Can someone give me information on the drink stickers?

[Fishbone†]

How much are they? How do they work? Are they worth it? And where can I get one?

 

[Beachball]

I was on the Wonder two weeks ago (2nd cruise) and I got the drink ticket immediately. You can go to any bar to get it. It's just a sticker that they put onto your "Key to the World" card. It saved us a lot. We're a family of four and I would go up and get soda's for all of us at one time. I thought they would be strick and say "only one drink for me" no - I was able to get free soda's for the entire 7 day cruise for all of us. It costs about $30.00 to $35.00 depending if you get the large Disney mug. I didn't get that because I didn't want to have to carry the mug around. However, if you decide later that you really want the mug they just charge you the difference. If you or your family are soda drinkers it's worth it.

 

[clh2]

We whipped out our crystal ball before the cruise and decided to go ahead with the cups/stickers. The main reason was since we were sort of on a budget - I am the type of person who is going to be mentally adding up each and every soday the three of us would have been drinking. By having the mugs - I knew what the max. cost was going to be. In addition - since I always had the mug with me, as did my DD, we were not even tempted to have a smoothie or any of their other fabulous looking drinks - which saved us tons more than the cups/stickers cost us.

The bonus though - was when we went to Disney after the cruise - was having the straps from the cups that worked very well with water bottles - so we each had our own water bottle, and I wasn't the one hauling them around.

 

[Favorite Auntie]

The soda program is supposed to be one sticker per person. They may have let you get everyone sodas, but this is not the intention of the program.

If you book through AAA this year you get the mugs for free!

 

[Redmic]

Just my 2 cents worth.

They start pushing the refill program as soon as you set foot on the boat. We bought them, but later found out they had a free coffee, water, iced tea, and lemonade stand on deck. If we had known this ahead of time we would not have bought the mugs.

If you really like soda it may be worth it to you, just pointing out that there are other free drinks that you can get without the mugs.

 

[DisneyHumbug]

Is the free iced tea sweetened? How is the lemonade?

 

[MrsPete]

We booked through AAA, so we had free soda mugs. When we received our cruise documents, there was a coupon that said we would receive four free mugs (because there were four of us). The regular DCL mugs were available everywhere; we had to go to the Promenade Lounge to pick up our mugs. We also received stickers for our Key to the World cards. We didn't have to carry the mugs -- we could just show our stickers, and we'd be given a free soda.

While this was a nice perk, I would not pay for the soda mugs. Why? Review the facts:

A fountain soda costs 1.50 onboard the ship (I was just there last week -- we sailed on November 9th -- so my info is current). At $5/day for the mugs, that means you'd have to drink FOUR SODAS PER DAY BETWEEN MEALS to "save money."

You can get free sodas at all three meals (in the sit-down restaurants, not in Beach Blanket Buffet or the fast-food places by the pool).

You can get free lemonade, tea, fruit punch, milk, water, coffee, and hot chocolate all day long at the drink station on the 9th deck. The same cold drinks are available on Castaway Cay for free.

You can bring your own canned /bottled drinks on board in your carry on. I bought a 12-pack of Diet Coke today at Eckerds for 1.99 -- that's more than I can drink in a week!

If you'll be spending time off the ship for extensive shore excursions, you'll be unable to bring those fountain drinks along. You can, however, bring along your own canned sodas.

Next time we cruise we'll probably book with AAA again, and if they're still offering the free mugs, we'll gladly accept them. However, if it came down to paying for the mugs, I'd prefer to pay-as-I-go for the 4-5 sodas that I'd choose to drink between meals over the course of the week. Now if they offered a free-refills on margaritas mug . . .

 

[FredS]

As already mentioned, the program consists of a little sticker which goes on your KTTW card (which we all carried with us on a lanyard 99% of the time.) As I am not a big soda drinker, and I could easily function without purchasing the plan, but we all four bought the mugs/stickers as we like the Disney mugs and weren't sure how we would like the available drinks. For my husband, he definitely got his money's worth, and probably for both children. Overall it was worth it for us once we factored in how many drinks we did get onboard and on Castaway Cay.

BTW, also as already mentioned, the program is for each person, not one sticker entitling the entire family to unlimited soft drinks.

 

[CanadianCruiser]

Hi!

Are these drink mugs the same as the ones you can buy at some of the Disneyworld resorts? We bought two of these when we stayed at Disney's Movies Resort in Disneyworld, and I was wondering if these would work on the cruise ship as well? I could have sworn I remember someone saying that you could use these mugs for future trips back to a Disneyworld resort, but I can't remember if they apply to the cruiseline.

CC

 

[FredS]

My understanding for all of the mug programs is that they are good for that visit to that resort. Period. Our last trip to OKW I specifically remember a sign that spelled that out.

