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Disney Cruise Pin Traiding - What to expect?

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Disney Cruise Pin Traiding - What to expect?

gw6178

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My family and I will be taking a Disney Cruise in March. We have been trading/collecting/buying pins since September 2013. I have several questions that I have been searching for, but have found little information about:

1. What should my expectations be for trading with Cast Members on board the ship? Do most CM have lanyards to trade?
2. With the disneypins.com website the way it is now, is there a way to see newer pins available?
3. Officer Pin trading Night, are there long lines? What kind of pins do they have on their lanyards? Do they refresh their lanyards?

Any additional tips/hints that I am not asking about would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, G
 
When I was on the Wonder in 2008 only 4 or 5 cm's had pins on the whole ship and 3 of them were in the shops. I traded maybe 6 pins the whole time. I did trade one of my Le's with another quest from Japan. My trip was great but I was really bummed about the trading aspect. So I wouldn't get all exciting about trading on the ship.
 
I forgot the cm's had he same pins the whole trip. I even sat for an hour trying to find guests to trade with and the only one I found with pins was the trader from Japan.
 
We found the trading to be dull after the first looksies at lanyards/book as it never rotated- They had plentiful of the most recent released WDW lanyard series (had been out since Jan- we cruised in May so nothing NEW) and the usual glut of scrappers so after trading bout 6 the first night we only carried one or two pins on us the other days...
 
gw6178 said:
1. What should my expectations be for trading with Cast Members on board the ship? Do most CM have lanyards to trade?
Click to expand...
Trading can vary from one ship to the next. On the last few cruises I've been on, you can find cast members to trade with at all the shops, guest services and the entry to all the restaurants. They also have had pin books in all the shops as well. Occasionally, you can find a decent trade to be had, but most of it consists of very common pins or scrappers.
gw6178 said:
2. With the disneypins.com website the way it is now, is there a way to see newer pins available?
Click to expand...
Not unless they are posted on a Disney blog, social media, here or another forum.
gw6178 said:
3. Officer Pin trading Night, are there long lines? What kind of pins do they have on their lanyards? Do they refresh their lanyards?
Click to expand...
The Officer Pin trading Night is always held on the last night of the cruise. It is usually held in the main lobby or the lobby outside of the shops where the officers will either line up or form a circle. This is by far your best chance to score decent trades. Most officers will generally have LE's on their lanyards but they get picked over very quickly. My suggestion is get there when it starts and just keep circling as people will trade things back if they find something else and the lanyards do usually get refreshed fairly often. If I remember correctly, the event lasts an hour or less.
 
Have fun on your cruise - here's some lessons from our family's experience from Cruising the Mediterranean in Summer of 2013 -


1. Plug into some of the non-pin focused websites - several have groups where you can 'virtually' meet' others that will be on the same cruise. Sometimes these groups also set up games to interact during the cruise, which can be really fun if that's up your family's alley.

2. Per the above, the cast members at the entry to all the restaurants and the gift shops have lanyards. At the gift shops, if it is quiet, they are happy to bring out their 'books' from under the counter.

3. There was a reasonable collection of OE pins to buy onboard, and a few LE pins - DCL focused. Sometimes, along the 'art corridor', there are low LE pins being shown/sold.

4. If you are interested in Hidden Mickeys, etc that aren't scrappers, hit the breakfast line early! Otherwise, we found that most everything on lanyards were clearly scrappers.

5. For the Officer Pin Trading Night, well, don't get your hopes up. One of the officers pulled an interesting pin out of his pocket for me when he saw I was trading real pins -
but there really weren't any 'good' pins at the event - it was clear the event was more a chance to introduce people to pin trading.

Have a wonderful holiday!
 
I went on a cruise last year and I was a new pin trader. I had fun trading on the cruise but it wasn't a huge aspect of the cruise itself. Each night the main store put out the pin book or pin board and staff in the stores wore lanyards. I went in the stores every night and was looking for certain pins. One staffer knew what I was looking for so she would keep an eye out. She helped me complete a collection. I also got several LE cruise pins which was cool I found one other hard core trader on the cruise and we traded a few pins. The Officer trade night was fun. I really just kept circling.
I would say quality of the pins is about the same as the parks. Still lots of scrappers. But also got several LE cruise pins so I think that was cool. (never really gotten any LE off lanyards at the parks) I had a lot of fun trading on the cruise and it really sealed the deal for me when it came to trading.
 
the last two cruises I have done (2014), the Officer Pin trading Nights have been nice b/c the officers have been so cordial and willing to trade, but the pin selection on their lanyards has not been like it used to be. Very few DCL LE's. Nothing really exciting :-(
 
I have traded on the Dream and the Wonder. Which ship will you be on because per my encounter with a CM on the Wonder only the Dream does the Officer Pin Trading Night. I really enjoy trading on the cruise ships because there really isn't that many scrappers in the books (each store will have one) and be sure to check them out through out the day because they refill them. Good luck and enjoy! I absolutely love Disney cruising.
 
