runDisney Unpopular Opinions

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Runners have opinions- lots of them. And they aren’t shy about sharing them, for the most part. So when we asked for the runDisney unpopular opinions, dang, did we get an earful. And now you can too. Take a listen to some of the most unpopular runDisney opinions on this episode of The No-Guilt Disney Podcast. 

Disney Unpopular Opinions Episode 3: runDisney

You shared ’em- boy did you!

Opinions and a healthy dose of complaints (ahem).

What we were hoping for: things that you love that no one else does, or things that you hate that everyone else raves about. You know, that super unpopular opinion you needed to get out!

Instead, we got mostly a list of things runDisney does wrong… cause apparently you needed to get those out as well.  We don’t go into a deep dive on those today, because, hey, that’s a whole podcast unto itself. But we’ve got them for a future episode, so be ready y’all. 

runDisney Unpopular Opinions

On this one:

• Who hates Cheese?
• Who hates fun?
• Who hates night races?
• Who loved ESPN during the marathon?
• Cell phone pics should be banned: PhotoPass only

Ah yes, we’ve got to talk about all this and more- including why this is Theresa’s last episode on the podcast. #shehatescheese #canthavethatnegativityinmylife 

(I kid, I kid, she’s staying. But whoa- that one threw me!)

Also: the runDisney 101 podcasts mentioned in the episode can be found here.

Submit Your Unpopular Disney Opinions

Got an unpopular Disney opinion? We’re taking submissions.

Email [email protected] or use this form to send them to us. 

We won’t judge. (much)

Find the No-Guilt Disney Podcast Team

by email at [email protected]

Patty

• noguiltdisney.com
• noguiltfangirl.com
• The No-Guilt Fangirls Podcast
• Now Streaming Disney Plus Podcast
• [email protected] 

Theresa

• insightfulllife.com
• @gertiethedino on Twitter
• @in.sight.full.life on Instagram

Jane

• @realmousewifewdw on Instagram
• @realmousewifeFL on Twitter

Music from https://filmmusic.io
“Vivacity” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) 

runDisney Unpopular Opinions Transcript

Patty 0:09
To all who come to our happy place, welcome to the No-Guilt Disney Podcast! Where we have no guilt about our love for all things Disney.

Jane 0:17
We’re three Disney fan girls who probably know more about Disney Parks than most grown women should and we’re perfectly okay with that.

Theresa 0:25
Yeah, I’d say that’s accurate. <laughter>

Patty 0:27
Yeah, I’ll co-sign that. Co-signed!

Theresa 0:31
I’m Theresa and you can find me on Twitter at @GertieTheDino or on Instagram @in.sight.full.life.

Jane 0:37
I am Jane and you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at @RealMousewifeWDW.

Patty 0:44
Hey y’all, I’m Patty Holliday from NoGuiltDisney.com and No-Guilt Travel, a travel agency that specializes in Disney and Universal vacations. You can find me on all socials @NoGuiltLife. And hey, you know what? We know that you guys have so many choices, SO many choices of Disney podcasts out there. And we’re thrilled that you decided to listen to ours.

Jane 1:06
And please subscribe so that you don’t miss any of our episodes.

Theresa 1:11
And if where you’re listening gives you the opportunity to leave a review, make sure you leave us a five star one.

Patty 1:16
So carrying on with the runDisney theme from last week, which obviously if you listen to that, we could talk about that for hours, or at least I can probably. I don’t know, selfishly, that’s kind of one of the reasons I started all these podcasts, was so I can talk about the things that I love all the time. <laughs> And if you listen to that one, I hope you understand how much runDisney means to us. So we decided to carry on this theme of the runDisney discussion with runDisney version of unpopular opinions.

Theresa 1:53
And as we’re talking through some of these, I’m going to need you to help me out because I’m not as familiar with runDisney So you might need to guide me if they’re unpopular or just very strong opinions.

Jane 2:07
Well, that should be an episode all of its own, because we got tons of opinions on runDisney. So maybe we can tell them what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong another time.

