Imagine a business where..
Being recognized you are in need and an employee offering to help? NO - you must ask
Cleaning up a spill? NO - you must ask
Being told where your hotel room is? NO - you are just shooed away unless you ask
Your waiter doesn't fill drinks or take plates away... unless you flag them down and ask
No customer service isn't just 'throwing things at everyone' - but good customer service is proactive, recognizes customer needs, and even tries to recognize customer needs and address it before the guest is even burdened.
So yes - good customer service is supposed to be AHEAD of the customer.. and not require the customer initiate a request for everything. These are basic hospitality concepts. Simply saying "put up a sign and make it on-demand" is a fundamental challenge to customer service principles. And you assess how frequent the need is, how common, who may need it, and how to HELP the customer and improve their experience. Not just "ahh.. they can ask"
False equivalency - your example is literally asking to change your --product-- to --INDIVIDUAL tastes--. A more equivalent example would be going to the drive through for your burger... and them not giving you any napkins, unless you ask for them.
Or giving your a drink in a moving car without a lid.. unless you ask for it. Or handing you 4 drinks without a carrier.. without asking you. Or giving you children sized drinks without lids.. even knowing that kids are messy.
It's freaking sad that we are basically having to outline how McDonalds... a company that charges 1/2 to to 1/3 of the price of Disney... has no reputation of 'premium customer service'... is better at addressing obvious customer needs without requiring every customer to explicitly ask for help.
It does cost in customer service. It's been outlined multiple times. The challenges with interacting with employees have been highlighted. The examples of when something is OPTIONAL vs required how they can readily operate without any stock... effectively eliminating the service.
If they are concerned about reduce trash - then don't use disposable cups.
Wanting a straw, or a napkin, isn't being in need of help. It's not cleaning up a spill (which is a health and safety issue) and its not cleaning up plates from a sit down table, which is a requirement of the job and has nothing to do with the individual person eating. You can't use the table again without it being cleaned up.
Straws, napikns, condiments, ect., aren't required for every person at every order. Some people don't use straws, some carry their own. Some don't need or want ketchup or salt or insert disposable condiment here. Just like some people want fries with a meal and some don't, some people want ice in their drink, some don't. Its a personal choice and its wasteful to just give them out as a standard without them being needed or desired.
The idea/concept of just wasting resources in the name of customer service is over. The idea of giving out 100 straws to 100 people without asking, when 20 people don't want them and 20 of them will go to waste, on the off chance that 1 or 2 people will forget they need them, and then somehow not have the ability to walk back up to get them is simply environmentally and fiscally irresponsible. Luxury doesn't have to be wasteful, nor does it have to be non-targeted.
As to your last point, you sound like my 7year old that can only understand extremes. Could you go with completely non-disposable cups? From a industry standpoint...maybe. Disney's it's probably not viable, and I would wonder what the waste in the additional water resources would be to wash all the non-disposable cups would be. But that's not the point. A simple transition to having straws and other disposable items on site, and giving them out to anyone who wants them, continues the same provision of service that they have always had, AND reduces waste. Its a complete environmental win, and only effects people who are too lazy to ask.
