Pin Trading at Stateroom door?

[DietCokeMommy]

There was a post in our cruise group on the social media site that shall not be named about this. The poster said she put out a cork board within and backs and they don’t really walk away.

 

[collectoraholic]

We are booking our very first Disney cruise.
It will be 4-night on Dream. Stateroom at mid-ship.

We love Pin Trading, and are thinking to put out pins outside the stateroom door for pin trading.

1. Is it still proper to do it? Would people really pin trade there, or would I just loose all my pins?
(I don't mind losing a few, but if nothing comes back, the kids would be really upset)

2. If I put out some magnets for trading at door, would there be people coming to trade it?

Hi! My husband and I were on a cruise a while back and a stateroom a few doors down from us put up a cork board and put pins on it w/ a sign saying it was please trade. We never just took; we always would leave ones behind based on the number we'd taken. It was super fun too! We looked forward to checking it out at least once a day to see what was new to trade for. Do note, we were in a pretty secluded area of staterooms, so that may have helped stave off anyone just taking the whole kit and caboodle, including the cork board. HTHs!

 

[Jodisneyfan]

I was on the last WBPC cruise and I was on the list of the fb group. It was so much fun, lots of pin boards to trade with and to look at what they had, until we “ lost” about 5 pins a day. I do not know if they were accidentally taken, but with rooms around us giving away lollipops and glow sticks, little kids might think they can take without trading.A few lovely people gave us some pins when we put a sign on our door: please trade a pin and not take a pin. But we wanted to have some pins left for the officer pin trading, so eventually we removed our pinboard of the door. My son and I were so looking forward to trading with the officers. I thought it was the most unfair trading ever. When the officers came with really beautiful pins, A woman next to me said: I am first and pushed me away.. she traded 4 pins in one trade.. took the nicest ones of course...

 

[sadiemom]

For those that have done this (or have seen this), what do people use to put the pins on? Just a plain cork board? Or something cuter/Disney-ish?
Hung on fish extender? or somehow with magnets on door?
Do they include the backs? Or just pushed into the cork, assuming people will just keep the back from the pin they're trading?

So many questions! Thanks!

 

[lspst8]

For those that have done this (or have seen this), what do people use to put the pins on? Just a plain cork board? Or something cuter/Disney-ish?
Hung on fish extender? or somehow with magnets on door?
Do they include the backs? Or just pushed into the cork, assuming people will just keep the back from the pin they're trading?

So many questions! Thanks!

The one I saw was a foam Mickey head attached to the door with magnets. There were no backs included, so we just kept the backs from the pins we traded.

 

[darnheather]

My daughter got into pin trading in the middle of the last cruise. She saw one on a door that she liked and traded one from the blind bag we bought in the shop for it. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the one she got was a knock-off placed by someone who wanted a good one. I don't think the owner started the trading that way but it evolved into that. From now on I'm going to make sure she only buys from the Disney store and only trades with cast and crew. No more door trades.

 

[twodogs]

When we cruised 2 years ago, my DDs were very into pin trading, and they traded often with the pin board and CMs in the gift shop. The CMs there got to know the girls from their frequent visits. We always trade authentic Disney pins that we get from the 5-pin blind bags, so maybe they noticed and appreciated that the pins that they were trading were authentic. In any case, the night before the Officer’s Trading event, we got a handwritten note in our cabin, asking the girls to be honorary Officers at the pin trading event! They were given a full lanyard of pins, and they acted as CM’s, trading with all the guests. They did get a special pin for participating, and they got to trade with their personal lanyards at the end. It was the highlight of their cruise, for sure! Not sure if they always do this, as that was our first Disney cruise, but it sure was fun!

 

[Minnie222]

When we cruised 2 years ago, my DDs were very into pin trading, and they traded often with the pin board and CMs in the gift shop. The CMs there got to know the girls from their frequent visits. We always trade authentic Disney pins that we get from the 5-pin blind bags, so maybe they noticed and appreciated that the pins that they were trading were authentic. In any case, the night before the Officer’s Trading event, we got a handwritten note in our cabin, asking the girls to be honorary Officers at the pin trading event! They were given a full lanyard of pins, and they acted as CM’s, trading with all the guests. They did get a special pin for participating, and they got to trade with their personal lanyards at the end. It was the highlight of their cruise, for sure! Not sure if they always do this, as that was our first Disney cruise, but it sure was fun!

OP here.
Wow! That’s amazing!! What a magic moment!!
Just curious, which ship was this?

We are bringing good authentic pins to trade out. ALWAYS.
Some of the pins my girls chose to get from the CMs are scrappers (I know). They chose them because of design or for a particular character. You know, kids can’t differentiate authentic/ scrappers and I don’t like to hinder their choices.

This is our first Disney Cruise. We will try to bring good pins to trade. By that, I mean authentic new pins from Disneyland, World and Overseas. We want to add value to others as much as we get good fun pins.

