The end for refillable mugs?

[kasey1988]

I love the refillable mugs and buy a new one each trip, I find them a great value because say i eat 7 counter service meals at the resort (We eat atleast one meal a day or have a snack at the resort) and a soda or coffee at atleast 2$ would equal out to the cost of the mug. I like the option of being able to have unlimited soda, coffee, hot choc, and lemonaide while enjoying meal, snack or relaxing by the pool. They also make a great item to take home

i do not however agree with brining other mugs or old mugs back, no matter how you look at it Disney is a company who expects to make a profit, and you can argue that they make enough money off other items, but they are a large corporation, and like other corporations they want to make as much of a profit as possible.

I use to work at a resturant in high school and it cost about .15 cents to make a medium sized soda, including the paper cup and lid, so anywhere you go (movies, resturants and theme parks) you will see an incredable mark up on soda. In regards to resturants they make minimal profit off food items but rather beverages.

 

[Lucky]

It's environmentally responsible to re-use the plastic mugs for as long as possible. And if you've seen "The Circle of Life" at The Land, you know Disney is pro-environment. So they won't mind.

 

[drossjr]

:ROFLOL:

A simpler solution would be to insert RFID tags in the mugs themselves and have a system that allows that mug to be used for a certain time period. Like the paper (1 time use) cups have a 1 hour usage, and then the refillable mugs have a length of stay usage, once the usage limit has been reached the fountain will no longer dispense drink products when that mug/cup is placed under the fountain. They could be activated at the time of purchase and the time period could be coded into the system at that time. That would be the most simple solution to the whole theft/abuse of the open fountain drink stands.

Also I'm wondering if the "token based system" they are working on for food distribution is something like this:

:ROFLOL:love it, add some red strobe lights and audio that says something like unauthorized use of a an expired mug!

 

[Phonedave]

Some of you people really are ridiculous. The concentrate for 70 percent of Coca-Cola’s 1.5 billion drinks served each day originates in Ireland, where enough concentrate for 50,000 Cokes costs $2.60—including labor. The concentrate’s main ingredient? Caramel. That means that one penny buys enough syrup to make nearly 200 glasses of Coke! A restaurant (or really, any business that uses soda fountains) has a slightly higher cost than that (Coke isn't going to sell it to them at cost, after all). It costs 9 cents for a 12-oz soda from the fountain. Make no mistake, even with the rampant "stealing", it is virtually impossible for Disney not to profit from soda. It's practically pure profit. So you can argue theft and blah blah blah all you want, but let's not pretend Disney is losing money from re-use of the mugs. If people want to re-fill mugs they paid for then fine (to break even on the mug, you would need about 144 refills...less if you factor the actual cost of the mug itself). Disney should most definitel crack down on people filling up bottles and non-Disney mugs.

Please go read my post that explains where the loss to the bottom line originates.

Now it's time to trot out my moral stand, that I have stated time and time again.

Theft is theft is theft. Stealing is stealing is stealing. Do I steal? You bet I do. I have stolen plenty of things in my life. Was it right? Nope. But I admit it is theft.

Filling up a length of stay mug on a second trip is no different than filling up a McDonalds cup, a Uni cup, or and other vessel of similar size. You are stealing soda that you are not entitled to.

I pass no judgement on the stealing of said soda, but if you are going to do it, have some chutzpah and say "I am stealing". It's the people that whine about "It's only 4 cents of soda, and it's a Disney cup so it is not as bad as a McDonlads cup, and I don't drink that much soda anyway so it takes me longer to get my money back on a mug." that I laugh at. You are just trying to make yourself feel better about stealing, and if you need to feel better about it, then maybe you should question why you feel bad about it in the first place.

-dave

 

[Lucky]

:ROFLOL:


:ROFLOL:love it, add some red strobe lights and audio that says something like unauthorized use of a an expired mug!

Or exploding dye like they put in bags of money for bank robbers

 

[VillanovaBlue]

It's environmentally responsible to re-use the plastic mugs for as long as possible. And if you've seen "The Circle of Life" at The Land, you know Disney is pro-environment. So they won't mind.

Win...

 

[nbodyhome]

It amazes me to see so many people rationalizing stealing soda from Disney. So what if it is super cheap for Disney to sell a cup of soda? It's still stealing. It doesn't cost them $37,500 to make that crazy fancy crystal castle, either, but does that mean I can just take one because it has a ridiculously high mark-up?:shrug:

I drink very little soda anymore - but when I first bought the mugs, I did (back in the 90's). At that time, the cashiers happily told everyone to bring the mugs back on future visits. That is not the case now, but it was then - I bought several, including from the Contemporary and WL (and the mugs were much, much nicer Aladdin mugs). There are a lot of things that have changed at Walt Disney World over the years, and this was one of them.

IMHO, it's too bad that they don't sell the nice mugs with the resorts on them. Even though I drink very little soda, it'd be a nice souvenir. I would be surprised if they did what the water parks do, because other guests buy cups of soda and they'd need cast members to man fountains. I usually drink water with lemon now, which probably costs more - or the same - as if I brought a mug in to have a soda.

There have been threads on various boards going back for years on refillable mugs. I've been going to WDW for 30 years, and I remember when they introduced the mugs (and being told to bring them back). Disney then changed it's mind since they didn't want thousands of people bringing back the mugs. It seems pretty silly that Disney then made generic mugs for use across property, where guests could easily use the mugs at all the resorts.

