First time meeting and trading with Scoop at WDW
My boyfriend and I just got back from a week at WDW. It was his first time at the parks in 22 years and his first time pin trading with me. Our entire trip was amazing but a true highlight was finally meeting and trading with Scoop. I've spent many trips over the past few years trying to find him but with no luck, so when I finally saw him on Main Street I nearly had a happy heart attack. Before I get to the trading, though, how we ended up finding him is a story in itself.
This was the last day of our trip and the third day we had been at Magic Kindgom. The first day I was told he wasn't there so we didn't bother searching. The second day Scoop was part of the opening show and I spent a while trying to track him down but didn't have much time to really look. The third day we decided to play Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom for our last few hours at WDW so we didn't put too much effort into finding him. After finishing a game we decided to watch the Country Bears before using our Fastpass for the princesses. After the show, though, we realized we had left our mug in the show and had to go back for it. While we were waiting for the next show to finish so the cast members could look for the mug, the cast member controlling the line gave us fastpasses for Splash Mountain. So we road Splash Mountain, picked up our mug, and then headed toward Main Street - 30 minutes after we had originally planned. Halfway down the street I saw a sharply dressed man taking a photo of a couple. I immediately recognized him and without speaking dragged my boyfriend from the sidewalk across the street. Scoop noticed me, probably because I was half jumping up and down, and I explained how long I had been looking for him and that my boyfriend had just started pin trading. I'm convinced that had we not lost the mug we would have been too early to meet him. Moral of the story - sometimes you have to lose something to ride Splash Mountain and meet Scoop!
Scoop then asked if we wanted to play his pin trading game. Of course we both said yes. We played his matching game where we picked one mystery pin and then had to find the match to the pin we picked. If you find a match, you get to trade off his lanyard. My boyfriend played first and with a little help from Scoop was able to find the match to his Figment-Good pin. He was able to keep the chaser pin and traded for pin #87581 - Character Sliders - Fantasmic. When I played I found a yeti head pin and the chaser. Scoop let me keep both. He also let me trade for pin #93468: Enchanted Tales with Belle - Lenticular Magic Mirror.
After the game I asked for a picture and a very nice man name offered to take a picture of both me and my boyfriend. During the first picture, Scoop somehow managed to pull out a Continuing the Tradition pin without me even noticing. Here is the picture where I don't know what he did.
When Scoop told me he was giving me the pin I was giddy and so excited. Here is the picture after I got the pin. You can see the difference in excitement. I think Scoop might have been a little more excited, too.
And here is a better picture of the Continuing the Tradition pin and Scoop's signature on the back.
The whole encounter lasted about 15-20 minutes and those were some of the best 15-20 minutes I have had at WDW. Scoop was so nice with everyone and made the trading experience so much fun.