The souvenir drink bottles tend to have a love/hate relationship among park goers. Those of us who still travel with a stroller have no problem bringing along our souvenir bottles when going on rides. However, those that are strollerless or do not have people to hold their belongings are encouraged to rent a locker for storing your bottle. While the souvenir bottles can be an excellent value, they can also have hidden costs when you need to pay to store them.
While there are other storage options liking hiding your souvenir bottle behind a bush or on top of the lockers, you do so at your own risk of them getting stolen or thrown away.
Carowinds rolled out a test all season long souvenir cup in 2015; however, since it was rolled out in late July, they may not have been too well received since half of the season was already over.
Well the good news is the all-season souvenir bottles were rolled out at all of the Cedar Fair parks in 2016 and continue in 2017 due to their overwhelming success!
How Much Do the All Season Souvenir Cups Cost?
For $29.99, guests can enjoy unlimited refills throughout the 2017 season. The price is the same online as it is in the parks.
In addition to the cost of the cups online, you pay tax and processing fee. You can wait and purchase the cups at the park to save on the processing fee.
Why Are the Souvenir Bottles So Expensive?
If you know anything about the restaurant business, margins are very low on food. While a regular guest paying $15 for a meal makes the company money, a guest on the meal plan carries risk of eating more throughout the year than the cost of the plan. An all-season meal plan at $90-113 (2017 All-Season dining plans at Fall 2016 prices) with an average $11 for a meal ($15 – $4 for a drink not included on the meal plan), means you need to eat at least 9 meals throughout the season to break even. At two meals a day, that means on your fifth visit you break even.
The park than carries a risk of you eating more meals and eating into their profits.
That is where the souvenir cups make up the difference and where the park makes real money.
When you purchase a souvenir cup, regardless of whether it is regular bottle or all season version, you pay upfront a fee to use the cup. In addition, the cost of the bottle far exceeds the cost of the dispensed beverages, which costs cents. No matter how many times you refill the cup, the park makes money.
So the short answer is, the parks make their money on the souvenir bottles more than the food, and thus why you pay a premium for the bottles.
Where Can You Use the All Season Souvenir Cup?
Just like in 2016, we have independently confirmed from park officials that the 2017 all season cups will be able to be used at ALL Cedar Fair parks!
There still tends to be some confusion about where you purchased your souvenir cup online versus which park you take them to redeem. For example, can you purchase your cup through the Cedar Point website but redeem for them at Carowinds since they open earlier in the season?
In 2016, we successfully did redeem our Cedar Point souvenir cup receipt at Kings Dominion. While we are sure this will still be the case in 2017, you should try and purchase your cup at which ever park you will visit first to avoid confusion. Thereafter, you can use the cups at ANY Cedar Fair park.
Word to the wise! The all season cups will become highly valuable this year, and just leaving them around makes them all the more prone to theft. Factor in the cost to secure your cup during each visit, or you will find yourself thirsty at the well.
Should You Purchase the All-Day or All-Season Souvenir Cups?
The all-season cups offer free refills all season. However, there are still all-day cups that are free refills on the day of purchase and $1 refills all season.
During the 2014 and 2015 seasons, one could reactivate your cup on a subsequent visit to get unlimited refills on that day versus paying the $1.00 per refill fee. So the question was, could you reactivate the all-day cups?
Cup reactivation was deactivated in 2016 with the introduction of the all-season cup.
Therefore, if you plan on visiting more than a couple times, it makes sense to get the all-season cup. If you are only visiting for one, or even a couple visits but do not plan on drinking a lot, it may make more sense to buy the all-day cup and get $1 refills on subsequent visits.
What if I do not want to pay and store the souvenir cup to ride?
The great news is that for 2017, Cedar Fair introduced a season pass drink program. For $29.99, you can use your season pass at any drink location to receive a disposable cup. The drink program has a 15 minute time constraint between refills.
For additional details and discussion, use these references.
Cedar Point Season Pass Drink Program Coming in 2017
To Souvenir Cup, or Not to Souvenir Cup
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Facebook discussion / Update / follow-up / Jan 2016 Update
Twitter discussion / Update / follow-up
I purchased a green souvenir cup from WWK last season could I use it for this season for 99¢ refills
Sorry, but souvenir cups are only able to be used within their current season. The only exception is you can use it for water. You will need to buy a new cup for the current season.
I bought my all season bottle when I renewed my pass last year. Do you know how I get my bottle? Thanks
Kyle: Either bring your receipt with you to the park or they should be able to pull up the information when scanning your platinum pass. The new Coke Oasis stand (formerly Hurricane Hannah’s) is now a redemption center for the cups.
super frustrating that CP & canada’s wonderland won’t replace the cups. my son ran his theough the dishwasher, and it melted. (note-don’t clean them). currently trying to sort it out, but the parks’ solution is to buy another cup.
I was very frustrated with having to get a locker for just my cup. At a minimum of $2.00 that started to add up. I would much rather do the ride and refresh but as a season pass holder that is not an option. I wrote to cedar point about this and they said to make suggestion to marketing.
I bought two and also had one melt in the dishwasher after our first use, brought the melted bottle back to the park to see if I could get a replacement, no such luck. Not sure why they couldn’t at least charge some type of lower replacement fee. So I really only ended up using both mine once and the non-melted one, one other time when my mom was there to hold it while I went on rides. Not sure if I’ll get them again this year. Hopefully there can be a drink option that doesn’t involve the bottle in future dining plans.
Can you purchase a orange 2017 bottle during Halloween haunt?
2017 cups will not be available until the start of next season.
We are planning on 2 days in Cedar Point and 1 day for the water park . . . will the all day souvenir bottle work for all three days?
Yes you can use it all three days. However, free refills will apply the first day and $1 refills on the second and third days.
I have an orange cup from last season, could i use it now?
Sorry, but souvenir cups are only able to be used within their current season. The only exception is you can use it for water. You will need to buy a new cup for the current season.
Bought the souviner cup for my son not thinking he would throw it away cause he couldn’t take it on the ride and couldn’t afford locker. Will they replace this for me? I didn’t get it attached to my platinum holder card cause he was only one there that day. I hope they will give me option to get another one 2.99.
The cups are supposed to be linked to your Platinum pass in order to be able to cancel the old cup and get a new one. If this wasn’t done, they may just replace it for the $2.99 fee, as we have not tried firsthand this process. We recommend bringing your purchase receipt with you showing you bought it to have the $2.99 replacement fee applied.
Can the all day cups be used for $1 refills at any park? Or just the park where they were purchased?
Megan: Yes, the cups can be used at all Cedar Fair parks so long as they are the current year.
I have a platinum pass, and I purchased the all season orange bottle at Knott’s recently. I plan on visiting Cedar Point this May, and was wondering if they will give me “refills” in disposable cups on my Cedar Point visit (after scanning my Pass), or will I need to bring the orange bottle with me? Thanks!
If you have a 2019 All-Season souvenir bottle, it is valid at all Cedar Fair parks this calendar year. If you wish to switch to the paper cup option when visiting other parks, you will need to stop at Guest Services and pay a $2.99 exchange fee. Keep in mind, you will need to pay the $2.99 again if you wish to switch back to the souvenir bottle in the future.
Can I cut the barcode out of the cup to store in my pocket and use another drink container that is less likely to be stolen if stashed in a bush somewhere?
How may ounces are in the new 2020 gold cups?
I would like to know how much i am drinking.