I will be on the Wonder. I hadn't heard that there wasn't an Officer Trading Night on the Wonder. Anyone else have insight on this?

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I will mirror what others have said about the Pin Trading on the Cruises. The books in the merchandise shops are always full, but filled with scrappers or many duplicates from one book to another. The best time to trade is during the Officers Pin Trading Night. The last cruise I went on was last November, and my wife and I were told on the second night that there wasn't going to be an Officer Trading Night, only to find out on the last day there would be one that night. The CM we talked to in the shop said that the captain had changed his mind. I think they were going to have one all along but wanted to keep it under wraps. Anyway, a lot of fellow cruisers will trade pins with you, if you have pins they might like, also. Also, keep an eye on all the officers during the event. They get restocked with exclusive cruise pins throughout the hour or so long event, and if you watch them carefully you will know when they get them. We stood next to officers just to wait for this and wound up with some really nice Mediterranean cruise pins.
 

Thanks for the tip about sticking around for the whole time!

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gw6178 said:
I will be on the Wonder. I hadn't heard that there wasn't an Officer Trading Night on the Wonder. Anyone else have insight on this?

Sent from my SCH-I905 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...

I have been on the Wonder, the Dream, and the Fantasy over the last three years and all have had an Officer Trading Night.
 
Another question for the group! Do they release the new HMs on the ship or will we see last years?

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Expect to see the usual lanyard fodder you'd see at a park. Tons of scrappers. You can get new, real, WDW hidden mickey's from the stores, 2 per person per day (ie. per CM shift ) There are sometime some random ones from Hong Kong or something from DLRP a far away tourist will bring on board. Also a few DCL exclusive GWP sets or a DCV pirate mickey pin.

Overall the Captains event is the best chance for decent pins. Prepare for shovey adults, whiny children and multiples of the same pin. They often take unsold DCL LE's and put them on lanyards, like a Panama Canal or Transatlantic crossing LE pin. Each officer might have 1 of those. My last cruise was spoiled by a shark running up and down trading scrappers for every one of the DCL pins. It was so bad the crew had to start telling her no and they wouldn't let her trade until a kid had a chance first. Then some old guy bum rushed after them too and took any meaningful hidden mickey left. I all but gave up. I started walking away and got lucky with a new office arriving with a Mediterranean cruise pin I actually wanted and a Rapunzel perfume bottle hidden mickey so I got that. The officers come in staggered so stay patient and vigilant and make yourself known if someone else is scooping up everything you're eyeing. But prepare for he kids to get first pick and take the best stuff.

But forget bringing LE's to trade with other people. Or a peacock lanyard. It's not really worth it. Best thing is to take a bunch of cheap park pins, HM's, puffins, etc. and just get hidden mickey sets you want or the DCL GWP/PWP sets. Anything better than that consider yourself lucky.
 
Thanks for the info Mark! We really enjoy trading with Cast Members, so I am sure we will have fun.

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I want to thank everyone for their comments before our trip. I wanted to give an update for anyone who is interested or may have an upcoming trip.

Trip details - Disney Wonder - 4 Night Bahamas - March 11-15

General trading - We found the lanyard and pinbooks to be very basic and were mostly filled with scrappers. We did find that the pinbooks at guest services and the general store did have 2014 Wave A & B HM (mostly A). Most dining rooms had CMs outside with lanyards and the only other lanyards we saw were in the stores.

Purchases - the store onboard the ship had a fairly decent selection of OE DCL pins, which we purchased quite a few of, as well as racks of the standard OE pins, booster and starter packs, and mystery boxes. They also had Series 2 DCL PWP pins available. Castaway Cay had only a couple of pins available that were not available on the ship.

Officer Trading Night - We had alot of fun with this event eventhough it was much different than I expected. We arrived at 7:15 for the 7:30 event and were the first in line. When the first officer came out there were maybe 10 or so people in line. As he put his lanyard on, the line collapsed on him, so basically it did us no good to be first in line. Luckily, the group let my daughter make the first pick from his lanyard, but after that it was chaos (in a good way). All said there were probably 8-10 officers trading and they were constantly refreshing the pins. We were able to continuously trade with the officers, so if we got duplicates or a pin we didn't want, we would turn around and trade it again. We ended up with a dozen or so LR/LE cruise pins, a PP 2014 AKL Holidays Pin, an AP Reflections of Evil 13 pin, and many keepers or park traders.
 
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