The Merchandise ( and how I changed it)


Hello readers! We love looking at official race merchandise, even if it's not from a race that we are even running. Last spring we were loving all the official merchandise from the Nike Women's half marathon in D.C that our friends were posting online.  For that reason we thought we would share with you some of the official race merchandise from the Disney Marathon Weekend. We'll show you what we liked and what we weren't that fond of.

Let's first start with the official marathon jacket. This was the pre-order jacket that my sister and I ordered when we registered for the Goofy challenge back in April.
When I first saw a picture of this jacket ( that my friend had sent me from the expo), I wasn't very pleased with it. After seeing it in person, I have to say that it wasn't as bad as the pictures made it look. It is made of a tech material and it fit nice but I have to say I still wasn't loving the design.  I kind of felt like it had a retro "break dancing" look to it. When I picked mine up at packet pick up I was able to promptly return it right at the same spot. If you ever decided that you do not want to keep any of your pre-order merchandise, be sure to bring your registration receipt. That makes it SO much easier to return. Although I returned my jacket, Lacey ended up keeping hers.

Another item I pre-ordered was the marathon necklace. Lacey had got one when she ran her first Disney marathon in 2013 and I thought it was cute. When I picked my necklace up I wasn't impressed. It was a shoe charm on a chain.  There was nothing Disney about it. Not even a 26.2 on it. So guess what. I returned that too. So far I was getting away cheap at the expo!

Ok, so here is where I started spending more money.


Funny that all the merchandise that I did buy was all the same teal color. I liked that they had this color of official merchandise. I am loving the long sleeve marathon shirt but I will say that after only washing it one time ( on cold) that I can see the screen print starting to crack.  This champion merchandise is nice and all but so not worth the price that you pay for it. But then again, it IS at Disney and you are paying for the name and the novelty.    Since I didn't get the jacket that actually said "Disney Marathon" on it, I had the words embroidered on the teal sweatshirt I bought.  Take note that the only place to get your apparel embroidered at Disney is in Hollywood Studios.  I didn't find this out until the last day of our visit so I had to get mine done at home. I think it turned out great though!

I've never bought any glasses or mugs or anything before at expos but I am so glad I picked this one up. ( I actually put the blue beverage in it so you could read the words on the glass)
I was looking for a Marathon glass but could only find general ones that said Run Disney. I then noticed that each race in the marathon weekend was featured below.
 
Of course we had to pick up our race magnets ( My first marathon magnet)!!!
I also picked up my first Marathon sweatyband. It doesn't photograph well but it is a light teal color and matches the long sleeve shirt above very well!
 
Here are a few other things from the expo.
Our friend Heather bought these jackets. The first one is a sweatshirt jacket and the second one is a tech jacket.
 Phone covers and a few more sweatybands and a bondi band our friends Heather bought!
 
And in case you hadn't seen, here is what the official race shirts looked like. 
 
 
 Although we did see a peek of the Dopey shirt before we left for Disney, we made sure we didn't see the Marathon, Half marathon or Goofy challenge shirts because we wanted to be surprised.  I REALLY liked the race shirts last year and the marathon shirt for 2013 was really nice too so I was kind of bummed when I saw the shirts this year. I thought they also had a retro look to them.   I'm actually okay with the Marathon shirt because afterall it is my first marathon shirt so I would like it anyway, but the Goofy challenge shirt is just hard to read and really see that it is Goofy. I didn't notice until I got the shirts home that the goofy and marathon shirts have all four park logos on them because we ran through all four parks. The half marathon shirt has 2 park logos on it because we ran through two parks. I thought that detail was cool.
 
Overall, we were both pretty pleased with the merchandise. We didn't get to the expo until Friday and they still had a great selection of things. My only regret is that  since I was so focused on the full marathon, I didn't really give the half marathon the attention it deserved. I wish I would have bought some half marathon merchandise.
 
What is your favorite expo find?  -M

31 comments:

  1. I love the headbands. You can never have too many running headbands in my opinion.

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    1. I thought the headband designs were great this year! I wish I had the need for more of them!

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  2. Ooh... I didn't realize that you could return things that you pre-order. That definitely makes me more likely to pre-order then. And the embroidery on the sweatshirt looks great! I wouldn't have thought of that either. My favorite expo find was probably the jacket I got at Tower of Terror. The words glow in the dark :)

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    1. Yes, you can certainly return pre-orders. I wish I would have done pre-order for Princess and Tinkerbell now. I also learned that the pre-order stuff is different than what was on the sales floor!

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  3. I would be so freaking poor coming from a Disney expo.
    I would think that one shirt would have more of a Disney feel to it instead of big running shoes....
    I love all your finds. I couldn't even pick a favorite.

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    1. Yea, you definitely don't get away cheap at disney expos!

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  4. Teal is my signature color, and really liked your half-zip. But I needed a full-zip jacket and I wasn't doing the half or the full - so I got the black 'Weekend' jacket on Marathon morning. It does have a bit of an '80s' look to it, and the Disney branding on it is subtle, but I liked the feel and the fit of it. I don't have much need for a coat in Florida, so this is a perfect 'cool weather' jacket to throw on. I like that you personalized your half-zip with the embroidery. That sucks though about the image cracking already on your shirt! Other than my jacket, we didn't buy any apparel from the runDisney booth this time. I was pleasantly surprised by the Champion booth though - and I picked up a few Mickey, Goofy, and Minnie themed shirts and shorts from there. ~DB

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    1. I love the teal color but am not crazy about the half zip. I wish it were a full zip!