 

[Lucky]

It seems pretty silly that Disney then made generic mugs for use across property, where guests could easily use the mugs at all the resorts.

I agree. Without getting into the right and wrong of it, Disney clearly made it more difficult to enforce the official policy when they chose to go generic.

 

[fosse76]

victimless crime = no crime, perhaps/debateable.

Or the victim is us as the Disney consumer. If the managers profit and loss is down due to decreased mug sales, the food court salad just got jacked to $3.99 to keep their bottom line.

I wasn't arguing it wasn't a victimless crime...or a crime at all. My argument is that one cannot claim that the refillable mug abuse is having an adverse effect on Disney's bottom line when beverages out of soda fountains are essentially pure profit. You can argue it's theft, or immoral, or whatever, but this has nothing to do with the bottom line.

People have been re-using their mugs for years...Disney can't have just stumbled upon this fact. And I doubt there have been any decreases in the purchasing of the mugs (overall, and not including any special deals that include a free mug).

 

[jakeman]

Please go read my post that explains where the loss to the bottom line originates.

Now it's time to trot out my moral stand, that I have stated time and time again.

Theft is theft is theft. Stealing is stealing is stealing. Do I steal? You bet I do. I have stolen plenty of things in my life. Was it right? Nope. But I admit it is theft.

Filling up a length of stay mug on a second trip is no different than filling up a McDonalds cup, a Uni cup, or and other vessel of similar size. You are stealing soda that you are not entitled to.

I pass no judgement on the stealing of said soda, but if you are going to do it, have some chutzpah and say "I am stealing". It's the people that whine about "It's only 4 cents of soda, and it's a Disney cup so it is not as bad as a McDonlads cup, and I don't drink that much soda anyway so it takes me longer to get my money back on a mug." that I laugh at. You are just trying to make yourself feel better about stealing, and if you need to feel better about it, then maybe you should question why you feel bad about it in the first place.

-dave

This is pretty much it.

It is stealing, but I think I've done it (I honestly can't remember, I would probably lean towards having done it at some point).

I don't really care if you do it. And there is no way for any of us to know of the true financial impact.

It's stealing and it's, in the literal sense, wrong, but I've probably done it and probably wouldn't think twice about doing it again.

Just like when we go eat lunch at ESPN and then end up at Epcot for Illuminations.

 

[zweltar]

Anyway when will they introduce the good for stay margarita glass, or bottomless beer.

Now THAT'S something to buy from Disney!
<sarcasm>
Heck, we could probably reuse those, too, forever. I mean, how much can a margarita or beer really cost a mega-company like Disney? We paid good money for our vacations and should be able to steal whatever we want!
</sarcasm>

 

[DisneyCanadian]

Are people that hurting to spend the 13.49 for a mug?

Regardless of how little Disney is losing or how much it costs to supply the drinks, its stealing, it doesn't make it any less stealing or only "kind of stealing"

if you're already paying 1000's of dollars for a Disney vacation, honestly what's another 13.49 (or whatever the cost is these days) for free drinks at your resort for an entire week?

 

[SulleyanBoo]

Very Interesting. I like the idea and it would cut out the problem with people bringing back cups from 5, 10 years ago

 

[Jimmy Thick]

Bravo Disney!


This recent development is a long time coming for honest people, such as myself.


Once again, Bravo Disney!!



Jimmy Thick- Yes, they DO listen to you, or maybe they just listen to me...:king:

 

[Uncle Lupe]

I would prefer to see the dissolving bottom mug, after 7 days, you no longer have a mug but a very short tube.

 

[Pumbas Nakasak]

Now THAT'S something to buy from Disney!
<sarcasm>
Heck, we could probably reuse those, too, forever. I mean, how much can a margarita or beer really cost a mega-company like Disney? We paid good money for our vacations and should be able to steal whatever we want!
</sarcasm>

 

[techiegsy]

Theres one major way of looking at this:

- We know Disney is very seriously looking into RFID and it's uses in the parks, daily.
- So, We know that they are researching ways with which it can benefit guests and the company. I'm pretty sure it extends further than your favourite characters saying your name.
- We know that they are covering many bases and want to make your key to the world card as extensive as possible
- We also know (and have just had 4 pages of discussion on it) that the re-fill cup system is being "abused" for want of a better term, and Disney certainly knows this as it's mentioned in the patent for this item.

-So surely, with all this, it was only natural for Disney to look into developing a system for drink and other vending? But this technology is moving fast, and could be of interest to many other companies, so Disney gets a patent out for it's technology.
- But, this doesn't mean they'll use it, I'm sure we'll see a lot of patents and ideas for uses of RFID that will probably not make it into the parks. But I think this one will arrive, but I don't expect it in WDW first... This is part of their research which is company wide, I'd imagine implementing it in smaller resorts that don't necessarily offer this promotion. As these would cost less to do and there is no system to "throw out" and replace, which looks better from a business perspective? Based on the fact I would expect RFID will go to other parks too eventually...

Just my £0.02

 

[unkadug]

I would prefer to see the dissolving bottom mug, after 7 days, you no longer have a mug but a very short tube.

I like that! You still have a souvenir...just not a very very useful one.

 

[drossjr]

Or exploding dye like they put in bags of money for bank robbers

Yes! :sohappy:

 

[Phonedave]

I like that! You still have a souvenir...just not a very very useful one.

It's a mini megaphone.

So people can yell about thier lack of free soda.

-dave