can go back into your account and edit those things at your leisure.)
Out of curiosity, I let my computer continue to run the virtual queue screen, just to see how long it would take to get in. It finally came to the registration screen at 10:22am, 8 minutes later. If I hadn’t also busted out my phone… it would’ve been fine. The half was still available. In fact, it was the same setup as before – everything but the bare challenge.
I checked back later around 10:35am and the only additional things that had sold out at that point were the half+virtual and challenge+virtual. And then I kinda got distracted so I can’t give you very precise timestamps after that, but I can tell you by 11:20am everything was gone but the 5K, oddly enough.
So yeah. The challenge is a, um, challenge to get through to fast enough, but it seems like most of the other races don’t require the level of nerves I historically apply to the process. But I guess each registration day is different.
If you’re gunning for public signups on Tuesday, I say to you: qapla’!
…
….what?
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| No, seriously, what? |
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