Hello and welcome to my Dopey Challenge 2025 trip report! Read all the entries in this report here. Today we’ll be discussing some of my thoughts on the WDW Marathon Weekend race expo. Onward!
Normally one attends a runDisney race expo once, maybe twice. You grab your bib, of course, and then maybe go again to buy some running gear you forgot to pack. Maybe you have a newly complaining limb you’d like kineseo taped, or need to pick up merch you just can’t get out of your head.
Over the course of my Dopey Challenge weekend, I attended the race expo no less than four times. Once to get my bib, again when Kate arrived and to avail ourselves of our merch pass, again to keep Becky company while she got her half marathon bib, and again with Becky when she had to go back and get a new time chip. (If you’re not privy to that drama, the short version is that some bib chips across all races didn’t work, including every 10K chip. Some, but not all, runners were told to return to the expo for a new chip).
Needless to say I amassed a great many Thoughts and Opinions over the course of those four journeys. And being as I am me I will be sharing them with you now. Know catharsis; become a blogger!
HITTING THE RACE EXPO EARLY IS SO NOT WORTH IT…
Erika and I arrived fairly early on Wednesday morning. Being as picking up our bibs was the most pressing item on the docket, we headed straight to the race expo. Might as well knock it out early, right?
Wrong! The bib pickup line stretched down the main walkway, wound through the stadium, snaked through hallways and gymnasiums… From joining the line to finally entering the bib pickup room, it took us about an hour. After which we then faced ANOTHER line just to get into the exhibitor’s hall for shirt pickup.
To be clear, I’m not blaming runDisney for this. On the contrary, they did a wonderful job keeping the queue organized, and it moved consistently. It’s just that when we came back with Kate around 4:30pm, the line was nonexistent. We waltzed right into bib pickup.
This isn’t even necessarily exclusive to expo day one; I experienced something similar (although not AS bad) when picking up my bib on the last day of the Princess Half expo last year. I think it’s got more to do with how close you arrive to the time the expo opens. And I gotta say – while I’m pretty dang anxious, even I’m not that anxious. Next time I’ll come back later. 😅
…UNLESS YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT THE RACE MERCH
The only exception would be if you are determined to get your hands on the official race merchandise. Doubly so if you’ve got your eye on something specific.
Over the past couple expos, runDisney has implemented a virtual queue not unlike the one used for rides in order to access the race merch. This virtual queue is in place for most of the first day. Although unadvertised, Cast Members later told us the merch hall would open to everyone at 4:30pm.
I rarely arrive at the expo on the first day. In my ignorance, I was under the impression that that’s when most of the most coveted souvenirs sold out – you know, the first day. Not the first HOUR. Yet by the time I rolled into the merch area in the late afternoon,* all the most exciting items were completely gone. Not even a 4XL or XS to be had of the Dopey Challenge hoodies, varsity jackets, or some race weekend jackets.
* One more note: you can’t join the VQ until you’re a certain distance – I want to say 35 miles but my memory could be faulty – from WDW. I didn’t join until around 11:15am and my callback was 3ish… so you’ll also want to jump in the VQ as soon as it opens for a quick return time.
PREORDERING & MERCH PIRATES
To this you might say – well, Jenn, if you want the good merch, maybe you should preorder. And yeah, that did occur to me, but there are some deterrents. The preorder images are illustrations, and not always accurate. Disney sizing is notoriously inconsistent. I’d just rather hold it in my hands first, you know?
Now, some of this is a simple matter of supply and demand. However, I’m not convinced Disney is making much of an effort to improve supply, and I wish they would for our mutual benefit. Surely they can look at the previous years’ sales and see what categories of items and sizes did and did not sell? Maybe a few surveys and focus groups would enable them to zero in on the most popular items in advance?
Additionally, to my knowledge there are still no limitations on how many of most items you can buy, nor do you have to show a bib to make a purchase. I don’t know to what extent resellers remain a problem, but a quick scan of eBay shows quite a few new-with-tags race weekend items. Could be a variety of circumstances contributing to that, but still. Hmmm.
