I'm just gonna leave this here. In 3 years the price of season cup refills has gone from $0.99 to $2.49, while the cup prices have also increased greatly. That's a 150% increase in refill price alone. Wtf BGW
Souvenir Cup Paid Refill Program
- Thread starter rollercoastercoaster
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That's insane. The $0.99 cent refills always felt like you were getting an okay deal because that's roughly as much as, or a little bit cheaper than, you'd pay for a soda at a regular fast food restaurant outside the park. $2.49 is highway robbery. You can get multiple sodas at a fast food restaurant or gas station for that price. I get that prices at a theme park are supposed to be inflated, but the whole value of the souvenir cup was that it felt like you were getting a pretty good deal on refills. Not anymore.
I always hesitate to call things "greed" because corporations literally exist to make as much profit as possible -- theme parks only get built in the first place so people can make money -- so the whole "greed" shtick feels juvenile to me. But this sure as hell feels greedy if I've ever seen it. A serving of fountain soda costs an establishment about 15 cents (the common belief that it's less than a penny is a myth, but that's still really cheap), so the park is raking in a 94% profit margin on these refills before you even factor in the upfront revenue from the souvenir bottle. Insanity.
So I'll refrain from calling it greed, but I for one won't be buying these bottles anymore. And the souvenir bottles were one of the few things I still bought from the park because I felt like they provided value... even though the park was still making a comfortable margin off my purchase. I won't call it greedy, but I'll certainly call it stupid.
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FYI this is the cost of a large soda at my McDonalds. And the one near me hasn’t been self serve since I moved up in 2021.
Okay, I did the research. These are the prices for a large fountain drink from each of the following fast food restaurants' closest location to BGW. All prices are non-promo prices and pulled from making mobile orders for pickup on each of their respective websites (to avoid any hidden delivery app up-charges).
McDonald's: $1.99
Wendy's: $3.59
Hardee's: $2.99
Burger King: $2.99
Now, I will say this: Fast food restaurants artificially inflate the prices of their stand-alone drinks to encourage/force patrons to buy combo meals instead—something that is not offered at BGW. Thus, I'm not sure if it's really a fair comparison at all. Perhaps convenience store soda prices are a less "engineered" pricing parallel? Though someone could probably reasonably say that they may be kept artificially low in comparison to what the market would bare to drive foot traffic into convince stores to encourage impulse purchases of higher margin products.
Movie theaters may be the most similar parallel to parks—essentially an extortion racket where the business has complete, unilateral market control over hydration. On the flip-side of that though, you have a park like Holiday World where its financially successful to include unlimited drinks with the cost of admission/a pass.
The cost of drinks is clearly negligible but, at the same time, many businesses harvest downright disgusting margins on them every day. I think it's fair to argue that it's trashy and parks shouldn't do the same, but I also think it's fair to argue that the market environment in which we live incentives business to engage in this practice to the fullest extent the market will bare—and as movie theaters show, the market may bare a whole hell of a lot more than parks are currently harvesting.
Ultimately, personally, at the end of the day, I don't really care. I happily lived off free cups of water from parks for years and, as long as that option remains available to all guests, meh—I don't care what BGW charges people for soft drinks.
I think people who purchased bottles under one agreement should have that agreement honored, but regarding forward-looking purchases, whatevs. People are free to make their value calculations. I don't have much of an issue with parks offering bad deals to consumers as long as the terms are clearly disclosed and the park honors their commitments.
McDonald's: $1.99
Wendy's: $3.59
Hardee's: $2.99
Burger King: $2.99
Now, I will say this: Fast food restaurants artificially inflate the prices of their stand-alone drinks to encourage/force patrons to buy combo meals instead—something that is not offered at BGW. Thus, I'm not sure if it's really a fair comparison at all. Perhaps convenience store soda prices are a less "engineered" pricing parallel? Though someone could probably reasonably say that they may be kept artificially low in comparison to what the market would bare to drive foot traffic into convince stores to encourage impulse purchases of higher margin products.
Movie theaters may be the most similar parallel to parks—essentially an extortion racket where the business has complete, unilateral market control over hydration. On the flip-side of that though, you have a park like Holiday World where its financially successful to include unlimited drinks with the cost of admission/a pass.
