Tinkerbell Half Effect on Crowds & Hours

[DonnG]

Hi everyone, I'm planning a trip to DLR for the first time in many many years. I'm used to going to WDW, so I feel a bit out of my element. I just realized that the Tinkerbell Half Marathon is during the weekend we had planned for our trip.

Does anyone know how crowded the last race was? Are the park hours effected by the race at all? We only have the weekend for DLR and I'd really like to not have a ton of crowds or shortened hours. Any info would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Texas84]

I'm not a local so I'm not familiar with DLR crowds, but I thought Star Wars Half weekend was out of control crowded. Maybe that's just the way it is on a nice weekend.

And I don't think it was due to the runners. I didn't see a lot of guests in the parks wearing finisher medals. Judging by the traffic coming out of the garage a bunch of runners are local and they go home after running.

 

[TP2000]

Any weekend without rain (about 98% of weekends in SoCal) will be busy at Disneyland. The marathon events have become very popular and only bring in more crowds and fill up the hotels to max levels. The operating hours are usually changed those weekends and the parks open an hour later each morning.

You should also be aware the marathons take place on city streets surrounding the parks, and road closures and heavier traffic always result during the morning hours.

Unless you pick a rainy weekend in January or February, you will have peak crowds year round at Disneyland. It's a popular place. For instance, today it is raining in Orange County with over a half inch of rain expected and according to the official wait time app Disneyland and DCA are DEAD. Middle of the afternoon Racers has a 20 minute wait, Hyperspace Mountain is 30, Big Thunder is 10, Soarin' and Screamin' and Tower of Terror are five minutes or less, etc., etc.

Next weekends forecast is for sunny and 78 degrees, and those waits will all grow to 90 to 120 minutes easily.

 

[gsrjedi]

it was crowded during the Star Wars half marathon, but Monday was also a holiday so a 3-day weekend might have brought in extra as well.