CLUB runDISNEY MEMBERS GET SPECIAL RACE EXPO MERCH ACCESS
Not a complaint; merely a notation. Club runDisney Platinum members receive a pre-expo opening shopping opportunity should you be a top-tier member, but that only helps you if you’re already on-site. Then again, if merch means that much to you, it might be worth it to arrive a day early… or even join to begin with. That’s your call to make!
Several days later, Becky and I were chatting with a Platinum member who said that the shop-op scene was a feeding frenzy, with the Dopey hoodies in particular vanishing in a hot second. He also noted that there was only one rack of varsity jerseys to begin with. So even as a Platinum member, you’ll want to be quick on the ball.
Becky also told me she talked to a woman who was returning to the expo because the generic, non-race runDisney merch had not been out during the Platinum shopping experience, only showing up with the Virtual Queue shoppers. You might want to take a second look.
MILEAGE PHOTO OPS SHOULDN’T BE WITH EXPO MERCH
You know the number photo ops? The ones with the mileage – 3.1, 6.2, 13.1, and then whatever challenge numbers? Those are generally set up in the same hall as the official race merch. That’s fine on a normal day, but when the race merch Virtual Queue is in place on day one, that’s the only way to access the building… which means you can’t access the photo ops unless you have a merch time slot.
I guess that might be by design, to keep lines down, but it still strikes me as unfair to those who only have a sliver of time to spare. I propose moving the numbers elsewhere where access is egalitarian – perhaps to the field between bib pickup and the exhibitor’s hall? You might still encounter a bib line, but you’d have to stand in that anyway.
Plus, with people peeling off for photos, the queue for the exhibitor’s hall would move faster. Sure, you’d need illumination at night and a rain plan (stadium promenade?), but in an ideal world you’d get better, natural light, too. The lighting in the merch area is abysmal!
RACE SHIRTS SHOULD BE DISTRIBUTED ELSEWHERE
While we’re shuffling things around, there’s another major expo element I’d like to relocate: race shirt pickup. We’ve pretty much always picked up our race shirts at the back of the exhibitor’s hall, which requires us to compete with the crowd browsing the vendors just to get back there.
But could shirt pickup be somewhere else? I guess the appeal is that it forces everybody to look over the vendor selection and hopefully make a purchase. Contrariwise, I have more than once left the hall because of overcrowding.
If we moved shirt pickup, the vendors would have more breathing room, and it would be a less harried experience. Everyone would be in a better mood, and I for one am more inclined to browse when I’m in a cheerful disposition. Maybe the stadium promenade would be a good alternative for the shirts?
A FEW MORE RANDOM RACE EXPO THOUGHTS
If you’re looking for free stuff, the race expo is the place to be. I noticed an uptick in giveaways this year. I wasn’t even actively looking for handouts, and I walked with stickers, vanilla wafer cookies, a velvet scrunchie, and a $10 Amazon gift card for testing a sports drink. That’s even if I don’t count the other free samples I noticed but didn’t snag. Willing to chat up some vendors? You could probably haul twice that.
Soft pretzels make a wonderful high carb pre-race snack. If the pretzel place on the top floor is busy, there’s a satellite stand on the hall floor (or anyway there was this time). They only really have regular pretzels, cheese sauce, and a couple drinks, but it does the job.
I also noticed quite a few vendors I didn’t recognize from previous expos. Should you have found yourself bored with previous iterations, it might be time to take another look – you could discover new treasures.
For my neurospicy friends: I personally find the expo can be overwhelming without a game plan. I like to make a little list in my head of the items I need and concentrate on that first. Any remaining psychic energy can then be spent on browsing. Drained? Don’t push; leave. You can always come back later! Even a quick break outside can help.
IN CONCLUSION
I don’t mean to bag on runDisney here as such. They run a complicated operation, and for the most part they run it very well. Sometimes mistakes are made; that’s life. Besides, I’m not an insider. For all I know they’re working feverishly to address all of the above, and I’m not privy to their machinations.
Nonetheless, quite of the few of the pain points I identify above are recurring – over the course of not just race seasons but years. Sometimes it takes a couple hundred (thousand?) words to make change. Just doing my part, folks. 😜
You do yours too! Anything you’d change about runDisney’s race expos?
Don’t forget, you can follow FRoA on Threads @fairestrunofall and on Instagram @fairestrunofall. If you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or email fairestrunofall@gmail.com. See ya real soon!