Refillable Mugs- Respectful Comment

[bicker]

Disney should have a "recycyle y our old mug" thing...like you get $5 off a new mug for a new stay if you recycyle your old one....

I agree with Pepper... this is a great idea. Disney doesn't generally accept unsolicited suggestions, due to legal considerations, but perhaps they'll come up with idea themselves?

 

[MiaSRN62]

Gabrielle says : I'm so grateful that the CMs don't speak up and "correct" these folks. The last thing I want to hear on vacation is a resort CM correct a guest.

Funny you should say this. I have one instance where I was scolded by an AS Music CM in the food court.
Scenario : Vacationing with in-laws. We stayed at the WL and they stayed at Music. One morning we decided to meet for breakfast. Decided on Music because her child was youngest and just figured it would be easier. Our family of 5, filled up our WL mugs at Roaring Forks and drove over to the Music resort to join in-laws at the food court. We ordered our breakfast and as I was paying for ours, the CM at the cash register (quite sternly) lectured that I cannot use the WL mug at the Music resort. I prompty huffed at her and told her I was well aware of the rules and I had already filled my mug at Roaring Forks food court. She said nothing after that (not even "sorry" for the way she spoke to me). In 12 years of vacationing at the WDW resorts, this is the only time a CM ever said anything about a mug. Granted I was coming from another resort, but she could have presented it much nicer than she did.

Daisy D says : If your area offers plastics recycling you can give the mugs to them.

They do, but they only recycle #1 and #2 plastic. I don't believe the mugs fall into that category ? Anyone know ?
As I stated in an earlier post on this thread (and other "mug" threads over the years on the DIS), I just don't get why disney doesn't offer their own recycling. They come off as so big with environmental issues and conservation ?
Or how about letting guests bring their mugs back every year and just charge them for refills (less than the orig price of the mug AND the refills). There was discussion of doing a bar code policy to "renew" your mugs each visit. Anything is better than the policy they have now.

 

[jann1033]

i think it's all how you say it, if a cm nicely told me i was doing something wrong, I'd appreciate knowing...sometimes the attitude is what gets you....

my mug was from 2004, pop grand opening ,so evidently that' s when they started printing the WARNING , DANGER, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK spiel could be some older warning-less mugs were still floating around at other resorts.

I have to say, this might be a first a 43 post long non argumentative mug thread

 

[MiaSRN62]

jann1033 says : this might be a first a 43 post long non argumentative mug thread

I knew we could do it

 

[formernyer]

I agree that the $5 credit for old mug returns is a good idea in theory and I'm sure some people might actually do it, but I'm not certain it would work quite as well as you'd think.

(1) Most people who travel to Disney aren't hard-core Disney freaks like many of the people who frequent this board. Most families who vacation in Disney will only go once or twice EVER. To these families, the mug is a souvenier which they don't want to give back.

(2) The frugal people who want to reuse mugs to save money aren't going to be enticed by a $5 credit on a new mug. It's cheaper for them to bring the old one back.

(3) Disney isn't going to want to have to deal with having a recycling operation for the mugs.

(4) Disney is in the business of making money and this would be a lot of effort for no material gain. Do you know how much a refill costs? It's less than $.01 per cup to refill a soft drink. The only refills that would cost more than that are hot tea (cost of a tea bag) or hot chocolate (which is also bulk-processed at Disney and would still be very cheap). Disney's coffee is not even costly because they get Nescafe (fake cheap stuff). In any restaurant or food service establishment, soft drinks are always the #1 money maker because the only real cost to the restaurant is the cup. When purchased in bulk, paper cups cost less than $.05 each. Disney is probably paying closer to $1.00 each for the refillable mugs, but they sell them for $11, so they're still making a ton.

Most people who mug-hop at other resorts are costing the other resorts no more than a penny or two, and they'll only do it during that trip because they'll forget to bring the mug back if they ever travel to Disney again. Even if they bring it back, Disney isn't LOSING anything more than a few pennies on the deal. They only lose the opportunity cost of another mug sale. Is it stealing? Technically it is. Is Disney ever going to crack down on somebody for stealing something that cost them $.01? Highly doubtful. Is it worth it for Disney to do all sorts of R&D to set up and operate a mug recycling system so that they can avoid having customers steal a few cents worth of soft drinks? No way!

If Disney was able to trade in the recycled mugs for like $1 each then I might say it would be worth it to them, but that's probably all the mugs cost them in the first place so the amount they'd get on trade-in would be more like $.05 each or less.

 

[Luvamouse]

I agree that the $5 credit for old mug returns is a good idea in theory and I'm sure some people might actually do it, but I'm not certain it would work quite as well as you'd think.

