In my research, it seems there are two refillable mug options - one for the resorts and one for the parks. If I’m understanding correctly, we cannot use resort mugs in the parks and vice versa. We also cannot use a resort mug at a different resort from the one we are staying at, is that correct?
For the park refillable mug, can I purchase it anywhere inside the park? Where do I reactivate it daily? This is probably silly, but if eating at a restaurant can you get your mug filled? How about at a quick service location? Can I only use the mug at Freestyle machines or are there regular refill machines, too? Lastly, can the park mug also be used at Volcano Bay?
Thank you!
We have some park Freestyle cups that we bought a few trips ago. We've used them on 4 or 5 different trips, but we've never tried to use them at the hotel.
I believe you are correct that the park mugs don't work at the hotels and vice versa. However, on one trip, we were at Aventura and heard a family say their park mug worked at the Aventura Freestyle machines, but I can't confirm that was true.
You can buy the mugs at most of the drink kiosks and at the quick service restaurants (except any in the Harry Potter areas). There's also a Coke 'store' near Men In Black.
When you buy, you can tell them to activate if for x days and pay for it all at once. On return trips, you just go to any location that sells them, and have them re-activate. We've had some TMs tell us to activate a day at a time for less chance of error, but we've always had them re-activate for the length of our stay and just hold on to the receipts just in case. Only had an issue one time - I showed the receipts, and they called a manager and got it fixed.
We've gotten refills at restaurants before - they just see the refillable cup and bring you a regular cup that you can transfer. I get the feeling they aren't supposed to do it. I don't think we've ever asked the waiter, but it's been offered a few times. We usually stop by a machine and refill on our own before heading into the restaurant.
At kiosks, they will scan the cup and get you a refill from the fountain.
We've never done it, but you can also get Icees for your refill. There are Coke Icees at a few places, a banana Icee near King, and Orange and Apple at Moose Juice, Goose Juice.
The Pugh Two have some good videos explaining the cups over on YouTube if you want to check that out.
