The Free Coke Machine At Epcot Healed My Body & Renewed My Spirit

There is a point in every grown adult's trip to Disney World when you start questioning your decision to come here, to The Most Magical Place on Earth that is also a wet bulb event. Perhaps you wore the wrong shoes and have blisters, or you have to pee, and also your ass cheeks are chafing for the first time in your life (humbling). Perhaps you are sweating underboobedly and wondering where your next meal will be. Perhaps you are overstimulated while battling a panicky FOMO despite the fact you are literally in the park as you feel it.

My breaking point arrived on an otherwise glorious morning in Epcot. The sky was blue; my Tevas were on; our itinerary was open. It was time to drag my aging body and rapidly declining spirit onto Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and experience the Type II Fun that comes with screaming but also laughing but also being a little worried you might die but also ~what a great story.~ We spun in circles in the dark to loud music. Were we upside down? I don't know — my eyes were squeezed shut as we traveled along the time-space continuum, back to when this kind of bodily joy was more accessible.

Then I got off the ride.

As soon as we stepped out into the (wet) fresh air and (oppressive) sunshine, I found I had the urge to, shall we say, cosmically rewind my breakfast. I was at first indignant, maybe in denial. I don't get sick on rides! I told myself. Or I didn't the last time I rode them, which was, granted, during the Bush administration. Perhaps instead of motion sickness, I was experiencing Covid-menopause-hangover-a-stroke?

I dragged my ailing body along the cheery pathways, feeling sheepish but weaker by the minute, so much so that my giddy coworkers started to ask me if I was OK. No, I admitted, with a weak laugh, I was not OK. I was a 40-year-old woman bested by a thrill ride hosted by Chris Pratt and some kind of superhero raccoon.

And that's when my coworker Katy, my knight in shining jersey cotton and a baseball cap, grabbed me by the arm and told everyone she was taking me to the "free Coke place." I didn't know about the free Coke place yet, innocent that I was, but I knew it might mean air conditioning, so I nodded and allowed myself to be dragged 300 yards across the cement.

What I found there was salvation.

Small as far as an Epcot shop goes, it’s situated across from the big daddy souvenir spot, Creations Shop. I suspect it is there on purpose, to give bored teens and husbands a way to occupy themselves while the rest of the family shops. Yet another way women are oppressed in this country. Moms, we must take back Club Cool.

Club Cool, Hosted by Coca-Cola,™ is not just a place to get free fountain drinks under the blast of coolant, but it is also that. It is primarily a showcase of international Coca-Cola products, where you get to go up with a little sample cup and try, say, Russian Sprite (my favorite, with a cucumber flavor) or Italian Beverly (which, as far as I could tell, was Coke with Amaro and if that sounds good to you, go off).

The best approach here, as I see it, is to try all of them, make faces, giggle at all the strangers around you making faces, do a lap in the air conditioning, all while pretending you will buy a Coca-Cola-branded sweatshirt, and then going back 6-8 times to have more Russian Sprite.

And although the variety and cosmopolitanism of Club Cool may be the draw, I think what stayed with me was the free part. An oasis in the desert of everything else being at least $8.99, though I suppose the entry fee for Epcot more than covers the cost of sugar syrup and water, proprietary though it may be.

Still, everyone should know about it. Loitering at the trough with my little plastic cup didn’t just restore me to my pre-Guardians self; it made me feel like I had discovered a secret. It was my very own dose of Disney magic.