Honestly, this is a legitimate problem with RunDisney events. We're pretty fast runners, so we've never had this problem, but we've stood in long lines that only got longer as the back corrals caught up. If you're not familiar, not only do slower runners take longer on the runs (and thus have less time to wait in line to begin with) but they start later. You might reasonably think you should start the slower runners first so everyone finishes at the same time, but this is a HUGE safety hazard.

Point: There are better solutions!

There are a few solutions to this that are better than eliminating characters altogether. The most obvious is to have more characters. When we ran the 10K in January, lots of people stopped for Darkwing Duck. We didn't. We knew we'd have to apportion our time, and we chose to use it elsewhere. You could even just give people a limit - 4 character stops and they're done!

A better solution would be to implement a more sophisticated scheme. For example, your first two character stops are X and Y. X is not out for the first hour of the race. At some point, the line for Y is cut off, and A is inserted (slightly earlier on the course). People who don't get to see X get to see Y, and vice versa. This is a crude example I came up with off the cuff, but some scheme like this should help.

An option I like less is to have character stops as some sort of up-charge. Either some or all characters could be on this. Or some number of photos.

To be clear, I don't LOVE these options, but it's hard to say they're worse than having no character stops at all.

So What Should Disney Do?

This is tougher to decide. RunDisney gave refunds for the cancelled half marathon in January, which by the terms of most races, including that one, they are not required to do. Is a failure to provide characters a refund-worthy event? I don't really think so. I think something along the lines of a 20% discount on park tickets or future race registration is appropriate.

Most importantly, though, RunDisney needs to apologize. I've been most disheartened to not see them even acknowledge that this product was beneath their standards. Speak up, show that you understand your customers' complaints, and make it right!

What do you think? Legitimate gripe, or spoiled Disney runners?