Early January?

[divinedi]

One of the CM's told me the quietest time now is the beginning of January, does anyone know if this is true? Also, do they close rooms, I've been trying to see if there is anything available and there is so little, worries me that it is actually busy!

Thanks!

[BrerGnat]

Well, I don't know how true that is the because the HUGE WDW Marathon event is at the end of the first week of January. Lots of people come down around Wednesday and stay through Monday of the following week. Then you have a holiday mid January. I would guess the END of January might be slower than the beginning.

[cer]

I agree, to a point. The WDW Marathon weekend is the first weekend after New Years. It draws a lot of people because it is the largest running event runDisney hosts and the only full marathon they offer. The running events begin on Wednesday (with the expo) the actual races are Thursday thru Sunday. All of the events are very early morning (they step off at 5:30 for the longer races - 6:30 for the 5K - and maybe the 10K) and begin and end in the Epcot Parking Lot. For that reason, you will be seeing a surge in folks in the resorts and wearing medals in and around the parks.

I have participated in two of these weekends and not really noticed a crazy amount of crowds in the parks. In fact, I feel as though the parks are pretty reasonable. The participants in the longer runs are going to be trying to save their steps for the events, and likely will not be hitting the parks in the same manner as they would if they were on a 'normal vacation'. They will be in the parks, but their primary purpose is the running event.

The way Disney structures these events, there is a Challenge Medal for completing them all, called the Dopey. You must arrive a day before the race starts to get your bib so that forces these participants to arrive on Wed and stay until Sunday. Depending on your budget, you may or may not stay past the Sunday marathon which means a lot of folks may depart on Sunday evening or Monday morning.

The participants of these events and the cheering families/strangers as well as the volunteers are a great bunch of people. Intercot will have people running and cheering at each of the events and it is a fun time to meet up with them.

I am writing all of this to let you know the logistics around early January bookings/crowds, but please do not be discouraged by this time of year. If you want to avoid it altogether, I suggest you arrive on Sunday afternoon the day of the marathon.

Good luck!