Patty 2:20
Oh yes. A lot of the submissions weren’t what I would call unpopular, it was more like complaints. Which I get, totally valid complaints. I’m not saying anybody’s not justified in what they had to say. But we were looking more for unpopular opinions, basically, something that everybody loves, and you don’t get, right? Or somebody hates, but you absolutely love. That’s where we were going with that, and instead we got more of the “I hate this. I hate that.” And “I wish runDisney would fix this or would go back to doing….” So. It was interesting.

Jane 3:00
It was. But I feel like, to be fair to everybody, or at least a decent handful of people who shared some of those complaints, I’m going to give you a quick list of some things that they shared with us.

Patty 3:14
Fair enough. Fair enough. Go for it. These are some of the things that people are not happy about.

Jane 3:21
And honestly, we’re not going to debate them. We’re just going to mention that. So: “Princess Half is the worst.” <laughter> Although I also saw places where people said princess half is the best so I mean, it could go either way, right? “There’s not enough characters on the course anymore. The shirts that runDisney gives out now suck because they changed from the Champion ones last year. And these are scratchy.” So runDisney. gotta fix those shirts. “The races should come with free entry to the parks after.” Anyone who doesn’t run, they do not come with free entry. “Bring back the Disneyland races.” We could have a whole discussion on this.

Patty 4:13
Yeah, that pretty much covers the majority of the initial complaints. And that’s just a small amount.

Jane 4:22
A sampling.

Patty 4:26
I mean, I’ve been running Disney since 2011. And things have absolutely changed, even in my timeframe. And I’m definitely not old school runDisney – there’s people that have been doing this for…how long has the marathon been going on? Almost 30 years now? I mean, it’s crazy. And there’s people that have done it every single year since then. So I am definitely still kind of new-ish on the block. But I will say a lot has changed since I started running. So there’s a lot of things that people can have opinions about and have their complaints on. But I think overall, most of those are what I would call popular opinions. Don’t you think?

Jane 5:07
Yeah, I agree.

Theresa 5:09
I know I’ve heard – I think it might be from you specifically – but I know I’ve heard the Disneyland race one a lot. I think if the shirts are scratchy, yes, that’s probably a good idea to switch back to something else. But I would say I’ve heard some of these here and there. So I’d say that they seem pretty valid and pretty shared by a lot of the runners.

Patty 5:31
Yeah, pretty much, pretty much Okay, so let’s go ahead and pivot and let’s talk about what we found. We got a lot of submissions. I will tell you that about our runDisney community. We love you guys. And you submitted a heck of a lot of options for us to sift through, and we did. We found we found plenty that were what we consider true unpopular opinions, or the ones Theresa got, I guess she has questions about. So we’re gonna let her say hers and we’ll let her know if that’s a popular opinion or not. And our thoughts on it, I guess, is that what we’re doing? That’s what we’re doing.

Theresa 6:07
Works for me. I’m not gonna have watched the debate in this episode. Sorry, y’all. That’s what you’re here for.

Patty 6:17
We’ll find something for you, we’ll find something.

Theresa 6:19
Yes. So this first one is coming from Jennifer and she wrote, “The night races were the best races Disney has to offer. Running through the parks and then having a party immediately afterward was so unique and special. They ruined Wine and Dine when it changed to a day race, and now it totally sucks and I hate it. And they need to bring back Tower of Terror.” So is that unpopular? Is that a complaint? Where do we stand on that?

Jane 6:47
It’s really a shame that the runners can’t come out of their shells <laughter> and really believe in the opinions they have.

Patty 6:56
They were very restrained, weren’t they? Yeah, absolutely. Alright, well, to answer your question Theresa, in this particular audience of two runDisney runners, this is actually the unpopular opinion because Jane and I both hated the night races.

Jane 7:13
Agreed.

Patty 7:15
But I think we are definitely like the minority.

Jane 7:20
100%.

