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Free Drinks at CF parks?


Colonel_SoB_fan
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I didn't know they could fill personal items with ice water, that is kinda cool. My experiences in the food industry once something went over the counter it could not be taken back or refiled. But then again maybe that was just the place I worked for. Brown, you ran a business what it the stature with that?

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I didn't know they could fill personal items with ice water, that is kinda cool. My experiences in the food industry once something went over the counter it could not be taken back or refiled. But then again maybe that was just the place I worked for. Brown, you ran a business what it the stature with that?

I don't see why it would be an issue, and I do not know of a violation infraction, unless it would be a private policy that the business has. And thinking about it, filling up a larger drink container with water would be much easier (and cheaper) than serving numerous small drink cups.

Food/ beverage businesses take back empty drinks and refill them all the time in: draft beer glasses, rock glasses (that ice does have your booze in it) or "bottomless" soft drink glasses/ souvenier cups.

Now where it does get tricky is if a guest wanted to refill a bottle of beer with draft beer or a winery wanted to re-use a wine tasting bottle as a bottle to be sold. That is a violation.

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  • 1 month later...

Cedar Fair never gives anything away, pretty soon there will be no drinking fountains you'll have to pay three dollars for bottle water.

That's what happened in the new stadium for the Colts here in Indy, they reduced the number of drinking fountains by a large number, and put them at bad locations (bathrooms far from seats) This way guests buy a drink instead of seeing a drinking fountain and getting a drink from their instead.

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Cedar Fair never gives anything away, pretty soon there will be no drinking fountains you'll have to pay three dollars for bottle water.

That's what happened in the new stadium for the Colts here in Indy, they reduced the number of drinking fountains by a large number, and put them at bad locations (bathrooms far from seats) This way guests buy a drink instead of seeing a drinking fountain and getting a drink from their instead.

Never been to Lucas Oil Stadium, if that's true that is terrible!

Guess they got to pay off that stadium some how.

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I do not think there is a law enacted that states you have to have drinking fountains in a public place or park. Yes if they removed them people would be upset. I remember when White castles charged .10 to use the bathroom. Each stall had a slot to insert your dime then the door would unlock.

I hope they never get rid of the drinking fountains at KI, I mean why would they?

I am not a fan at all of the prices at KI for food or drinks however why should the park give free stuff away? To us it is a place we pay to go. To them it is a business which is the way it should be. People who threaten to never return to the park again usually do anyways.

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Walt Disney had to chose either restrooms or drinking fountains on Disneyland's opening day. He chose the former.

Of course, that was the least of his problems on that particular day, which was dubbed by Walt himself as "Black Sunday," was gas leaks, wet pavement, and 100+ degree weather taking up most of his time...

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But, parks wouldn't lose money on the free drinks. I vividly recall folks told Will Koch he was insane, there was too much margin to be ignored on soft drinks. This prompted Will to present the full business case as a webinar that I wish I had kept.

Holiday World, like any good park or business, has a Point of Sale system capeable of keeping metrics on how many sales and dollars each and every item makes. This is why, when you eat at Plymouth Rock Cafe, and purchase the Meat + 3 dinner, the receipt itemizes out which three sides you chose. (And slows down the checkout process, but that's another matter entirely). So, for the park to get a dollar figure on how much soft drinks, ice tea and coffee brought in was a pretty trivial assignment. The numbers were crunched, and then they divided that dollar figure by that season's total attendance to arrive at the per person or percap number. In the case of beverage, Will said that worked out to around $2.71 a person.

