Limited drink selection at Disney World

[CitrusCola]

After visiting Walt Disney World last week, I was struck by how the vendors there had so few soft drinks to choose from. The folks at WDW have an exclusive contract with Coca-Cola, so only Coke-related drinks are offered.

Disney is a private company, and if they want to limit their soft drink selections to just Coke products, they are free to do so. I do not have a problem with that. What I can't understand, however, is why the selection of Coca-Cola products is so limited. The Disney World parks are packed with vendors, yet almost all of them offer the same four choices: Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Sprite, and Dasani water. The only exceptions to this lineup that I saw in the four WDW theme parks were one machine that included Coke Zero as a choice (sold out, of course), and one vendor that had a single Powerade flavor available.

Why do virtually all of the vendors offer the same 4 choices? Why are all of the other Coca-Cola products (Coke Zero, Vault, Vault Zero, Fanta Flavors, Sprite Zero, Pibb Xtra, etc.) excluded? I would expect the folks at WDW would want to offer as many choices as possible to their customers.

[Supra TT]

I was just down there about a month and a half ago..... These places get mini bulk truck loads of product at a time ....It is just way too much work for a place that size... Just keep to the basics, it would just cause more hassle to coke, wdw, wdw employees etc. You want something different that bad leave the resort and find a conveinance store, grocrey store etc.

[amyers]

I know that Disney World is a pretty big place but I went to places like Dollywood and Six Flags and they had everything. They had Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Gold Peak Tea, VAULT, Sprite, Fanta, etc, etc, etc in fountain and in 20oz. They also had Coke, VAULT, Fanta ICEE's along with PowerADE and Dasani water. Also had vending machines. It's a full time job keeping that place stocked, seriously.

[mjb1124]

I remember that when I went to WDW in 1995, it was the first time I saw Mr. Pibb and Mello Yello anywhere (didn't even know they existed before then). It was also the only time I saw Ramblin' Root Beer in bottled form. Of course, neither my interest in soda nor my foresight had developed much at age 10, so I didn't try any of them.

[Pixel]

It's probably Disney's decision. I would imagine Coke would love to get more of their flavors in the hands of thirsty customers dying from the heat and humidity.

[greg]

You forgot to mention that nifty little 20oz $4 bottle of Dasani they all carry!

[Mr Zabe]

.....and of course no bottles and cans can be brought into
the park?? I'm not so sure Walt would approve of
charging an exorbitant price for bottle water. Who can
afford getting gouged for a health staple,let alone for
$75 + for and entrence ticket.

[CitrusCola]

You can take bottled water into the parks. That's what we did (and we refilled the bottles at water fountains). They won't let you take soft drinks in. (They check all bags before you enter.)

While we had water to drink, there were times where we would have been willing to pay the inflated price for a cold soft drink -- if they had been selling the drinks we wanted.