Patty 7:21
Almost everybody that you talk to gives that same spiel on how much they loved the night races. So to turn this into an unpopular opinion, I will say that the night races sucked. Who wants to start running a half marathon at 10:30 at night and not be finished for three and a half hours later, and then go to a party? Ugh, no way. That was the worst experience ever. Okay, that was me. I did that one time and I think I hated every single step of that race. And I skipped the party afterwards, because I was over it. I didn’t get the joy of running that late at night. I am not a night runner. I will get up early. It messed up the whole day. Like when did you eat?

Jane 8:05
The whole day.

Patty 8:06
The whole day! You had to plan around when you would eat. I had to take a nap at five o’clock in the afternoon. I mean, it was just nuts. It was not for me.

Jane 8:18
I agree. The races started two hours after my bedtime, so that was a struggle. And it’s true: you had to nap it really odd hours. I’m not fast, so I wasn’t starting way early. If the restarted at 10, like you said, we weren’t starting till 10:30-10:45, and then we’re slow. My very first half marathon I trained for was Wine and Dine and it was the first Wine and Dine that they had, and when [the race] ended in Epcot, I crossed the finish line turned right back around, and walked right back to the to the Beach Club where I was staying. I was wiped out. I didn’t want to hang out in the Parks and eat and drink. I wanted to go to bed.

Patty 9:09
Yeah, I finished that race and my husband and one of my best friends were with me, and both of them wanted to go to the party and I was like, bye. Y’all go, I will put myself into a cab. I wasn’t even waiting for the buses. I was just done. So I walked over, I got into a cab, and I hauled my booty to my hotel where I ordered pizza to be delivered to me at two in the morning. <laughs> I was absolutely not about that nightlife. So there’s our unpopular opinion. We hated the night races and thought they sucked.

Jane 9:47
It’s true.

Patty 9:50
All right, Jane, do you have a story? Do you have anything that you’ve got for unpopular opinions you want to share?

Jane 9:54
We got this one from Joshua, who said, “I wish Disney didn’t allow cell phone photos at the character stops. People are not prepared, they waste time, and they make the lines longer. It feels like there should be a way to make this faster and just doing Photopass makes sense.

Patty 10:13
Hmm. All right. Well, that’s actually that a new-ish. complaint. I don’t think I’ve heard a lot of that complaint online. Have you heard that?

Theresa 10:23
So wait. The one race I did there wasn’t- is there Photopass at the characters now? Or is he saying there should be?

Patty 10:30
Sometimes Sometimes. So some characters do have Photopass and some don’t. And I think what I’m reading, if I’m reading that right, or hearing that right, what I’m hearing is that he thinks they should have Photopass at every single one, so that we’re not messing around with handing off a phone and taking six different pictures. Because you take one for the Photopass and look at your phone and take one there. And if it’s a group, sometimes people are like, “Take one with my camera, take one with my camera,” right? And so I get what he’s saying as far as the lines would be longer. And it might be a smoother process with just Photopass. But I’m going to say this is probably an unpopular opinion, just because runners don’t necessarily want to pay for those pictures.

Jane 11:11
I’m going to go ahead and say Josh is probably an Annual Passholder. <laughter> I’m like, “Yeah, Photopass is great! I don’t know what these people are talking about with their cell phones.”

Theresa 11:22
Well, and this makes me laugh so much. Because again, the one race I did, I wanted my character pictures, because it’s my one Disney race that I’m doing. And so my friend and I, we had the Cast Members there take a picture of us. And we asked her how it was, and she was just like, “Oh, it’s great!” And I’m going to share this later because the picture is completely washed out. You can’t tell who or what is in this picture. And so we actually circled back around. I wasn’t worried about my time. I’m like, No, no, I’m like, I’m doubling back and I’m getting this picture again. So yes, it would have been wonderful if there was a Photopass there the first time and we didn’t have to go through that.

Patty 11:59
Well and I will say, to answer that, I think where I land is I selfishly want to be able to have my photos immediately. And then also as an Annual Passholder, my photos – well, I’m not one anymore. Dang it, I gotta get over that. <laughs> I liked having those Photopass photos later. They generally are the better picture. However, you got to put it up on Instagram, and sometimes it takes a while for Photopass to go through all those photos and get them out. And on top of that, again, you know, if you’re not an Annual Passholder, you are looking at paying $169 for your memory maker, if you purchase it in advance; about $200 If you don’t. And not everybody knows that, right? So it can add a substantial cost. So I’m team “let’s have both” for financial reasons, but also there have been times where my Photopass pictures haven’t shown up. And so if I didn’t have something on my cell phone, I would have stood in that line for forever and then walked away with nothing. So I like having a backup.