So what did they do in 2000, besides open Legend? They upped the admission price by $4, $1 of it was the regular and customary price increase, and was to go towards Legend, the other $3 replaced the $2.71 drink percap they were making in 1999. Did you just notice something? That's right, despite making drinks "free", the drink percap went up 10%. This is great because it scales right along with the explosive jumps in attendance the park has had. I'm also sure that the park has since re-indexed the 'drink supplement' part of the admission charge. They could raise that 5-10% every year if they wanted. I beleive at the time, WIll said the cost of a Pepsi Oasis drink to the park was about 10 cents, which means a person would have to go through thirty of them before , he also noted the most expensive part of that was the paper cup. You may have also noted the free drinks no longer come in Holiday World cups, they come in generic Pepsi cups. The product cost most likely has gone down further. Will went on to further make the case that the free drinks has shown other benefits to the park. For example he noted his food percaps were up, indicating that more people were eating a meal in the park, and that his first aid expenses were lower thanks to reduced cases of heat exhaustion. in intangiables, he noted they were receiving less and less of the 'small complaints' as people were more willing to overlook the small inconveneinces since they were getting something free.

The point was, that it was no top secret, it wasn't rocket science, and he was willing to show any pther park that wanted to folow suit, exactly how to do so, right down to giving hints like, "Use the smallest size cups you can get to avoid product waste"

Now, transferring this knowledge to Kings Island, it could be done, but with very expensive start up costs. Over the years Kings Island has torn down just about every stand alone fountain based cold drinks stand, in favor of vending machines. If they were to want to start down the road towards free drinks, they would have to rebuild a lot of the cold drinks stands, this is because you don't want your food service workers to be spending the majority of their time distriuting prepaid product. Holiday world also had this same start up cost as the continue to build more and more drink distribution stations, and are also slowly converting their food stands over to self serve drinks, usually by replacing one service window with a self serve fountain.

But yeah, given the general mood and vibe around Cedar Fair - don't hold your breath. They are, as noted, pushing the $1.99 refills very heavily. What I disagree with is: I can see giving the little medicine cups of water (don't they bring back fond memories of the juice/punch cups from preschool and kindergarden) when you are walking the midways and just getting drinks, but if you are in the act of purchasing a meal from the park, the least they could do is give you a full size cup of ice water. I just paid you $10 for a burger and fries, and you are going to give me a 5 oz. cup of water, really?

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A question (which is probably pretty stupid of me): Are there vending machines at Holiday World? I mean, there's not, right?

And think of how much upkeep those are. To constantly restock, to keep them refrigerated, etc. Cedar Fair is still selling pop for upwards of 300% of what you could get the same bottle at elsewhere, but that's a lot of machines, and a lot of maintenance. I absolutely adore Mr. Koch's idea and simple, realistic, facts about the "free" drinks. The man was a genius, an innovator, and a game-changer, that's for sure. My only fear is, imagine how much the price of a season pass or a Platinum Pass might increase if free soft drinks were "included?" I can see the Platinum Pass being raised at least $50.00...

But as they are now, the passes are really only good for entry and parking. The "deals" they present are so unrealistic. Four buffets for the price of three? Four meals at Stunt Crew Grill on the one day a month its open for $39.99? I'm 19 years old. My friends all have passes, too. It wouldn't do any of us any good to partake in the "deals" they present, which are really for families (and rich ones, at that). Kings Dominion? Maybe. It's isolated, takes ten minutes to navigate the parking lot, and you must drive five miles in either direction on the high way to get to the nearest fast food mecca. And even then they offer $4.99 unlimited soft drink wristbands. But Kings Island is surrounded by food, and it's an easy drive.

I absolutely loved the days when I had a Disneyland Annual Pass. No silly, impossible-scenario "deals" like Cedar Fair offers, where if you have three kids and one of them is a girl and the planets align, you get $5.00 off a french fry if you buy two at regular price and have a hand-stamp from the buffet. Disney passes just provide 10% off of merchandise and food with the lower-level annual pass, and 15% off the same things with the upper-level pass. There. Simple. No strings attached. And it was worth it, and I happily used my discounts.

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  • 2 weeks later...

You mentioned parking taking forever, I wish they would use parking directors like HW and CP do. That would make everything so much easier and faster.

And CF being such a big company interested in making money, I doubt they'd actually make free drinks... at least they got free water. And if you're they guy saying their water is lame. If it's clean, I'll drink it; and did you ever have to drink water from the sink? From a pump? You might've had the sink once or twice, but it's better than the sink water, definitely the pump. ;)

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