TLDR: This race is for Disney fans who also like to run. It is not for runners who also happen to like Disney.

Before I get hate for not embracing Disney, I did dress up as Jack the Lamplighter from Mary Poppins Returns and I took photos with Venelope and Pluto. So, I did some Disney things on this race.

Full Review:
I only ran the full; I did not run the Dopey or Goofy challenges. As a result, I went to the Expo on Saturday afternoon, which was the last day of the expo. I thought that the expo was complete garbage. The first building we went to had airbrushing, third party vendors, and presentation, but no race-related information. We went to another building and it had my wife's cheering packet, but no runner packets. Then, the bib and the "packet" were also in two separate buildings. By the time I had my wife's packet, my packet, and my bib, I think I had visit 5 different buildings and probably walked a couple miles. This was absurd. Too much walking. Too spread out. And the third party vendors were pretty crappy compared to a normal runner-focused marathon. Also, the participant shirt and the other merchandise for the race were extremely cheap. I don't mean inexpensive. I mean they are low quality. I was very disappointed compared to other races with cost/quality ratio of the the merchandise for this race.

Race day I knew would start early. I knew I'd have to get on a bus at 3am to travel to the start. That's fine. I expected it. They moved the start time from 5:30am to 5am this year, but apparently they did not adequately prepare for traffic on the roads to the park, and the race really didn't start until 5:30 anyway. I'm told the course changed a little too. Magic Kingdom and Cinderella's Castle were at mile 10 instead of mile 5, and the course went through Blizzard Beach instead of Wide World of Sports. Pushing the castle to mile 10 just meant spending a little more time in Epcot at the beginning and also doing a weird out and back on the highway outside of Epcot. Running Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom were cool. If you had a magic band then you could stop and ride a ride in Animal Kingdom and also some bars were open and you could definitely order a beer or shots and pay quickly with your Magic Band. I really wish that the bars along the course had race specials that would have made ordering easier. I nearly stopped at one, but there was no posted menu and I wasn't thinking straight.

Running through Blizzard Beach was a dumb change because the park is not open in January, so it was just like running through a depressing abandoned water park with no water in it. On the other hand, Hollywood Studios and the Boardwalk were decent stretches of the race. Hopefully in the future when Epcot construction is complete, the end in Epcot will be less crappy. As it was, going from the Boardwalk to the Epcot construction zone was a depressing way to end the race.

At the finish line, the amount of physical space between the finish line and reunification space is INSANELY long. I had to walk like half a mile just to get from the finish line to the area with tables where I met my wife. This was dumb.

The medal was cool.

Overall, this race was fine, but I would never do it again. This is not a race built for runners. If you like the pomp of a big race and fun expo, and you are looking for a race in the South, I would recommend Little Rock, Cowtown (Fort Worth), or Houston.