Jane 13:11
I want to say I feel like I’ve had that happen.

Patty 13:13
Do you remember Jane? I know you do. You ran ahead and got in line and I joined you. Because this was during one of your Dopeys. And you were all trained up and awesome. And I was not, obviously, but I was doing the 10K and you got in line and it was for Colonial Mickey, the patriotic one, and it was this line that wrapped around the American Pavilion. It was insane. When I caught up with you guys, I jumped in line with you and we took group photos. But if you remember, they didn’t show up. It took like a week for them to find those pictures. And that was the one picture that I have always wanted because I love those costumes and those characters. So that would have been something that would have been devastating if we were only relying on Photopass. So I’m going to say, Josh, that’s an unpopular opinion because I don’t like it. So we’ll move on. <laughter> Character photos are super important as Theresa, the non-runner, has just attested that she circled back and got back in line again for the character photo.

Theresa 14:19
I absolutely did.

Patty 14:20
That’s why we runDisney! So yeah, I would have done the same thing. Absolutely would have done the same thing. Okay, so the one I have here is…let’s see. This is from Joyce. And Joyce says, “Disneyland races were far superior to the Disney World races. You had the party in the front with the Parks and the serious road miles in the back.”

Theresa 14:44
So they’re like the mullet of racing? <laughter>

Patty 14:46
Yes, it’s like mullet of racing. “But you would also have tons of local support, so it felt like more like a local race at the same time.” Which is true. “It was honestly the best marriage of race that a runner could ask for. First we stop for Darth Vader, then we run the bases at Angel stadium with a crowd of screaming fans cheering us on. Look, you don’t get that experience at Walt Disney World.”

Theresa 15:08
Yeah, see, I would do that. That I would do.

Patty 15:12
Joyce, your opinion is not unpopular to me. I am 100% with you on this. And Jane too. But that being said, if you look at the greater runDisney community, it’s an unpopular opinion.

Jane 15:30
Yeah, I think that just comes down to numbers. You know, Walt Disney World has the ability to have more runners in their races, and it is a larger destination for people to go to and get attracted to for vacations. You can plan a whole week’s family vacation around it and pop in a little race weekend here and there. So that makes sense that they would have more support, just because they can support the number of runners. But I would say that if anyone has had the opportunity to run both Disneyland and Disney World, I’d say you’re hard pressed to find somebody who would say that Disney World was better than Disneyland, because Disneyland.

Patty 16:16
it’s the mothership. Yep. I have a feeling we might get some emails telling you that you’re wrong Jane, because I seen those Facebook groups.

Jane 16:28
You know what I like to say: everyone is entitled to their wrong opinion. <laughter>

Patty 16:33
I’ve been in those Facebook groups where this is a hot button issue and people just…yeah, they don’t like running through Anaheim. They think Anaheim is gross and I love it. I love it. But anyhow, that came in from Joyce. I do agree with it, but I would say that that’s probably an unpopular opinion. So there we go. All right, what you got Theresa?

Theresa 16:54
Alright, so here’s another one. Again, have not done this race. So fill me in on unpopular or just venting. It’s from Laura and it says, “It may be irrelevant going forward based on this year’s course map, but I really didn’t mind the ESPN portion of the full marathon course. It, to me, was more entertaining than plain boring asphalt road.”

Jane 17:18
Okay. So, Theresa, ’cause I know you’re like, “I don’t know what this means. Why is she just yelling ESPN at me?” <laughter> Wide World of Sports was at a terrible time in the full marathon. You’re roughly around miles 17 to 20, so you already hate your life. You’re already like, “I’m so far from the finish, but I’ve already gone all this way. So now I’m just tired. I’m hungry. This just needs to be done.” And then you hit Wide World of Sports and it’s supposed to be like this great thing. Now, to be honest, I happen to agree with this person. Wide World of Sports was another distraction for me. And like Patty, you said before, we like distractions. We need distractions to distract us from the fact that running is terrible.

