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Crusing and Pin Trading

setablaze

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jan 9, 2013
Have found limited info on this subject while cruising. On our last trip to WDW my son and I became absolute pin trading junkies, think of Indian Jones. We managed to get the entire 2011 set, picking up the last 3 @ airport on the way home. We are pin trading knowledgeable but not experts and had alot of fun doing it.

What can we expect on the Fantasy on the Halloween cruise. Are the cruise only pins, where/who do we find pins with? We 110 on an bought an ebay auction 1st day @ WDW and had them delivered to our room. We were soooo addicted we traded 90+.

Any and all info welcomed and thanks in advance. Cruising 10/26/2013 Fantasy Western. :confused3
 
Pin trading isn't quite as popular on the ships. However, you can trade with CMs in all of the shops and at Guest Services. The shop CMs have their private lanyards plus a big book behind the counter. Also two of the shops sell pins, bit no where near the quantity as the park shops. Also there is a designated evening with a Pin Trading With The Officers event.
 
Pin trading isn't quite as popular on the ships. However, you can trade with CMs in all of the shops and at Guest Services. The shop CMs have their private lanyards plus a big book behind the counter. Also two of the shops sell pins, bit no where near the quantity as the park shops. Also there is a designated evening with a Pin Trading With The Officers event.

Are there special Cruise only pins we can look for. We will bring our own supply of ebay trader pins. Sounds like as oppossed to WDW where even trash collectors my have a landyards on the cruise they alot more sparse?
 
setablaze said:
Are there special Cruise only pins we can look for. We will bring our own supply of ebay trader pins. Sounds like as oppossed to WDW where even trash collectors my have a landyards on the cruise they alot more sparse?

Yes there may possibly be cruise specific ones. We were on the Pixar cruise last September and there was one for that. There are also port specific pins too. Which are pretty cool. There were a few pin trading sessions on our seven night trip. Hope that helps! Happy cruising!!
 


Note that the cruise-specific pins are for sale - it would be rare indeed to find them on a crew lanyard to trade for. They're typically around $12 each.

We've also found that we're more likely to end up with scrapper pins on the cruise ship than at the parks - I'm not sure if that's because the crew has less experience and so doesn't know when to pull them, or if they get more of them in trades, or if they just don't have as many traders themselves to replace them with. My DD10 has picked up at least 2 bad pins from cast member trades on different cruises - and we try to be careful with what she trades for. Since she's grown up a bit and started looking for Vinylmation pins only (instead of any princess she could find), it's been much easier to avoid scrappers.
 
Have found limited info on this subject while cruising. On our last trip to WDW my son and I became absolute pin trading junkies, think of Indian Jones. We managed to get the entire 2011 set, picking up the last 3 @ airport on the way home. We are pin trading knowledgeable but not experts and had alot of fun doing it.

What can we expect on the Fantasy on the Halloween cruise. Are the cruise only pins, where/who do we find pins with? We 110 on an bought an ebay auction 1st day @ WDW and had them delivered to our room. We were soooo addicted we traded 90+.

Any and all info welcomed and thanks in advance. Cruising 10/26/2013 Fantasy Western. :confused3

My family and I love pin trading. We find it is a great way to meet people and to get some great pins. We like to buy a large lot on EBAY and trade them wheter we are on a ship or one of the parks. On EBAY if you buy in bulk, you can get them for around 60¢ each. What a great deal!!!

On our cruise last April on the Dream they had at last 1 pin trading event. We also traded with CMs at Guest Services, gift shops, and outside of the MDRs.

Our experience is that there is less trading on the ships than at the parks, but still enough to make it worth our while.
 
We got our pins off amazon before travelling. They were a little dearer but were all authentic . Great way to start out. I think all the princesses were the first to go (boys ;)) Pin trading is an awesome way to get souvenirs without filling the bag up with t shirts :)
 


Note that the cruise-specific pins are for sale - it would be rare indeed to find them on a crew lanyard to trade for. They're typically around $12 each.

We've also found that we're more likely to end up with scrapper pins on the cruise ship than at the parks - I'm not sure if that's because the crew has less experience and so doesn't know when to pull them, or if they get more of them in trades, or if they just don't have as many traders themselves to replace them with. My DD10 has picked up at least 2 bad pins from cast member trades on different cruises - and we try to be careful with what she trades for. Since she's grown up a bit and started looking for Vinylmation pins only (instead of any princess she could find), it's been much easier to avoid scrappers.

On the Wonder Christmas cruise, I got a '2012 Wonder' pin of the Gingerbread house with Mickey! It is HEAVY, so I think it is about $10-12 in the shop, but clearly a new pin that the officer just added to his lanyard (in fact, I noticed the pin lady just handed them lanyards, and she kept swapping them out for new lanyards and fresh pins) . My daughter got a very special Disney Paris pin, and the pin lady (the woman in charge of the big case of pins and pin trading) sent us to the shop to talk to a CM from Paris who knew all about the pin.

On the Wonder, they had a lot of pins from prior cruises, and since the Wonder had been to Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, and Panama Canal, there were a lot of unique ones. Maybe they just add the pins to the crew lanyards if they don't sell in the shops and the ship is repositioned?

We had a great time collecting pins on that cruise.

As posted above, the shops, Guest services, the officers, the pin lady all have lanyards or pin books, just ask. Also, the CM giving out the wipes at dining venues often are wearing them. My room host noticed my pins and gave me a nice one too. We gave them in our Fish Exchange, so then were trading with the others in the FE.

Nancy
 
Note that the cruise-specific pins are for sale - it would be rare indeed to find them on a crew lanyard to trade for. They're typically around $12 each.

We've also found that we're more likely to end up with scrapper pins on the cruise ship than at the parks - I'm not sure if that's because the crew has less experience and so doesn't know when to pull them, or if they get more of them in trades, or if they just don't have as many traders themselves to replace them with. My DD10 has picked up at least 2 bad pins from cast member trades on different cruises - and we try to be careful with what she trades for. Since she's grown up a bit and started looking for Vinylmation pins only (instead of any princess she could find), it's been much easier to avoid scrappers.

This is because everyone getting there "deals" on pins on Ebay are actually buying scrappers -- Disney rejects and extra pins made by factories that have made the same pins for Disney. As long as people continue to buy the fakes and trade them with CMs, you are going to have that problem.

ETA: These scrapper pins have the copyright on the back but are missing something that you would have to know what you were looking for to pick it out. They did not pass Disney's quality inspection and were suppose to be scrapped [destoyed], but were sold by the factory or workers there instead.
 
There are specific cruise mystery pins you can try to trade for on the cruise. The ship has the mystery pins that you can buy with merchandise. For every $30 you spend you can buy one pin for $2.00. My first cruise the mystery pins were portholes, my next cruise the mystery pins were ocean scenes, and my last cruise (in December) they were ship scenes. The set in December had 6 pins. I managed to trade for 5 of them from cm lanyards and during officer pin trading night.
 
So i have a question. I am going on the Wonder in 2 weeks. It comes back to the port on the 7th. I am looking online for a DCL exclusive pin that will be released that day (for the Wonder). Does anyone know if they will be selling them before? I know the stores are closed when we dock if I am not mistaken.
 

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