Argh! This is like the not-so-good old days with the US runDisney races, when nobody was quite sure exactly when registration would open or where the link would be, and the site would constantly crash If you happen to get the link, would you mind sharing it?
The folks behind this Twitter are pretty reliable, but I'm still not sure I trust any unofficial source at this point. It really makes me wonder what's going on behind the scenes Given that we're less than 100 days from the event and people need to train for it, it's not like they have much time to change things
Yes, it's been a very interesting afternoon. Thank god I have an understanding boss who didn't mind that I sat there for an hour trying to refresh the website only to end up with nothing. Technical problems I can accept, but the lack of communication has been appalling. On a working day expecting people to have the time to sit around hoping it works is terrible. They should have put a message up as soon as the decision was taken to delay registration.
Sadly, I kind of expected something to go wrong. Granted, not this dramatic, but something. I'm pretty sure registration got pushed back at the last minute last year too. From what I remember, there was at a least a little advance notice (though less than 24 hours) and they gave us a new date in the announcement; this unexpected delay with no known replacement time/date is really frustrating. Especially since we're now less than 100 days from the event and people need to train for it, there's not a lot of time for them to keep pushing registration back In general, last year's pre-event information was pretty lacking. The course maps weren't even posted until a day or two before bib pickup began (rumors were that it was due to security of some kind, but that seems nonsensical, as they were still released several days before the actual races), and online information was generally lacking. I attributed it to the difficulties of doing an event like this for the first time, but it seems like they're falling into the same traps again. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me All that said, the events themselves were really well done last year once you were finally on site. It was mostly just the pre-event communication and coordination that was a mess.
It was postponed, but the only "official" recognition has come from the DLP Help Twitter. Nothing from the general DLP Twitter, nor runDisney nor runDisney France. They also haven't updated the website, which still promises that registration will open at 4pm Paris time on June 14
I'm not getting their newsletters, if you hear anything can you message me on Facebook and let me know? @dagobert, registration was indeed postponed.
I'm sorry to hear that. Hopefully it works the next time for you. That's so typical for today's DLP, especially with our own experiences recently at the resort. Information, like open restaurants, is hard to obtain at DLP. So I'm not surprised.
Sure, I'll keep you posted. Given the timing, I wouldn't expect it to open today, but I keep checking on it every now and then just to make sure
Thanks. I'm struggling to get on with my phone at the moment, but I don't expect it to be tonight either.
They're saying registration will open at 4pm Paris time today, which is in about 90 minutes if I'm doing the math correctly I'm glad we're getting some advance warning, but this still seems pretty disorganized
Phew! After nearly 4 hours of refreshing my browser, crashing pages, and re-entering information (not counting the hour-or-so I spent yesterday), I finally got registered! I'm in for all 3 races I think my new goal is to try to finish all the races in less time than it took to register. Depending what approach I take for the 5K (race it or enjoy it), it's either an entirely-achievable goal or a highly-likely one. It should be a fun twist!
I also got booked and because I had to work during the worst of the problems my registration was much easier than some others, but this has still been a nightmare. Anyway, training starts properly now. Is it ok if the first step is a massage?
For future reference to figure out how quickly everything sold out: Registration opened midday on Thursday Kid's races filled Thursday evening 5K filled overnight Thursday/Friday 10K & Challenge filled midday Friday At the moment, the Half Marathon standalone is the only race still open Considering all the technical difficulties with registration, I'm surprised the marquee races didn't sell out faster. You have to wonder how much worse it would have been if it were like the US races a couple years ago, when all 30,000+ registration spots for a race weekend would fill up in less than an hour. Seems like this had much slower web traffic and was still a disaster
Congratulations on the registrations. I can't believe that a company like Disney can't handle these registrations in a proper way.
Yesterday Disney released the medal designs for all the DLP races: The 5K medal looks suspiciously similar to the 10K+Half Marathon challenge from last year's Wine & Dine weekend. I thought it was a fairly simple medal compared to the other challenges, but it's really nice for the 5K. Assuming they followed a similar design approach, the flames glow in the dark!
I'm not terribly surprised. The US races had a ton of problems around 4-5 years ago, right as they were launching the runDisney brand (formerly the Disney Endurance Series, more clearly under WDW's Wide World of Sports division), which happened to coincide with a nationwide running boom. Disney's first problem was that its convoluted site made it difficult to find the actual link to registration, and easily crashed under modest traffic. They eventually got stronger servers (though the website is still terrible; DLP's is much more user-friendly) and began simultaneously posting the registration link on social media, allowing people to bypass their site completely The next problem that popped up was that registration was hosted on Active.com, which also does the registration for most medium-to-large US races, and their servers simply weren't set up to handle the crush capacity. Their biggest disasters were in 2012 when registration for the Chicago Marathon and Marine Corps Marathon completely crashed their servers 2 weeks apart (both races selling out in under 30 minutes, with about 40,000 and 25,000 runners respectively), causing both races to adopt a lottery for registration that's still in place 5 years later. Active has since set up a virtual queue system that actually works really well at managing traffic, but it took a loooong time to get there DLP's main problem was more similar to the Active issues. I'm not sure if they used their own registration system, or if it was a third party like Active, but it clearly wasn't designed to handle the traffic. This was further complicated by requiring everybody to create an account to register, but not allowing those accounts to be made prior to registration opened; if the personal information were pre-loaded, that would have saved several steps (this was the step that I repeated most often during my registration saga) None of the European races I've done have used Active.com, so I'm not sure if they operate over there. Disney's US races and Active finally have a good system worked out, but it took years of fiascos to get there Interestingly, registration for the half marathon by itself is still open
I wasn't sure about the 5K medal, but it's growing on me. I think it's the shape... I thought Lumiere was an odd choice as the others all show fairies and/or castles, but I guess we know why now. Given that my plan is to leave my medal at a cemetery I guess a candle is appropriate.
