Ride & Refresh Change

I was in the park yesterday. It looks like they've changed how Ride and Refersh is being handled.

Under the old system they put a writst band on you. You walked up, got scanned, and they handed you a paper cup of pop.

Yesterday they had the wrist bands around big plastic cups with plastic straws. They're not quite like the Souvenier bottles... They're large cups with snap-on lids and plastic straws.

I asked a couple girls who had them. They said that the stands were scanning the "paper band" (wristband) around the cup and then refilling the plastic cup.

I'm not sure if this is a third "drink program" or if they've done away with the wrist bands altogether.

Makes sense.. This way they can sell you on how good a deal the "Ride and Refresh" ticket is, but then STILL push you into needing a locker to stash the cup while you ride, just like with the "Souvenir Cup"

Maybe not thinking that when you're finished with your drink you can hand it to your friend and he gets a free drink, then he hands it to his friend and she gets a free drink...

Sounds like a drink share program to me.

At least at one point, the wristband was able to be used as many times as you wanted with no waits, with the caveat you couldn't get multiple drinks at once. Simple fix? Walk to another stand or perhaps even lane..

To me, it sounds like the intent of this change (if it's really change) might have been actually to prevent abuse of the wristbands. You'd have to have the cup, after all, and you'd finish the contents before getting a refill.

Whether or not that's what they're going for, I don't know.

topthrilldragster4lyf said:

To me, it sounds like the intent of this change (if it's really change) might have been actually to prevent abuse of the wristbands. You'd have to have the cup, after all, and you'd finish the contents before getting a refill.

Whether or not that's what they're going for, I don't know.

That was exactly my thoughts. I could see some large groups having 2-3 people get wrist bands and then game the system by getting 20 - 30 cups of pop.

I really like the wrist bands. I've posted here many times about how I wish they'd expand the program and sell them to everyone. Unfortunately I can totally see a-holes gaming the system.

Has anyone seen/experienced/heard any more about this lately? Going next month with a Ride and Refresh ticket and really hate that I will most likely have to carry around a cup. I bought that ticket at AAA just to get the wristband for the sake of convenience, but it's sounding like I should have saved my money for my "locker fund" and just bought a regular admission... :-(

^ One of my friends got the ride and refresh ticket on Sunday and he was given a wristband.

That's great, codeGR - Thank you for the info! It's great to know that there's hope for getting a wristband after all. Appreciate your help... :-)

People can still abuse the refills and provide them to friends. Once you refill your new plastic cup, you could fill up someone elses cup and go back and fill the cup again. Not that I'm promoting doing this, but people can find a way around the ride and refresh changes. It sounds like a way for the company to save money (not handing out new cups every time) and make money (you need a locker).

For those folks who actually follow the rules, it can be pretty inconvenient to have to carry a cup around all day. Why not just buy a souvenir cup if that's the case? And what if the paper band comes off the cup and gets lost? You are most likely out the extra you paid for your admission ticket for the privilege.

But I can certainly understand from a business standpoint why CP might make a change like this. I thought about the paper cup thing myself as well as the money making opportunity to rent more lockers. You know people will find any way to abuse the system no mater what cup or wristband they use. It just takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch for the honest people... I'm just happy to hear that somebody still got a wristband at the park recently since that's what I had planned for when I go.

Six Flags has bins (cupholders) for cups. If thats too much of an issue with capacity, (not to mention getting a cup confused with another and stolen, which once happened to me) I have another idea-

Small cup lockers. Tall and thin for cups. Too small to put a string bag in, but tall enough for a souvenir cup. They could be cheap. I'd say use electronic lockers and make them one low price to use all the "cup lockers" in the park. That way CP could still rent normal lockers to people that carry big bags and purses while renting these cheap lockers to people to put small bags and cups in.

Done correctly, this could keep CP raking in a decent amount of locker revenue while selling more drink cups.

No matter what type of system they use people are going to share their drinks, some way more than others, and I'm pretty sure the park realizes this and included some statistical average for how much sharing would occur in their cost analysis. If ride and refresh and souvenir cups weren't making a profit despite this I'm pretty sure the park wouldn't bother to offer them.

I'd rather get a disposable cup. Carrying around a cup all day is a pain.

The cups should come with their very own fanny pack carrying case. Problem solved!

Paisley said:

If ride and refresh and souvenir cups weren't making a profit despite this I'm pretty sure the park wouldn't bother to offer them.

You do realize that at ~$8-$10 per "Ride & Refresh" wristband, a park guest would have to acquire an obscenely high number of drinks before the park made a small or nonexistent profit, right?

Even if it cost 25¢ for cup + water + syrup + employee time + electricity, you could get 10 cups and the park would only be out $2.50 while making $5.50-$7.50.

At 50¢ per cup (which is way high) and ten cups, that's $5. Still making $3.

Soda prices, like all food services products in the park, are massively inflated. The park makes a huge profit margin on all of those items. So, obviously the park still makes money on the wristbands.

That doesn't mean that they should allow guests to take advantage of them. Policies need enforcing or else they are de-facto void. That, and they'd much rather your companion buy another $8-$10 wristband than let you share.

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating people become super sharers and hydrate 10 friends on one band or cup and consider that to be peachy. I'm just saying that your average sharing (2 best friends, husband and wife, parent and children) is probably assumed andconsidered in the profit margin since it is normal for these types of people to share drinks between each other even without free/cheap refills. You don't normally do that with a large group of people.

I was told at MA that the souvenir cups have a 15 minute time window between refills. I wonder if these wristbands are similar.

I was in the park again today and the wristbands are back. Whatever the other cups were, they either pulled them already or it was a specific program for a specific circumstance.

Thanks for the update, Mystical Matthew! You just made my day! :-)

Glad to hear it's a wristband. R&R only costs $2 more than a regular admission ticket at Meijer but even that extra $2 isn't worth it if I had to pay for a locker to store the cup. At least not on principle.