[Getting my ghetto Henry County on; head bob, finger point, and all.]
Oh NO, you dih-int!
Just heard word of the Rapid Fill roll out across Walt Disney World resorts. Click here for the article from WDW Magic. In our last post regarding Rapid Fill, we were so sweet. Even gracious in defending it. But today, we are skeptical and a step below livid from what we’ve been hearing. Wish you could see the text messages Tim and I have been swapping back and forth today. {Chris Patton, if you are reading this, they are all work related, centering around team building, leadership, and the Grand Opening tonight…}
Warning: One or more of the above statements are completely false.
From what we can tell, Rapid Fill is in full swing, with pricing as promised. No new mug designs have been introduced, but more color options have been provided including green, purple, and orange. This is a bandaid for us. We’re satisfied with that, but would still love some creative variety in the future.
Things people seem to be complaining about it is the inability to get coffee and hot chocolate in the mugs. Apparently the hot beverage machines do not have the RFID scanners in them? However, this sign obviously says coffee is available, so am I being scammed by Twitterers trying to stir up trouble? 
If there is any truth to the coffee rumors, this is where my ghetto-fightin’ girl comes out. Don’t. You. Mess. With. My. Coffee! If I’m paying $18 for a refillable mug, I don’t want to have to pay for coffee in addition to that! Coffee is mostly what I drink from the mug, anyway! I’m not the soda consumer my husband is, so coffee and water are my two beverages of choice. If I have to pay for every cup of coffee refill I want, the mug really isn’t worth it for me. I guess Starbucks will be getting my money, instead. It’s a better cup of coffee, anyhow.
Complaint number two, which has yet to be confirmed, is the free refills being limited to every 20 minutes. I’ve heard of this from unlimited drink machines aboard cruise lines, so most people are saying this is a given with the instillation of a RFID chip. We don’t like this either. If this is the case, they need to offer a bigger mug, maybe? {I know, I know, welcome to America.} My husband can drink down the 16 ounces the mug holds within a few gulps. Having to wait 20 minutes between refills would make him grouchy, to say the least. And here’s a thought; what about people that prefer a mixed drink {ie. half Coke, half Coke Zero}? Does the machine give you some sort of time limit to fill up your mug? Or do you get one push of the trigger and that is it? Because even then, with fizzy drinks you tend to fill them up by pressing the trigger several times, letting the fizz die down to avoid spill-over. I guess I am just uneducated as to how the machines fully work. I need some ‘splainin’, as Ricky Ricardo would say.
As for those who wish to “go green” and bring back an RFID mug on numerous trips to reactivate, Disney is still saying that’s a no-go. Hopefully that will change in the future, as well. I’ve heard from several techie minds that that should be relatively easy to incorporate.
Overall, now that Rapid Fill has been put into place, the Elrods are giving it a thumbs down. We’re hoping Disney can work out the kinks in the coming months. We will be arriving in 22 days, so I doubt things will be fixed by then. I’m expecting to hear some major complaints coming out of Tim while there. 
What do you think? Let us hear it. Are we overreacting?
With love, Malorie
Elrods Go... 
I hadn’t thought about how it could affect mixing soda or actually filling the mug all the way up. I’m not a coffee drinker, but I do love hot chocolate and if you can’t use them for hot beverages that’s gonna be a big issue. Surely you can. I heard you just can’t put them in the microwave. And they had better get a new design. New color options will only help for so long…one trip maybe? Disney doesn’t seem to be executing this well. At. All.
We were thinking the same thing! How can this be so poorly executed? Not what we expect from Disney at all. Their trend is to under promise, over deliver. That is definitely not the case here.
Rapid Fill is one of those rumors I was hoping would never actually happen. I can see how there could be a lot of problems. I agree it would be really aggravating to have to wait 20 minutes between refills. Hopefully, that won’t be the case. We always use the mugs for a lot of coffee, too, so if coffee’s no longer included, we probably won’t even get the mugs anymore. I do think the staggered pricing is interesting. We’ve always hated to buy mugs for shorter trips because it seems like such a waste. I guess it’s a shame that Disney felt Rapid Fill was necessary, but maybe they will work out all of the issues and it won’t be too bad.
When the original rumors came out a long time ago, we never took it seriously either. Seemed like it would be a lot of effort and thought for a problem that wasn’t really costing them that much money. Guess we were wrong! Thanks for your thoughts, Kate!