(1) Most people who travel to Disney aren't hard-core Disney freaks like many of the people who frequent this board. Most families who vacation in Disney will only go once or twice EVER. To these families, the mug is a souvenier which they don't want to give back.

(2) The frugal people who want to reuse mugs to save money aren't going to be enticed by a $5 credit on a new mug. It's cheaper for them to bring the old one back.

(3) Disney isn't going to want to have to deal with having a recycling operation for the mugs.

(4) Disney is in the business of making money and this would be a lot of effort for no material gain. Do you know how much a refill costs? It's less than $.01 per cup to refill a soft drink. The only refills that would cost more than that are hot tea (cost of a tea bag) or hot chocolate (which is also bulk-processed at Disney and would still be very cheap). Disney's coffee is not even costly because they get Nescafe (fake cheap stuff). In any restaurant or food service establishment, soft drinks are always the #1 money maker because the only real cost to the restaurant is the cup. When purchased in bulk, paper cups cost less than $.05 each. Disney is probably paying closer to $1.00 each for the refillable mugs, but they sell them for $11, so they're still making a ton.

Most people who mug-hop at other resorts are costing the other resorts no more than a penny or two, and they'll only do it during that trip because they'll forget to bring the mug back if they ever travel to Disney again. Even if they bring it back, Disney isn't LOSING anything more than a few pennies on the deal. They only lose the opportunity cost of another mug sale. Is it stealing? Technically it is. Is Disney ever going to crack down on somebody for stealing something that cost them $.01? Highly doubtful. Is it worth it for Disney to do all sorts of R&D to set up and operate a mug recycling system so that they can avoid having customers steal a few cents worth of soft drinks? No way!

If Disney was able to trade in the recycled mugs for like $1 each then I might say it would be worth it to them, but that's probably all the mugs cost them in the first place so the amount they'd get on trade-in would be more like $.05 each or less.

Pretty good points, IMHO. BTW, Formernyer...what are you currently if not a NYer?

I have to say, this might be a first a 43 post long non argumentative mug thread

I can only say THANK goodness! I truly did not wish to start what has already been done, namely an argument. Just to present the other side. Or sides.

Now , along the lines of Formernyer's post re: pricing, here is a humorous thread to which I claim no fact checking basis, but... It gives the price per gallon @3 cents!! and claims a 25,000% markup. (Note: I have tried to Google the cost to retailer, and did get another 3 cent price but for 16 oz. Not having great luck with my search wording...) Check it out, the guy who took advantage of the free refills at Burger King is hilarious.Free Refills, Get your $'s Worth!

"Soda of the variety Mr. Turnbee is talking about costs Burger King approximately .03 cents per gallon and is sold at a 25,000% markup"..."In fact he would have to drink more than 250 (16 oz.) refills to get his 94 cents worth."

Hmmm. That would handle the cost to Disney arguement well I think.

 

[formernyer]

I'm in Tennessee now...major change from Long Island. It was culture shock for the first year or so.

That article you posted reminds me of NY. When I lived in NY the only places that offered free refills were the fast food places and most of them you needed to ask the cashier to fill it for you. When I moved south (1997) it was the exact opposite. I've yet to find a single restaurant or fast food place that DOESN'T offer free refills. It's just the standard here. All of the fast food places have refill stations to do it yourself.

 

[kaysmommie]

I'm in Tennessee now...major change from Long Island. It was culture shock for the first year or so.

That article you posted reminds me of NY. When I lived in NY the only places that offered free refills were the fast food places and most of them you needed to ask the cashier to fill it for you. When I moved south (1997) it was the exact opposite. I've yet to find a single restaurant or fast food place that DOESN'T offer free refills. It's just the standard here. All of the fast food places have refill stations to do it yourself.

formernyer, It took you a whole year to get used to TN? We moved here from NJ in July and yes I'm in culture shock still. DH and DD 6 are fine, but I"m having a tougher time adjusting. We live in Knoxville. Did you get any tornados with those storms yesterday? I was ready to pack and leave yesterday because those storms are scary! The closest tornado we had was in Oak Ridge, but no damage. I'm glad our house is brick but wish we had got one with a basement. I have family here and they never told me about these storms before we moved. Anyway is it always like this in the spring. The weather is great though!

 

[Lewisc]

It is humorous but the Onion is a comedy/satire site. A past article reported that the United States was going to move our capital to a new location and make it world class.

Now , along the lines of Formernyer's post re: pricing, here is a humorous thread to which I claim no fact checking basis, but... It gives the price per gallon @3 cents!! and claims a 25,000% markup. (Note: I have tried to Google the cost to retailer, and did get another 3 cent price but for 16 oz. Not having great luck with my search wording...) Check it out, the guy who took advantage of the free refills at Burger King is hilarious.Free Refills, Get your $'s Worth!