The cost of drinks is clearly negligible but, at the same time, many businesses harvest downright disgusting margins on them every day. I think it's fair to argue that it's trashy and parks shouldn't do the same, but I also think it's fair to argue that the market environment in which we live incentives business to engage in this practice to the fullest extent the market will bare—and as movie theaters show, the market may bare a whole hell of a lot more than parks are currently harvesting.
Ultimately, personally, at the end of the day, I don't really care. I happily lived off free cups of water from parks for years and, as long as that option remains available to all guests, meh—I don't care what BGW charges people for soft drinks.
I think people who purchased bottles under one agreement should have that agreement honored, but regarding forward-looking purchases, whatevs. People are free to make their value calculations. I don't have much of an issue with parks offering bad deals to consumers as long as the terms are clearly disclosed and the park honors their commitments.
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7-11 near me is $2.59 for the first one and $1.50 refills but you need your receipt.
Wawa is $1.99 with no refills.
And the Exxon near me is $2.50 with no refills.
It’s tough to make any comparisons. Some parks charge differently on refills too.
Personally I brought it up on a slight comparison just due to the line catching my eye of multiple sodas at the price of a BGw refill which is stretching it a bit.
You guys are forgetting with these drink price comparisons that with the all season refill cups, you not only have to buy the $2.49/refill, but you also had to buy the $20 cup prior.
While we're on the topic, the shrinkflation related to those cups over the years has been ridiculous. I had a 2014 Colossal Curl souvenir cup from WCUSA until about 2020 or 2021 when it finally fell apart and I threw it out. I remember taking that cup and comparing it side-by-side to the Pantheon ones they had at the time, and the new ones were like a good 25-35% smaller. The bottom of them is SIGNIFICANTLY skinnier than they used to be, and the cups as a whole are more slender as well, not just the bottom. Keep in mind we had also payed like $12-13 for them in 2014, whereas now they're $20
While we're on the topic, the shrinkflation related to those cups over the years has been ridiculous. I had a 2014 Colossal Curl souvenir cup from WCUSA until about 2020 or 2021 when it finally fell apart and I threw it out. I remember taking that cup and comparing it side-by-side to the Pantheon ones they had at the time, and the new ones were like a good 25-35% smaller. The bottom of them is SIGNIFICANTLY skinnier than they used to be, and the cups as a whole are more slender as well, not just the bottom. Keep in mind we had also payed like $12-13 for them in 2014, whereas now they're $20
You are allowed, you just have to pay for the refills.
The whole refill program is dirty and disgusting. A new cup should be the only thing touching those machines. Plus lugging around the souvenir bottle is just a huge inconvenience.
One of the great things Cedar Fair did was the paper cup option.
One of the great things Cedar Fair did was the paper cup option.
Those cups are fairly standard across the industry. I get what you’re saying with the refill cups being dirty, but that’s fairly standard across all food service. A good amount of restaurants still take your cup and refill it each time you need one rather than give you a whole new cup. As far as the paper cup option, that just creates so much more waste. Waxed paper cups aren’t recyclable, so it creates a ton of waste going to a landfill. Plus people are more likely to just leave them around and drop them on the ground creating more trash for the park to collect. Also as far as cost, when you’re buying enough paper cups give people with drink packages a new cup each time, you could be looking at millions of more cups every year across the chain. That’s not an insignificant amount of money.
I guess BG is showing their lack of class again. I know, what else is new. They pushed those refillable drink cups the whole month of March. You could get them 2 for $25. The old ones we had were falling apart and leaking at the seams. My wife specifically asked how much refills were going to be and was told $1.99 and pass discount. We went yesterday and effective April 1 (Not April Fools) they raised the price of refills. They are now $2.50 and pass discount. Yeah, it's not that much but it is more the principle of the thing. I guess too many people took advantage of the "2 for" offer and now they raised the price to cover for it. They obviously don't care about PR.
So, I guess water and ice is still free. We have decided that we will use our free dinner voucher and our F&W vouchers and drink water. I'll be damned if I spend another dime in that park! We're already trying to figure out which dinner would be the least disgusting to use our voucher dinner. Not much to choose from.
So, I guess water and ice is still free. We have decided that we will use our free dinner voucher and our F&W vouchers and drink water. I'll be damned if I spend another dime in that park! We're already trying to figure out which dinner would be the least disgusting to use our voucher dinner. Not much to choose from.