Readers!
Feast your eyes on my new obsession: the addicting game of Disney pin trading! Summer is coming to a close and so what better way to end it than with a day at Disney World with special people? This past Monday, I went to the parks with my boyfriend, Tito, my big, Carla, and her boyfriend, Eric to enjoy a summer double date with the mouse! Little did Tito and I expect to find ourselves hooked into the world of pin trading. I distinctly remember having a lanyard once as a young girl with one Princess Jasmine pin on it, not knowing what to ever do with it. Carla and Eric had already started decking out their lanyards with pins from past visits and encouraged us to try it. At first, I thought it was just a cute display of the characters to simply wear around your neck. But after opening up our first mystery packets, there was no turning back. My packet had Cruella Devil and Duffy, and Tito found the Mulan parking lot symbol and Pascal (from Tangled)!! I was so jealous he had Pascal, I begged him the whole day to trade him to me (he wasn't giving in just to mess with me).
As the day progressed, we found ourselves on a hunt for any selection of pins either in stores or on the lanyards and shoulder bags of cast members. I'm pretty sure we rode maybe 2 rides out of the entire day. We couldn't help ourselves! It was like every corner we turned, we saw more and more pins. We found some pretty awesome ones and some we didn't even recognize.
A little tip, cast members can't say no to a trade! So if you see something you like from their pins, you can make any offer up for theirs. Some cast members like to switch it up by placing their pins backwards on their display pieces to make it a game of mystery. I especially loved making conversation with some of the cast members as we went on trading. Some were from other countries and spoke to us with pleasantly different accents. And some just simply made our day. Speaking of which, from the start, Tito had been on a wild goose chase looking for a limited edition of Oogie Boogie (from the Nightmare Before Christmas) that was only sold in a starters pack. After asking a lot of cast members, we concluded that he was quite a rare character to find alone as a traded pin. Finally, we went to the main trading post in Frontier Land at Magic Kingdom where Tito asked for the millionth time if anyone saw Oogie Boogie. He told the cast member his whole story about how we've all been on the lookout for this pin. Now I'm not sure if this was like one of those "No Strings" acts, but he opened up the starter pack with Oogie Boogie in it and handed it to Tito free of charge! We were all so shocked at how kind this cast member was to just give the pin for free. I guess it was just one of those magical gestures to make Tito's dream come true. Lol
The whole day was truly magical all because of the amazing rush we got from trading our pins. We're all so obsessed now that we bought a bundle of pins from online to up our trading game! We even found a few for keepsies. Here are some pictures of what my lanyard looks like now.
This is Pascal! Isn't he adorable? We found out he's also very rare.
This is a shoe representing Maleficent (from
Sleeping Beauty). I thought this one was pretty cool because of how it features her horns and her golden scepter.
It's super heavy now! Haha! I plan on buying another lanyard soon to use for my keepsies and the other for trading.
I hope that if you are a frequent Disney-goer that this post encourages you to start your own collection of pins and join in on the trading fun! We saw some pretty serious traders around the parks with 2-3 lanyards full of pins around their necks. Of course, you can propose exchanges with guests, too. Just remember that they CAN say no. Thanks for checking out my pin collection! If you start one or already have one, I'd love to see what yours looks like!
From yours truly, DancingMermaid1920s
Blog Post #4