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  5. It seems like retro was in this year. Did you see the NB shoes? I don't own a pair from any of the years, but I was not impressed with the design this year. Black and gray? Running shoes are supposed to look fun.

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    1. Yes I did see the shoes. I am not a fan but I must say they did look better in person than they did in pictures on line. I still didn't like them though and you are right, they looked retro too now that I think of it!

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  6. Looks like you got some great things! I've never done a race big enough that has official merchandise.

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  7. Oh, I like that cup! I might've gotten more but I was SO overwhelmed by the pushing crowds I just grabbed the two things I'd seen and liked online and got out.

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  8. Love what you did to the teal jacket....such a great idea! I also love the custom phone cases....you can never have enough of those lol. The magnets are super cute this year...so glad I wasn't there because I would have spent way too much money!!

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  9. I love the embroidery on that fleece - such a smart idea! Also, word of caution, DO NOT put the cup in the dishwasher. Hand wash only or it will come off.

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  10. It looks like you got some good stuff. I don't typically love race shirts and the only one I ever really ever wear out of my house is my blue Boston long sleeve. The merchandise is also usually really expensive but I loved the variety they had like the phone cases.

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  11. Wow - some great stuff!
    I don't race much anymore so I rarely go to expos but I think that a Disney one would be fun!!

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  12. The Disney races have the biggest expos I have ever seen! It is nice that you can pre-order stuff and then still return it if you don't like it. I think the thing I don't like about most of the Disney stuff is that it is unisex for a lot of it :( but the shirts are still super cool! :) nice review of all the merchandise!

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  13. So cute how you personalized that 1/4 zip jacket! I got the grey tank top in the very first picture and the Goofy and marathon "I did it!" shirts.

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  14. Omg! Why did it never occur to me get something embroidered?!?! That's an excellent idea! Especially if you can find something with Mickey on it that's cuter than the marathon merchandise and then you can just turn it into a race shirt! Love that idea!

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  15. You know, its probably a good thing I haven't gotten into the Disney race thing too much. Not that they are not great, but I could see how a person could go broke, LOL.
    But you have some awesome stuff, and Disney is your thing, so I think it is awesome you now how all this fun stuff to remember it!
    When I was looking at your glass cup, I was thinking how fun it would be to get entire sets in different races, HMMMMM I probably shouldn't I already collect keychains that take up entire walls, all I need is a cupboard full of awesome cups, LOL but that would be fun, especially for when guests come:)

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  16. I'm shocked by how not Disney-ish the marathon jackets are!! I think I would be disappointed if I got that, they're cute but just not what I would expect coming from runDisney. Getting the sweatshirt embroidered was a great idea, and it looks super cute!

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  17. Cool that you can return pre ordered merchandise! I didn't know you could do that! I just LOVE runDisney merchandise...a little too much lol!

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  18. OH MAN.. run the Disneyland half marathon is seriously on my bucket list!!

    Anyhoo, I found your blog through a fellow blogger and thought I would stop by and say hi! It would totally make my day if you did the same... or better yet, keep in touch!! <3 - www.domesticgeekgirl.com

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  19. I was a little disappointed with the Goofy merchandise and I was at the expo on Wednesday afternoon. It felt like there were so many more options for the half, full and Dopey. I would have loved a long sleeve Goofy shirt similar to your marathon one.

    I quite like the shirts for the races this year, but I agree that Goofy is so hard to see. I wish the logo were a bit darker or that the shirt maybe wasn't as bright an orange?

    I do love that pint glass though, I got one as well!

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  20. Great idea on the embroidery. There was very little official half marathon merchandise at Houston last weekend - I was sad about that, because I'd saved my money specifically to shop there! Oh well...

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  21. Great info and good to know about the returns! Where exactly did you make the return? And, was your registration receipt sufficient?

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  22. I usually don't put the running magnets on my car. But, if I had those cute Mickey magnets, they would go on...and then probably get stolen! So cute!!

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  23. I think that jacket is really cute. I like that it doesn't have a Disney character on it. The shoe is kind of cute, although it does remind me of the logo of a local 5K here called the Magic Shoe Run. It's nice that you could easily return the pre-order, though. Especially because you don't get to see it ahead of time.

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  24. love all your purchases-this was the first Expo I ever went to at opening and I am glad I did. I got a Dopey magnet (which is in my office and one of my new grad students noticed it and told me he was going to do Goofy but couldnt get off work!), 4 sweatybands (Dopey, goofy, half and full-im not sure Im coming back for this race weekend so I wanted all bases covered), and finally a coffee mug just like the glass you got. I want to buy a jacket eventually so I'm going to look at Princess and tink and see if I can find one I really like. I had no idea you could return pre-orders, I may pre-order things in the future and just bring my receipt.

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  25. OMG, why did I not think of having something embroidered?! I LOVE that! It looks great.

    Also, I did NOT know you could return pre-orders, so I'm always so hesitant to do it...this is great to know! Not that I need more of an excuse to spend money on runDIsney merch, but, still! :)

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Fairytales and Fitness is a personal blog authored and edited by us, Meranda and Lacey. The thoughts expressed here represent only our own and are not meant to be taken as professional advice. Please note that our thoughts and opinions change from time to time. We consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind in an ever changing society. Any thoughts and opinions expressed within our out-of-date posts may not be the same, nor even similar, to those we may express today. Some links may contain affiliate links. Some links are just to pages we'd like to share.