"Soda of the variety Mr. Turnbee is talking about costs Burger King approximately .03 cents per gallon and is sold at a 25,000% markup"..."In fact he would have to drink more than 250 (16 oz.) refills to get his 94 cents worth."

Hmmm. That would handle the cost to Disney arguement well I think.

 

[Sammie]

formernyer, It took you a whole year to get used to TN? We moved here from NJ in July and yes I'm in culture shock still. DH and DD 6 are fine, but I"m having a tougher time adjusting. We live in Knoxville. Did you get any tornados with those storms yesterday? I was ready to pack and leave yesterday because those storms are scary! The closest tornado we had was in Oak Ridge, but no damage. I'm glad our house is brick but wish we had got one with a basement. I have family here and they never told me about these storms before we moved. Anyway is it always like this in the spring. The weather is great though!

Not sure exactly what culture shock you suffered from, but did either one of you think this might be insulting to Tennesseans and completely off topic at that.

I never understand why some people move to locations and then want to critize it, if you are not happy I am sure they will let you move back to NY.

 

[formernyer]

formernyer, It took you a whole year to get used to TN? We moved here from NJ in July and yes I'm in culture shock still. DH and DD 6 are fine, but I"m having a tougher time adjusting. We live in Knoxville. Did you get any tornados with those storms yesterday? I was ready to pack and leave yesterday because those storms are scary! The closest tornado we had was in Oak Ridge, but no damage. I'm glad our house is brick but wish we had got one with a basement. I have family here and they never told me about these storms before we moved. Anyway is it always like this in the spring. The weather is great though!

Well I loved it here from the beginning, but it did take a year or so to really get used to some of the differences. The little things which took a longer adjustment period were things like waving as you drive past strangers in the subdivision, making eye contact with people all the time so as to not seem rude, slowing down my speech so they could understand me, etc. There are some things I'll never get used to, but over the years they don't bother me as much, such as "fast" food taking 5-10 minutes instead of 2-3 minutes, people misusing grammar in horrible ways because it's considered acceptable around here (e.g., "I might could meet you for dinner this afternoon."). And yes, around here "dinner" is the meal that happens between 11am and 1pm. I really do love it in the south overall, but it's a totally different lifestyle.

The storms last night were just horrible. They were the worst to hit Middle TN since the 1970s. I stayed up half the night in front of the TV. They were showing pictures of BASEBALL-sized hail...the damage is just terrible. The place that was hit hardest is about 25 miles from me. I will never, ever get used to the tornados. On Long Island we had some pretty horrible hurricanes, but I was never scared of them because I knew that, at worst, we'd have some flooding and home damage. Tornados are a lot scarier...if it hits your house, you lose everything. On Mother's Day three years ago we had one hit ONE MILE from my house as the crow flies. We weren't able to get in to see the damage until 7 days after it happened (because the cops were blocking off the area) and by the time I saw it some cleanup had begun and it apparently looked a LOT better than it did right after it hit. Even so, the photos I took are nothing short of frightening. Here are a few of them...

That last picture is what was left of an entire home. The rest of the house was scattered around the neighborhood. This particular tornado struck at 2am and there were NO fatalities. Very hard to believe. Somebody was looking over these people. As you can tell, these were fairly low-end homes (vinyl-sided, smaller homes). For the past few years I've tried to convince myself that the homes in my subdivision would hold up a little better than the ones in the pics, but the storm that hit last night took out hundreds of houses and many of them were $500k brick homes. Every time we get past another round of storms I count my blessings.

Sorry this thread is getting so off-topic.

 

[formernyer]

Not sure exactly what culture shock you suffered from, but did either one of you think this might be insulting to Tennesseans and completely off topic at that.

I never understand why some people move to locations and then want to critize it, if you are not happy I am sure they will let you move back to NY.

Who insulted a Tennessean? I love it here and I'd never move back north unless there was a REALLY good reason for it!

People act differently in different parts of the country. Southerners who travel north think NYers are rude and have attitudes. Lack of eye contact and a rough/tough-sounding accent doesn't mean we're being rude though. It's just the way we were raised and what we're used to. Along the same lines, when I first moved here and heard people saying things like, "might could" I thought they were uneducated. It didn't take long to realize that some of the people using poor grammar around here are very smart, but they just don't know any better because it's the way southerners speak. We are all products of our environment and there will always be culture-shock when placed into an environment that is different.

I never insulted any Tennesseans in my posts and neither the person you quoted. Chill out a bit.

 

[Sammie]

Well that would be all in perception, not everyone in Tennessee has a grammar problem nor does everyone in the South speak that way and to generalize everyone is incorrect

Nor do you have to speak slowly to everyone to be understood.

