On this first day of fall, as I drink my coffee in my Disney cup, I figure this is a great time to discuss the refillable mug. So I turn on my mood music ~ Radio Disney ~ and can't help but wonder, "How DO you love someone like a love song, Selena Gomez?" But I digress... Every Disney hotel offers a refillable mug that you can buy for, what seems like, an outrageous price like $20. It can be refilled with coffee, juice or fountain drinks an endless number of times at any Disney hotel food courts. (Please note that you can take this IN the parks but don't get free refills in the parks with it, just the hotels.) Every year the design/theme changes on the cup. This is the mug we bought on our first family trip in January 2009. We bought 2 mugs that trip actually. When we go back November 2012, we will probably buy two more. Here's why I like this deal...not only is this a souvenir that you can take home and break out on cool, fall days like today, but you can use it EVERYTIME you go to Disney. Yep, first time we went, we stayed all the All-Star Music resort. Used it every morning before we left for the parks and every evening when we returned, before we went back to our rooms. (The buses usually drop off fairly close to the eatery areas so this was conveinent.) On our first trip, we probably used the cups 12-15 times. A fairly decent deal for only one trip when you use it like we did.
Second trip in October 2010, we stayed at the Port Orleans - Riverside, brought the cups and used them AGAIN every single morning & evening. There was a completely different design on the 2010 cups so it was OBVIOUS our cups were old. I was kind of nervous the first time I walked up to the register with my breakfast and, what I thought was, an illegimate cup. You see, I was told that the cups were honored every year by a friend. I was skeptical since they didn't advertise that when we bought them (you would think that would be a selling point, right?), but no one said boo to us. (What does that expression even mean?)
Now, there is a rumor that Disney is no longer going to honor this deal - that you can no longer use cups that don't match the current design. But I am now skeptical of THAT. Most of the fountain drinks, juice machines and coffee area are usually out of veiw of the cashiers. They really can't see if someone even goes and fills up a non-Disney brand mug. (I went through the check-out with my mug the first time to get true confirmation on whether it was legit or not.) Until I hear first hand from someone that they are cracking down on this, I am planning to bring my 2 mugs back to Disney for Thanksgiving 2012!!! If you still don't want to spend the money on the mugs, the least you could do is try to find a friend that would let you borrow their mugs for your trip. : )
