Pin Trading

[annster31]

Do the Disney Employees wear pin lanyards for trading? Thanks

 

[dvschem]

Your Navigator will show the time for Pin Trading each day. There are a couple of trading nights with the Ship's Officers. These are held in the lobby near Guest Services. These are a great opportunity to meet the officers as well as trading. The best trading I think though is on deck nine at the small merchandise stall near the kids' pool. The cast member running the stall actually runs the trading for about an hour or so. On our cruise (returned 7 Mar 09) the cast member had at least a hundred pins in a book to trade - the other trading was all off lanyards (much smaller range). Also, look out for cast members operating the registers in the onboard gift shops - quite often they will have their lanyards on for trading at different times. There are plenty of opportunities for pin trading over the week, so have fun.

 

[gismo1554]

They also do have the staff at the shops wearing lanyards (or sometimes they just have them on the counter) and the staff at the shore excursions desk sometimes have them

 

[kcashner]

Other spots for CMs with pin trading lanyards are head servers as you enter the dining rooms at breakfast or lunch and the staff of Guest Services at "not so busy" times. It seems that during busy hours, the lanyards disappear.

 

[guate]

Hi everyone. Can someone explain what pin trading is about?

 

[gismo1554]

OK pin trading is basically another aspect Disney offers. You buy any Disney pins really and you can then trade them with Cast members or other traders for a different pin. Sometimes you get really good pins too that are not available to buy so this is the only way you can get them. You can buy a starter pack of trading pins which includes 2 of each pin so that you have 2 to trade and 2 to keep if you want, or you just buy some cheap ones off ebay to trade. The only thing is they need to be official Disney pins otherwise they can't trade them.

 

[BubblesNH]

We got involved in pin trading at Animal Kingdom when DS was too small to ride Everest and a CM took pity on him and gave him his 1st pin. DS is now 5 and can't wait to trade on the ship. Best to trade with CM because the pins do not belong to them and will trade anything. I got a batch of pins from Ebay about $1.75 each so they have some pins they are not attached to yet to trade.

 

[guate]

Got it. Thanks for the info!!

 

[stitchlovestink]

Crazy addicted pin trader here!!!
I know I'm going to be perceived as a Negative Nellie here, but this is my honest opinion. While I did make a few cool trades onboard, I did not find the selection of CMs wearing lanyards to be very plentiful compared to the amount of CMs wearing them in WDW. At times I was very hard pressed to find a CM wearing a lanyard. Remember that the Gift shops are only open when you are at sea. More often than not, the CMs at Guest services did not have lanyards. the pin trading hour IMO was pretty bad and not worth the advertising. The highlight was pin trading w/ the ship's officers. Now that was cool, but if only you could get those poor men to smile. Many of them had that 'deer in the headlights' look and that given the chance, they wouldn't walk but run from this task. The CM who coordinated this event on our cruise told me that she does have a difficult time getting some of the officers to participate. Many don't deal w/ the passengers in their day to day jobs (therefore they don't feel comfortable, CM said this) and many don't want to have to don their dress uniform. She said some of the officers have to be called to be reminded 3 or 4 times prior to trading time. She was also telling me of the 'unique' excuses she heard from them as to why they didn't think they were going to be able to make it that evening. Yes, there were a few of them who seemed to enjoy it and a couple who tolerated it. But I can vividly remember the look on one officer's face and I told the CM that she'd better chain him to something or he was going to bolt when she turned her head. She laughed at my comment and appearantly he was one of the ones w/ the excuses and always required several reminder phone calls.
I'm not saying don't trade, just don't expect it to be as popular as WDW.
BTW, I wanted to go to the trading w/ the ship's officers so bad, I left the dinner table to go trade right at 7 pm (the beginning of it for our cruise) so I wouldn't lose out on all the good trades.