 

[monorailrabbit]

I LOVE this idea of pins on the door! DH and I are HUGE pin traders and this sounds like so much fun! I have been disappointed on our last few trips (both cruise and parks) of the seemingly increased number of scrappers on boards and in books. Sometimes I see one that is obviously a scrapper, but its still fun so I'll trade for it anyway, but the ones I'm trading with are always authentic to the best of my knowledge! I got really burned by a scrapper in Epcot off someone's board - it was someone who had brought in their personal collection and she seemed really legit - I traded a rare real one and got a fake and that was really annoying, I would hate to do that to someone else! I also LOVE pin trading night, but on our last cruise we ended up leaving shortly after it began because people were getting so rude and pushy it turned out to be more anxiety inducing than fun for me

 

[lilmc]

We are recently off the Magic and there was a family with a decorated cork board outside their stateroom for trading. They had nice pins and were all real. We loved going back and checking what had changed. We had some fun trades that way. I never spoke with them, so not sure how many they would have lost.

The books on this cruise were completely filled with fakes. It really does detract from the fun of the activity. We are new to pin trading, but have spent time on YouTube educating ourselves on what to avoid.

bag of 100 pins some are probably suspect

All of those would be fakes. Please do not purchase bulk lots from eBay or Amazon.

We had an easy and laid back Officer Pin Trading Night. Very nice trades.

 

[TestingH2O]

We are recently off the Magic and there was a family with a decorated cork board outside their stateroom for trading. They had nice pins and were all real. We loved going back and checking what had changed. We had some fun trades that way. I never spoke with them, so not sure how many they would have lost.

The books on this cruise were completely filled with fakes. It really does detract from the fun of the activity. We are new to pin trading, but have spent time on YouTube educating ourselves on what to avoid.

All of those would be fakes. Please do not purchase bulk lots from eBay or Amazon.

We had an easy and laid back Officer Pin Trading Night. Very nice trades.

I wonder if we were on the same trip. On the Magic last week, a fellow cruiser in our FB group let us know he had abord set out. DD traded once and it was fun. He didn't indicate that there were any troubles.

Officer night was great. I only saw 1-2 adults trading but even so, the focus was on the kids having a good time. It was a special experience for DD.

One last thing to remember is that the CMs at the door of sit down breakfast/lunch and Cabana's will have trading lanyards. DD was sure to do 1-2 trades per day that way.

 

[lilmc]

I wonder if we were on the same trip

Sounds like it!

My kids traded a few times with the Cabanas CMs, but mainly my hubby did

 

[Minnie222]

At the Officer Pin Trading night, are most of the pins on the officers real pins? Or a mix of good and fakes?

 

[dcassetta]

At the Officer Pin Trading night, are most of the pins on the officers real pins? Or a mix of good and fakes?

They are not from the officer's personal collections. The merchandise crew has a number of lanyards. The officers pick one up at the beginning of the event and they trade with guests. I would say the lanyards tend to have a mix of good and fake. Sometimes they have discontinued pins from previous cruises.

 

[lilmc]

We were 10 minutes late due to technical glitches and Tangled ran late, the trading was well underway by the time we got there and there were good and fake pins on the lanyards. We didn’t see what they started with.

 

[Minnie222]

OP here

We finished our cruise already. Because we wanted to save some good pins to trade in person while on the ship, we didn’t put out a pin board at door.

We walked around the ship and found only 1 cabin with pins out for trading.

The pins in shops are just so so. Over the few days, we found a handful of pins to trade .

My kids literally asked Guest Services to trade, and asked why the pin books in shops were so disappointing.
They were frank and told my kids that CMs keep better pins for the Officer trading night lanyards. Thus, pins in shops are crappy.

 

[Minnie222]

And during the Officer Trading night, in the first 10 minutes, everyone is keen to look at Officer lanyards. Slightly better than the shops, but still nothing to write home.

And then guests started to trade with each other. There we got some good trades, since people bring better pins or traders. We were happy to find about 10 good trades.

Overall an ok experience.

 

[Quellman]

People just don't carry pins around a cruise like they do the parks, especially since you might set it down for a while to go swimming, or lounge on the deck! So glad you were able to find some good trades out there.

 

[Minnie222]

People just don't carry pins around a cruise like they do the parks, especially since you might set it down for a while to go swimming, or lounge on the deck! So glad you were able to find some good trades out there.

There are actually a quite a lot of people wearing pins on the ship. We wear ours too. But no one is actively seeking to look or trade, as if the pins were just for show.

We didn’t see any guest-guest trade through out the trip. People just seem to be busy rushing here and there.

At the Officer night though, people are very nice and willing to trade good pins. Some even offered 2 pins to trade a special pin they want.

 

[hubbard53]

we did officer trading once - my son was probably 3 at the time and the pin he got (on older Remy / Ratatouille pin) is his absolute favorite since he got it from "the captain"

We did a couple trading events but never traded any pins b/c my impression was that others there were "professional" collectors and had tons of el cheapo pins ready to trade for our best pins. . .