Patty 18:17
It’s awful. It’s the worst. Yes.

Jane 18:20
So for me to run around and see Sport Mickey and Football Goofy and whatever else they have, I’m all for it. But now they replace it with Blizzard Beach, I think? And they change the course up a little bit due to construction and some ways that they’ve changed the roads around Disney, so we probably won’t see it at ESPN again. But I agree, I didn’t think ESPN was so bad. I thought it was it was better than nothing. We could have just had the last 13 miles be road.

Patty 18:55
I would say that before this marathon weekend, that was an unpopular opinion. After this marathon weekend, where people had to go through Blizzard Beach an the description of how terrible that whole shenanigans was, I would say it’s now a popular opinion and people are like, “Give us back ESPN!” That’s my guess. But yeah, I’m absolutely with Laura on that, as that I found the distractions were there. And while it wasn’t my favorite four miles to go through, what miles in a marathon are my favorite? None. None of them. So, you know, whatever.

Theresa 19:31
Mile .2.

Patty 19:33
Literally, because I had a margarita in my hand at that point. But yeah, I agree with her. I didn’t think it was that bad. And I was surprised, I thought was gonna be terrible. But based on my experience, I didn’t think it was that bad. So definitely an unpopular opinion, but I would be curious to see what people think about that now that they’ve experienced the whole Blizzard Beach sitch. So we’ll see. We’ll see. Let us know what you think about that one. Alright, so I’ve got here, Kelly says, “The cheese in the snack box. Ew, why does everyone like this?” All right, we got talking about the runner cheese.

Theresa 20:13
Alright, so oddly enough, in the responses I received when I put this out there, I had a couple of people who were runners respond, and two people commented on cheese. So I will give them both shout outs. Alicia spoke about how there was cheese and then one year they changed it to hummus and everybody basically revolted, and she was really happy that cheese came back. And then right after that, Sarah put in that the new “cheese”, and I would emphasize she put that in quotes, is not great. “Everyone loves it, but they probably didn’t notice that they switched it to some kind of pretzel cheese. Bring back the good stuff.”

Patty 20:49
Cheese is very important to runDisney runners. Let’s just put that out there.

Jane 20:53
Cheese is life. <laughter>

Theresa 20:56
And I’ll just be unpopular, I don’t cheese. This can be my rant for the episode Cheese is gross, period.

Patty 21:02
Wait wait wait wait wait.

Theresa 21:06
Worst Italian ever.

Patty 21:08
So…wait. Stop, stop. I can’t even process this.

Jane 21:12
Remember Patty, she loves Epcot. Let it go. <laughter>

Patty 21:15
We are gonna fight over this, we have to fight over cheese, because I cannot…now I’ve heard people that say “I can’t eat cheese,” right? I get that aspect, but you’re telling me you think cheese is gross.

Theresa 21:28
Cheese is gross. <Patty gasp> Now Patty’s having my reaction that I’ve had in all the episodes and I’m fine now. I’m chill. <laughs>

Patty 21:41
Theresa, thank you so much for being on the podcast, your last episode.

Jane 21:47
And that was the last we heard from Theresa.

Patty 21:51
Oh my gosh, I just…I think you are the first person I’ve ever met that straight up said they hate cheese. That…I’m blown away.

Jane 21:59
So if there are any listeners out there who also hate cheese?

Theresa 22:04
Come find me.

Jane 22:06
Please reach out at [email protected].

Patty 22:09
I’m telling you, like if you don’t love cheese, and you love Epcot, and you hate characters in any IP that doesn’t belong with characters, Theresa might be your new best friend. Let’s just say. Okay, all right.

Sorry for the tangent. <laughs>

Yeah, no back to runner cheese. See, I knew we’d fight over something.

Theresa 22:30
I have the most unpopular opinion in this episode, and I’m not even a runner.