Being friendly to most has never been considered a problem. I would never classify anyone from a certain area as rude either, that would be uneducated.

 

[bicker]

Just one mistake in your logic, formernyer:

Do you know how much a refill costs? It's less than $.01 per cup to refill a soft drink.

That doesn't count the cost of the lost sale from the new refillable mug, which you yourself noted later in your message:

They only lose the opportunity cost of another mug sale.

I agree with you, though, that the grift is relatively inconsequential -- so few people do this -- and agree with you that Disney will continue to rely on the integrity of their guests rather than put in place any draconian enforcement in this regard. They'll just charge us all a little bit more to make up for the few that do do this.

 

[formernyer]

Well that would be all in perception, not everyone in Tennessee has a grammar problem nor does everyone in the South speak that way and to generalize everyone is incorrect

Nor do you have to speak slowly to everyone to be understood.

Being friendly to most has never been considered a problem. I would never classify anyone from a certain area as rude either, that would be uneducated.

Apparently you like to start arguments where they don't exist. I never said that EVERYONE in the south speaks that way, but MOST do so it is not wrong to make a generalization..."y'all" falls into the category and virtually all southerners say it. Again, I'm not insulting anyone and I've learned to adapt. I've even started to use some southern slang myself over the years.

Yes, I do have to speak slower to be understood. You'll need to trust me on this one. And that is NOT an insult to southerners, it is an insult to Long Islanders. In NY we speak a mile a minute with no breaths in between. When I moved here nobody understood a word I was saying and I constantly had to repeat myself. Once again, I learned to adapt.

Please chill out. You're stirring up arguments that don't exist.

 

[Sammie]

I am not trying to start an arguement. I find your generalizations about the way Southerners speak to be insulting. As all do not speak that way, which is my point. I would never say "might could" and I refer to the mid-day meal as lunch.

And here is your quote, and have a nice day.

People act differently in different parts of the country. Southerners who travel north think NYers are rude and have attitudes. Lack of eye contact and a rough/tough-sounding accent doesn't mean we're being rude though. It's just the way we were raised and what we're used to. Along the same lines, when I first moved here and heard people saying things like, "might could" I thought they were uneducated. It didn't take long to realize that some of the people using poor grammar around here are very smart, but they just don't know any better because it's the way southerners speak. We are all products of our environment and there will always be culture-shock when placed into an environment that is different.

 

[bicker]

Page 4!

 

[formernyer]

I am not trying to start an arguement. I find your generalizations about the way Southerners speak to be insulting. As all do not speak that way, which is my point. I would never say "might could" and I refer to the mid-day meal as lunch.

And here is your quote, and have a nice day.

I stand by everything I've said and I don't find it even slightly insulting to southerners.

Some Long Islanders make eye contact, speak slowly, and never have that "tough" sound to their voices, yet I feel very comfortable in making a generalization that MOST Long Islanders lack eye contact, speak too fast, and might come off as sounding rude to non-NYers.

It's no different to make a generalization that MOST southerners live a slower-paced lifestyle and speak with a lot of southern slang.

I'm done arguing with you because there's no point to it. Some people get offended at the drop of a pin. It's not worth having discussions with those people.

 

[formernyer]

Page 4!

LMAO you're right, but it isn't about the mugs so does it count?

 

[MiaSRN62]

Respectfully Sammie, I don't see anywhere than Formernyer insulted anyone from the south. But it is a very different lifestyle and that's not a put down. I, personally, would love a less hectic pace of the south vs the crazy, fast-track of the northeast. Some southerners would find the typical NY or Philly accent very odd (I've actually been told this by southerners). It's not a put down either way.....but there are very different ways of life. And I'm sure those in CA would feel both the southerners and northeasterners are a bit strange. Let's just embrace the diversity. I'm guessing Formernyer must have seen alot of positives to living in the south to have relocated there. I'm quite sure I would go through some culture shock if I moved down south coming from the Philadelphia area. But I know I'd love to do just this one day.
BTW, such sad news about the tornados in TN. Those pics are horrendous Formernyer. I was just watching news footage on CNN. My heart goes out to everyone who's been affected by the storms (which I heard could be moving into GA ?).

Bicker says : They'll just charge us all a little bit more to make up for the few that do do this.

I agree with Bicker, that the prices will go up, but I think that's just a natural occurrence regardless of whether they justify the increase due to having to make up lost $ from guests reusing mugs. As prices for the refillable mugs go up, I just think more families will rethink their overall value and sales may go down based on this. I mean, it's $12+ for a mug now regardless of whether one stays 3 nights or 10 nights. I wish Disney would base the cost on the LOS. But I doubt that will ever happen. I just don't see a family of 4, seeing spending $52 as cost effective for a 3 or 4 night stay vs a 7+ night stay.