Marathon Weekend...need a rental car?

[BrerGnat]

Okay, what's the consensus on this?

How is transportation to:

-The Expo
-The spectator areas (for those of us cheering)
-The Resorts

Should we have a car? Or, will it be more of a hassle?

Are runners allowed to drive themselves to the race start (for the 10K)?

Is traffic so awful that having a car will be nothing more than a hassle?

We (husband and I) will be running the 10K. I will be cheering him on for the Half. I am not sure if we should plan to rent a car or just use DME and rely on Disney transportation.

[Melanie]

You probably know how I feel about having a car at WDW, as I'm almost always in favor of it. But for Marathon Weekend, we normally let Disney do the driving. They are very efficient getting racers and spectators where they need to be, and every Disney hotel during Marathon Weekend provides transportation. The only exception may be to go out to the Expo, as we have been known to drive, but buses are readily available for that as well.

You can drive yourselves, and I've seen some times worse than others. The one that sticks out is last year's Princess Half. Traffic was really backed up and my friends from Tampa were caught in it for a bit.

Roads close around 5am, I believe, so you'd have to be where you are going by then. Of course, you really should be in or near your corral by then.

[cer]

At the 2013 Marathon weekend we used Disney transportation and did not have any problems.

Going to the races and back home to the resort was no problem. The only real congestion we saw was at the Expo and it was nice to just sit in the bus and not worry about it. It was slow and go, but we would have been in the same traffic had we driven our own vehicle.