Patty 22:34
You do! So, runner cheese. Yeah, this was taken out of the box for a period of time and people flipped. And I did hear from pretty good authority that the reason it returned was because so many runners were so mad about it. They sent emails, they made phone calls, they complained at the races. They were all over social media complaining about how they needed cheese, and I heard that was something where Disney was like, “Oh man, who knew? All right put the cheese back in.” And so it showed up at the next race.

Jane 23:08
Who knew? Everybody knew! Have those people never stolen a snack box? What’s wrong with these people?

Patty 23:16
I don’t know. That’s my question too. Guys, try your own product. Out of all of the things that are in that snack box, the golden child…there’s two things: there’s the Oreos, and the cheese. We still don’t have Oreos back. We’ve got to start a letter writing campaign to get the Oreos back.

Theresa 23:34
So do you guys have a opinon on, apparently there is but there’s new cheese that’s not as good.

Patty 23:40
As far as I’m concerned, cheese is cheese is cheese. There is no such thing as bad cheese.

Jane 23:45
That’s not true. So the original cheese was this fantastic white Wisconsin cheddar deliciousness. It was so good

Patty 23:57
All right. I have the heart eye emoji happening right now because yes, you have that point there, Jane. I forgot about the O.G. cheese. There was nothing like it. It was a beautiful thing.

Jane 24:13
The new cheese works too, but it’s not O.G. cheese.

Patty 24:18
Yeah, new cheese is fine, but it’s not that, you are correct. All right. So there’s the cheese. Do you have a last one Jane that we can wrap this up with?

Jane 24:29
Sure. This one we got from Steve. Steve says, “I run for PRs. Always, every time. People saying that runDisney isn’t for PR-ing makes me stabby. I PR every chance I can get.” Well, good for you, Steve. <laughter> I don’t PR every chance I can get.

Patty 24:57
Her name is Jane, Steve. Her name is Jane. <laughter> Send her the email.

Jane 25:03
No, I’m not gonna tear Steve apart. I mean, I, and we’ve said it before. I personally PR’d in runDisney races before, so it can be done and I say, high fives to you who wants to run out there and do it. But there’s also a ton of fun to be had. And you know, these races are sometimes known as people will say “I had a PR in fun!” So, you know, I say everybody can do it their own way. 13.1, or 6.2 miles, or however far you go. 26.2 is 26.2 whether you ran your fastest or whether you took every character stop, every opportunity to ride a ride, whatever you did, you finished. So I say high fives to everybody. You do you, Steve. I’m going to go do me. That’s what I’ve got.

Patty 25:58
I think that’s fair. And I think we can wrap that up with that because in the end, you can run your race, the race of life, but even the races at Walt Disney World can be run in whichever manner you need to run that. And so if you have to PR, or you are there to compete against yourself, or against 30,000 of your best friends. At every single turn, do it. I get that. But I will say that you’re missing out on a lot of fun. However, that may not be why you’re there and you might even you might not like fun. And if you don’t like fun, that’s cool.

Jane 26:37
Don’t get me started with people who don’t like fun again.

Theresa 26:41
Right up there with people who don’t like cheese. <laughter>

Patty 26:45
Yep. Well, thanks for all your unpopular opinions. And thanks, all for all those very popular opinions/complaints that you have about runDisney. And We do hope if you have any other questions, particularly about runDisney because that happens to be our forte, at least Jane and I both really (obviously) love the product and we love to talk about it., definitely hit us up. Let us know what other questions you have. There is also a full runDisney 101 podcast on No-Guilt Fangirls Podcast. I’ll put the link in show notes for you. If you are interested in runDisney and want to know a little bit more about the logistics of things, that one’s going to walk you through what happens for a race weekend. And with that, I say we can put this one to bed.

Theresa 27:37
And make sure you keep joining us each week on the No-Guilt Disney Podcast, which I hopefully will still be on after this, because as Patty likes to say:

Patty 27:46
<laughing> It’s no fun to fan girl alone…but I might have to because Theresa sucks. Bye. <laughter>

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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