FuelRods are an interesting (and controversial) topic for Disney vacations. Ideally, you of course never want to settle for an overpriced, low-quality option for keeping you all-important cell phone charged during your trip…but life ain’t always ideal. In this post, we’ll discuss why we recommend FuelRods for Disney trips, including rebutting some of the (thoughtful) positions held by other bloggers.
What Are FuelRods?
FuelRod (TM) is a brand of portable charges available at—among other places—Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland. But these are just any portable chargers…they’re special, in good ways and bad.
What’s special (good) about FuelRods is that instead of buying one and then recharging it for use, you can use FuelRod “SwapBoxes” (sometimes called FuelRod kiosks, boxes, or stations) to exchange your used and empty FuelRod for a fully charged one. What’s special (bad) about FuelRods is that they’re low-power enough to require frequent swaps.
Here’s how this works…
Buy a FuelRod from a SwapBox (located around Walt Disney World and Disneyland resorts) for $30 (kiosks take credit cards)
Use included charging cables (for iPhone and most android devices) or your own to charge your device from FuelRod
FuelRod runs out of charge
Go to a SwapBox, insert empty FuelRod, machine spits out charged FuelRod
Repeat steps 2 through 4 as needed until the end of time
Step 5 is probably a bit ambitious—I’d guess Disney theme parks will outlast FuelRods and that neither will exist to the end of time. The swap process is incredibly straightforward, but here’s a gallery of photos to click through:
Where are FuelRod Boxes at Disney World?
The FuelRod boxes have moved (or been removed) a few times this year. You can use the Disney World app (My Disney Experience) to find the boxes, but it’s a bit of a journey.
You’ll need to go to the navigation page, then to “Guest Services,” then open the list, and then scroll to “Portable Phone Charging System Kiosks” to see where Fuel Rod stations (boxes / kiosks / whatever your word is) are located. Use the arrows on the below gallery for every step.
Best I can tell, that list is actually a bit out of date. For the most part, you’ll find a SwapBox at each hotel, each park, and at Disney Springs. Here are the most recent in-park locations (that I’m aware of):
Magic Kingdom — Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe, Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn, Town Square Theater, Space Mountain (gift shop)
Hollywood Studios — PizzeRizzo (first floor, side of the building opposite the registers); Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster (gift shop)
Animal Kingdom — Island Mercantile (store on the left once you get to Discovery Island)
Epcot — World Traveler (gift shop at the World Showcase / Skyliner entrance), Disney Traders (gift shop at Showcase Plaza, by the boat dock)
Is Free Swapping Going To Die?
At one point in 2019, it looked as if free swapping of FuelRods was going to leave Disney parks. This wound up not happening, but there’s still every reason to think the financial pressures involved in this will get to the companies in one was or another.
Maybe free swapping is safe for now, but that’s a long way from saying that free swapping—or even FuelRods generally—will be a part of Disney parks in a few years. Don’t be surprised if a swap fee pops up between now and your visit.
What’s Wrong With FuelRods?
As a counterpoint to what we’ll say below, we really recommend you read the straightforward “We Don’t Recommend FuelRods” by Tom Bricker over at Disney Tourist Blog.
In short—FuelRods aren’t good portable chargers, and they’re expensive when compared to better chargers. As for the “swap” feature, Tom points us this is a solution to a problem FuelRods themselves created—of course if your charger is constantly running out you’re going to be thrilled to be able to just swap it for a full one.
But we’re here to defend FuelRods…well, for the right type of person…
Why We Recommend FuelRods
Before you read on, here’s the lede—we recommend FuelRods because we think the $30 cost is worth it to minimize the risk we’ll ever be stranded in a Disney park without a charged phone or charged portable charger. Want more? Read on.
First of all, I’ll admit that FuelRod’s limited capacity really irks me. I can easily go through three or four in a day taking photos and using FastPass+. (Note you can also use in-park kiosks for FastPass+, and many good photos could be acquired via PhotoPass photographers if you have Memory Maker.)
Second, I do now usually carry an Anker PowerCore 10000 as my primary portable charger. However, I always bring a FuelRod to Disney parks, and if I’m traveling light then I’ll leave the PowerCore at home (and bring the FuelRod only) unless I’m positive it’s fully charged.
So why do I have (and endorse) a FuelRod? Well, having to swap a FuelRod three times is annoying. But you know what is more annoying? Having my phone die because my charger runs out.
I know. In this day and age, how could that happen? Well, there are at least two ways, and chances are pretty good that at least one of them applies to you.
