Marathon Day Sun Jan 8th What Park?

[disneyfan328]

Still doing some research for a possible upcoming trip in Jan 2012 and our arrival date is on the 8th but we will be getting into orlando airport around 9:00am so I figure by the time we get to our hotel etc it will be 10-10:30ish which still leaves plenty of time to hit a park for the day.

My question is which park to go to? I heard that most of the marathon stuff is at epcot but that the race runs through all the parks. I also read something about skipping MK on monday as it will be the most crowded. Is that the case? What is MK like on Marathon Sunday?

[lwith58]

My family arrived on Marathon Day for our trip this past January. By the time we got checked-in and ate lunch we got to MK after lunch around 1PM or so. We like to go to MK on arrival day and I was worried about the crowds too but it really was not bad at all. We did some shopping, a few rides, then took a boat over to WL for dinner at Whispering Canyon and went back to MK until close. It may have been the busiest day the entire week but still very manageable.

[ibelieveindisneymagic]

The marathon will be starting to wind-down by 10am, so you can pretty much choose what park you want, although I would still avoid Epcot, since it is where the race starts and ends, and is the most busy.

We went to DHS last year, and there wasn't much impact of the marathon on the crowds at all. MK will be a bit busier, if cheering fans choose to head to the park that day, but it isn't crazy.

We did have some transport delays to the MK and Epcot on both marathon and 1/2 marathon day, but nothing we couldn't handle, although some other guests were getting very frustrated (and loud), so plan for it to take a bit longer than usual.

[WDWCrazyKaren]

The last two trips have been over Marathon weekend for us. We loved the weather!

We found that MK and Epcot were the busiest parks. It seems like each runner brought their entire extended family with them, and they all went to MK! It was extra-super-double crowded!

We found DHS to be just perfect on Marathon day. Not busy at all.