Rather than embarass a guest I think that many CM's will just refill an old mug from the same resort, but that is not supposed to be how the plan operates.

Also, the item which gives you free refills on the ship is the sticker, not the mug.

 

[CGBatch]

This is deffinatly one of the good things Disney offers. It is worth it and we've used it on both our '01 cruise (well it wasn't the sticker system then all they had was mugs for $30) and the cruise last week. We tried to buy our own drink for this Augusts cruise but having to come back to the room to get a drink wasn't something I was always willing to do. Sitting in common grounds wanting a drink and walking about 5 feet to show a counselor my sticker was a much easier option and thats what I did on this cruise. Also another good thing is on Castaway Cay your sticker works (not that it wouldn't) but the thing is there was appsolutely no way I was walking all the way back to the ship for a soda and especially Castaway Cay day was so hot until it rained partway through the day in August I found my self buying 3 drinks alone in 5 hours so that wasn't the smartest move not to have the sticker. So this time with the sticker I had 4 on the island and put it this way. On a 3 day you need to drink 10 sodas to make it worthwhile. On a 4 day you need to drink 13 sodas to make it worthwhile. On a 7 day you need to drink 20 sodas to make it worthwhile. So it isn't that hard to do.

 

[Beachball]

xyz

 

[FredS]

Originally posted by Beachball
As I mentioned above several times I was able to get free soda's for my entire family. I know that the sticker is for only one person. But I asked the bartender if I could get 4 soda's and he said "yes". This may not happen all the time but I was very surprised and happy. Now, I didn't do it a lot because we were busy. But as I recall there were three times that the four of us just got something over at Pinocchio’s and I went and got us drinks.

The drink sticker is very nice to have when your on the 7 day cruise and especially when Castaway Cay is very hot.

I have to ask: If you know that the sticker is for only one person, why did you ask to get free drinks for your entire family? The rules were clearly stated to us and we understood, as you stated that you did. We paid for each family member to get unlimited drinks. Does that really seem fair?

 

[stulaurie]

If you get the mug, do you also get the sticker for your key card? Or is it either/ or? I am just wondering if you pay the extra $5.00 for the mug, (would like to have the mug for the kids to take home with them) do you have to carry it around with you to get a soda, or do they also put the sticker on your key? Also, if you do have the mug with you, do you also have to show the bartender your key card with sticker?

Thanks

 

[cjsmith]

Originally posted by Beachball
As I mentioned above several times I was able to get free soda's for my entire family. I know that the sticker is for only one person. But I asked the bartender if I could get 4 soda's and he said "yes". This may not happen all the time but I was very surprised and happy. Now, I didn't do it a lot because we were busy. But as I recall there were three times that the four of us just got something over at Pinocchio’s and I went and got us drinks.

The drink sticker is very nice to have when your on the 7 day cruise and especially when Castaway Cay is very hot.

I bet the bartender just assumed that you all had the sticker and that's why you got 4 sodas. It's a shame that you didn't do it a lot because it's not ethical, not because you were busy. If you knew that the stickers were one per person, then why would you try and get around it all the time? It would seem to me that this wasn't the best example to set for your kids. If you can afford to be on a disney cruise, then you can afford the soda program if you really want it. I have 5 people in my family and will once again be buying 5 stickers as that's the right thing to do.

 

[FredS]

Originally posted by stulaurie
If you get the mug, do you also get the sticker for your key card? Or is it either/ or? I am just wondering if you pay the extra $5.00 for the mug, (would like to have the mug for the kids to take home with them) do you have to carry it around with you to get a soda, or do they also put the sticker on your key? Also, if you do have the mug with you, do you also have to show the bartender your key card with sticker?

Thanks

It works well, as the unlimited drinks are actually tied to the sticker on your KTTW card, so you do not have to have the mug. We wanted the mugs for souvenirs, so we paid for them in addition to the sticker but packed away three of them (my husband used his a few times).

It was very nice not to have to carry around the mug all of the time, and definitely made it easier to get drinks.

 

[CanadianCruiser]

Thanks for the info!

We stayed at Disney All Stars Movies Resort, and we bought two of the refillable mugs at the cafeteria there with the understanding that they were good for any return trips. I don't know if this is current info, but here's a link to some info about a change in that policy:

http://www.mouseplanet.com/mike/refillable_mugs_policy_changes.htm

Other people seem to have the same understanding since they've been returning with their older mugs...

http://www.talkdisney.com/forums/showthread/t-18759.html

More info:
http://www.magictrips.com/resorts/mugs.shtml

Oh well, maybe we won't bother bringing the mugs since it'd be a pain lugging them around the boat anyways. Since pop is free at meals, I don't mind ice tea or lemonade during the other times.

 

[cjsmith]

While it's true that there is some controversy over whether or not the mugs are good for the same resort on return visits, they were never good for the cruise as that is completely separate entity.