My fellow runDisney enthusiasts, are you ready to have your minds blown?
My first runDisney race – and in fact my first race ever – was the 2013 Princess Half Marathon, which took place as it always has in late February. Would you like to know when I registered?
NOVEMBER 11, 2012. NOVEMBER 11. REALLY. I just went to the website, registered, and got a bib. It simply was not sold out yet. I know – I can hardly believe it myself!
Admittedly, runDisney bib demand seems to wax and wane; for a year or two before the pandemic, many races weren’t instant sellouts anymore. Post-pandemic, however, it’s definitely a competitive game. If you’re not right there on registration day, entering the queue in advance of the drop time, there’s an odds-on chance you’re not getting in that race.
Not that there aren’t alternatives, of course. It used to be that travel agents could distribute bibs at their discretion, but I am reliably informed that’s not a thing anymore. Your best bet is to run for a charity, although that does mean you’ll need to earn your bib through fundraising. Sometimes those fundraising minimums can be pretty hefty.
I find I don’t like gunning for a charity bib, not because I’m against philanthropy, but because it feels like too much pressure – I’d rather contribute to the fundraising of others and buy a low-key bib outright. Which means that I either have to jump on all my runDisney races on d-day at h-hour or let go of that running dream, right?
Not necessarily. There is a secret third option. It is a bit stressful in its own right. It requires a combination of preparation, savvy, perseverance, flexibility, and luck. See, runDisney does continue to release additional race bibs… slowly… possibly one at a time?
Which is how I registered for the 2024 Princess Half Marathon on December 18, 2023. Let me tell you how I did it.
REGISTERING FOR A SOLD OUT RUNDISNEY RACE, STEP ONE: SET YOURSELF UP WITH ALERTS
Basically what we’re gonna do here is follow the Team runDisney instructions and use their tools, so you could argue this blog post is redundant. However, when I posted to my Instagram that I’d registered for Princess in mid-December, I fielded multiple comments that all amounted to “How did you do that??? I see it as sold out!!!” And I’d hate to be accused of gatekeeping.
Okay, first things first: unless you want to sit on the runDisney race site and refresh every single minute possibly forever, you’ll need a bot. The Team runDisney race availability bot is constantly scanning the official runDisney website, and the second a new bib gets dropped, it alerts various message/social media platforms. You can choose to receive alerts via Twitter,* Slack, Discord, and something called Telegram. Find your favorite and sign up for your preferred channel at this link.
* No one calls it X.
I don’t really use Discord, I don’t have Slack, and I don’t even quite know what Telegram is, so I went with Twitter. I’ll be employing this as a working example for the remainder of this post, not only because it’s what I personally used but because I think it is the most ubiquitous of the choices. If you select a different system, Team runDisney provides instructions for each, and the general strategy should be about the same.
Anyway, to get runDisney race alerts via Twitter, follow the race availability bot here. Step one = done!
STEP TWO: PUSH NOTIFICATIONS
I’m very choosy when it comes to push notifications; I just don’t feel like apps need to blow up my phone nearly as much as they seem to. However, in this case, your success counts on how quickly you can jump on the runDisney site. You absolutely cannot be caught slacking. As you’ll come to see, every second counts!
Therefore you’re going to need to set up push notifications for the runDisAlerts Twitter account, so that you can gallop over to the registration page the second the bot fires. Myself, I only wanted push notifications for this single account and nothing else from Twitter.
To accomplish this, I first clicked the little bell icon at the top of the runDisAlerts Twitter account profile. This activated notifications for the account; now every time runDisAlerts tweets – and the account only ever tweets about availability changes – it shows up in my notifications feed. You can see the bell icon to the left of the “Following” indicator.
This wouldn’t do anything for push notifications, though. To activate that, access Settings & Support in your Twitter/X app. Youou can set up notifications in your browser and/or your phone, but I think you’ll need to do each separately if you want both; they don’t cross over.
All right, so you’re in your phone’s Twitter app, and you’re in Settings & Support. Hit Settings & Privacy, then Notifications, then Preferences, then Push Notifications (SMS and Email are also an option). Tab the slider for Posts. As you’ll see noted in this screen, this will only push tweets from accounts you have elected to receive notifications about. We did that in step one. Step two is now done!
