We’re less than a week away from Wine & Dine Half Marathon Weekend, and I am so excited I could nearly burst. I haven’t been on property for a race weekend since the 2019 Marathon, so in the words of Lizzo, it’s about damn time!

If you’re headed to Orlando next week, there is one notable change to procedures. Due to demand issues (as in limited quantities of items getting wiped out quickly by resellers) and crowd management, Disney has opted to go with a virtual queue for merchandise shopping on day 1 of the expo (Thursday, November 3). There will be no standby line available.

This has not been a particularly popular decision, but I’m not going to debate the pros and cons and fairness of it all, just the facts.

Virtual Queue Details

The RunDisney Blog has a detailed post on the new process, but I’ll summarize:

1. You must have a smart phone with location services enabled, and the My Disney Experience app installed.

2. Virtual queue will open at 7:30 a.m., with first groups being allowed to begin shopping at 10:00 a.m.

3. You must be within 45 miles of Wide World of Sports to enter the virtual queue.

4. You will receive a push notification on your phone when your group is called, and then you will have one hour to make your way to the merchandise building at Wide World of Sports.

For Club runDisney members, you will not need to utilize the virtual queue. Platinum members can enter at 8:30 a.m. and Gold members can enter at 9:00 a.m.

So, what can I buy anyway?

If this is anything like past expos, there will be tons of runDisney merch available… everything from car magnets to shot glasses and keychains. The wild card is always the event-specific merch. Just in the nick of time, Disney has revealed a first look.