Please explain .....

[dstar55]

the whole pin trading. This is our first visit to Disney and I'm seeing some pin trading messages lurking around.
Any and all info on this subject would be great!
Is this something my 5 and 7 yr olds would be interested in??
Thanks
Denise

 

[bjeannep]

My 7 year old had a blast doing it last year. My 4 year old wasn't interested.

You start with a lanyard with a few pins on it, and then you can trade with cast members to get better pins. There are guest to guest transactions, but I only let my daughter trade with CMs.

Last year I bought a huge lot of pins off ebay, and then each morning, my DD would pick about 10 to put on her lanyard to trade. Once we were in the parks, each cast member we saw, she would ask to view their lanyards and trade with them. My DD is very shy, so we didn't mind her stopping and conversing with the CM because we saw it as an exercise for her to grow her communication skills.

Of course, by the time we left, I think she had about 25 different Tinkerbell pins. Pin Trading can get expensive if you are buying the pins in the parks, but if you plan in advance, and get pins off of ebay, it can be very fun.

 

[Faldred]

My not-quite-four-year-old enjoyed it (and, for that matter, so did DW and I). Here's a helpful starter guide from the Disney website.

 

[ChristusG]

My 4 year old LOVES doing it. She said it is one of her favorite parts of the vacation.

Basically, you just buy some pins to get you started, and buy a lanyard as well. We always go on ebay and buy a lot of variety of pins. It does not matter if you like them or not because they are for trading. Then my daughter trades them with cast members for pins that she actually likes.

 

[Dizisfun]

There are some rules for Pin Trading, but a big one is CM's with the GREEN lanyards will only trade with children under 12 years old. This gives the kids a fair chance at some nice pins. When we went about 2 years ago my granddaughters, who at the time were almost 4 and 6 years old, really enjoyed the pin trading. Although they didn't get into it the way some kids do they still had a good time trading with the CMs.

My daughter went to ebay and got some pins for the girls to get started with. I believe that she even got the girls lanyards off ebay.