OPTIONAL STEP THREE: PRESET THE REGISTRATION FORM WITH AUTOFILL
You could just sit back, wait for those notifications to come through, and jump on registration as soon as you receive an alert. You could do that, and it might work. If you’d like to increase your odds, though, you can use an autofill script. (Note that I myself only tried this in my Chrome browser, so while I would get the notifications on my phone I blazed over to my laptop to attempt registration. Other options may exist.)
Team runDisney has instructions for using autofill in Chrome and in Firefox. A combination of the autofill extension and using Team runDisney’s registration form will enable you to fill out your form automatically as soon as you access the registration page. This saves you valuable time, because when multiple people are vying for as little as a single bib, seconds count!
A few caveats, however:
I found that while autofiller fired for me every time, it didn’t fill out all the form elements. You may still get errored out and asked to fill in the blanks, so stay on your toes. And credit card information isn’t stored – to speed that process up, I recommend having your card number somewhere in a notes app or some such to copy/paste at the required time (as long as you don’t write down the pin and expiration date in the same spot that shouldn’t be a security risk).
The other thing is that while the autofill extension was free when I used it, I got a pop up saying it was going paid soon. Not sure if that happened as I haven’t used it since, but you might have to shell out some money.
I’m not sure if it’s related, but the link is also gone on the Team runDisney page, although I was able to search it in Google so that I could link it for you. They may or may not stop supporting the autofill feature for the runDisney registration pages. So pursue the autofill option at your own discretion.
A FEW MORE TIPS
You’re not going to like to hear this – it certainly runs counter to my usual MO – but you don’t have the luxury of time to think here. If you hesitate, someone else will get the bib. That’s why you need to SPEED-FILL that registration form, which is where the autofiller does admittedly provide an advantage. By my estimate, you’ve got less than two minutes. Here’s where I found victory:
Yup, that was me! I got that bib!
Keep in mind that even operating at peak efficiency, it’s probably going to take a few tries. It definitely did me. Partially because you’ll learn as you go, and partially because there’s undeniably some dumb luck involved. Don’t get discouraged – the drip of bibs is slow, but it’s somewhat steady, and you could be able to grab a bib as little as a week before the race. The ability to be nimble with your trip plans is clutch. The last Princess Half opening I currently see in the runDisney Alerts feed was February 14 for a February 25 race.
(As an aside: you never known how many bibs there are, but I’d lay down money it’s only one or two at a time. I’m just guessing here, but I don’t think runDisney is holding back bibs. I think they’re getting cancellations and putting those bibs back into circulation. I know runDisney doesn’t do refunds, but I’ve heard it all depends on the customer service rep you get. Broken bones, medical diagnoses, unexpected pregnancies, and more may cause people to pull out.)
Another thing: PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU’RE REGISTERING FOR. I don’t mean to shout, but the faster you move the easier it is to make mistakes. Remember that there are multiple race weekends you can register for at once, and multiple events within each individual race weekend. Don’t get so caught up in the chase that you accidentally sign up for the Disneyland 5K when you wanted Princess Yoga, you know?
Finally: it didn’t happen every time, but I found that the bot would sometimes fire a couple times in a row for the same race. By that I mean, there’d be alert that, say, the Princess Half was open. A minute or two later it would close. But then five or ten minutes later it would open again.
I was never able to successfully use this method, but I figure it’s worth a shot: if you’ve filled out the form and then get an error that the race is sold out when you try to pay, don’t close out your browser window. Hang tight. Wait and see if the race opens again, and if it does, give the payment button another go. Could work?
What does NOT work is holding onto that tab in your browser for DAYS until another bib becomes available. I thought I was being all clever! But I got an error immediately and had to start from the beginning. Needless to say that didn’t work out.
GOOD RUNDISNEY RACE REGISTRATION HUNTING!
It is my sincere hope that demand will slack just a bit on runDisney race registration in the future. I mean, as recently as 2019 I was able to switch from the WDW Marathon to the Goofy Challenge weeks after registration day. I’d like to think we’re still riding the remainders of post-pandemic demand, and a quieter runDisney era will dawn again.
In the meantime, if the race you want is sold out, you have options! You’ll have an uphill climb ahead of you, but with a little luck and skill, you can reach the top. After all, this is runDisney we’re talking about. If every mile is magic, then every registration must be too, right?
Don’t forget, you can follow FRoA on Twitter @fairestrunofall and on Instagram @fairestrunofall. If you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or email fairestrunofall@gmail.com. See ya real soon!