First, I’m really irresponsible when it comes to charging my mobile devices. At home I have two lightning cables—one next to my bed and one next to my desk. If I see my phone is low when I’m in one of those two spots, then I’ll remember to charge it.
But at hotels, I’ll often get back and quickly go to bed, forgetting to charge my phone, let alone any other devices. I get back from Disney parks after 1AM some nights, and I always set my alarm long before bed because I know I’m just going to plop into the bed when I get back
If I wake up in the morning with an uncharged phone and an uncharged portable charger, I’m just sort of out of luck all day without a FuelRod (there are a few places to charge around Disney World, I admit).
Secondly, not all hotel rooms are well-equipped for charging. While the ongoing refurbishment of Disney’s rooms is improving this, there are many rooms (at Disney hotels and other hotels) that don’t have bedside charging. Add in a limited outlet count, and you might be in a tricky situation.
For a recent stay, I needed an alarm for 3:30AM. An early alarm like that will only be trusted if the phone is bedside, but there was no bedside outlet. I had to use my portable charger (non FuelRod) to charge my phone overnight. The next day, midday, that charger died. I was really happy to have a FuelRod that day.
Even those two specific problems aside, the $30 you’ll spend on the FuelRod is an insurance policy. Insurance isn’t always cost effective, but for how much I rely on my phone for FastPass+ and photos, I find it to be an acceptable price for the marginal decrease in risk of being powerless.
So to recap:
Without FuelRod
Spend less than $30
Charger lasts longer, possibly entire trip
Probably need to remember to recharge charger during trip
Left with a dead device if I neglect to recharge charger
With FuelRod
Spend $30
Will lose a few minutes each day swapping FuelRods
Don’t need to remember to recharger charger during trip
Minimal risk of a dead device*
We closed with an asterisk…because there’s still some risk of a dead device during your trip, even with a FuelRod. As with all chargers, you need to remember to pack it to bring with you at the start of the day. Since this is true of all chargers, it’s not really an argument for or against FuelRods vs. other chargers.
Also, I have encountered instances where the system didn’t work out perfectly and I was at risk of a dead device. The first was at Animal Kingdom. Animal Kingdom only has one FuelRod machine, and one afternoon it was broken. It was repaired within a few hours, but obviously there’s some risk there.
The second encounter was at Disneyland. The FuelRod machine by “it’s a small world” was broken and essentially ate my FuelRod. I was in the middle of my Disneyland rope drop strategy—and rope drop really matters—so I didn’t have time to sort things out with a Cast Member and I wound up just dropping a fresh $30 on a new FuelRod.
Could I have contacted the FuelRod people and gotten my $30 back? Maybe, but that’s not the point of this story.
Those two times excepted, I’ve never had to worry about having a dead device at Disney World or Disneyland because I’ve always remembered to bring my FuelRod to the parks.
Rebuttal Rebutted
Tom actually addresses and replies to the exact reason I like FuelRod (emphasis added)—
To be fair to FuelRod, the argument could be made that there’s a certain convenience in never having to charge a battery pack–just being able to swap out the existing pack ad infinitum. True, that does offer appeal. When I get back to the hotel at the end of a long day, I hate having to plug everything in before getting ready for bed. The thing is, I have to do that regardless with my camera, phone, etc. Plugging in one additional item is (literally) a <30 second commitment that hardly poses an insurmountable obstacle between me and a good night’s sleep.
Tom is a lawyer, so he can be forgiven the sleight of hand (I can say that because I’m a lawyer, too), but when I return to the hotel I actually don’t have to plug anything in because I use FuelRods.
FuelRods don’t just save me having to plug in “one additional item”—they save me from having to remember to plug in my phone, either, because I’ve charged it throughout the day with FuelRods and can charge it in the morning with a new FuelRod if I need to.
If you have only a different portable charger, you’ll probably need to remember to charge both that and your phone every night.
And all of this is beside our main point. Of course if (1) charging is easy and convenient and (2) you always remember to charge your devices, then you don’t need a FuelRod.
But that’s why we treat FuelRods as an insurance policy. The $30 I’m paying is for coverage when things go wrong. Whether that $30 is worth it will depend primarily on two things—how likely you are to encounter a charging problem, and how bad that charging problem would be for you.
For me, it would be bad. I need my phone for FastPass+ and photos and instagram and existence. As for how likely it is I’ll run out of power…well I mentioned above that it already happened to me once (on my first trip with my new PowerCore). So for me, the $30 for the FuelRod makes a lot of sense.
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