Cast Member Pin Trading Has Returned!
If you are a fan of Pin Trading, this will be some exciting news! Since Covid, we have slowly been seeing more and more pin trading locations popping up all over the parks and resorts, but we have missed being able to trade with Cast Members themselves!
Starting TODAY April 7th, 2024 we can participate in Cast Member trading.
What exactly is pin trading?
Disney sells tons and tons of fun and unique enamel pins all over the parks and resorts. These feature characters from your favorite Disney movies and range anywhere from mystery boxes, to open edition, to limited edition pins.
Pin Trading is where you swap your Disney pins for other Disney pins at a variety of trading stations all around the parks.
You can learn all about the basics of Pin Trading in this video:
Cast Member Pin Trading
Typically when you trade pins, you’ll be looking for pin trading boards that come in a variety of shapes and styles. BUT you can now also trade pins directly with Cast Members.
You are going to be looking for Cast Members with special lanyards and hip bags that showcase a variety of pins that you can trade.
You may even get lucky and spot some special Cast Member exclusive pins that they are releasing just for this!
A few rules to remember
Each guest can trade up to two pins at each pin trading location or with each participating Cast Member.
The pins you trade must be official Walt Disney World pins, so make sure that the ones you use for trading are real pins and not fakes!
We go on a whole tangent about this in the video, but one downside to trading is that many of them will be fake pins. The best way to combat this is to not add to the problem. The more real pins people trade, the better!
You can purchase starter sets at the parks or keep you eye out for sales on ShopDisney so that you can purchase discounted pins before your trip!
Where to find pin trading stations
Typically you will find pin trading stations at most gift shops, guest service locations, hotel check-in desks, and even DVC booths!
Keep your eyes peeled though, you never know when a super unique pin trading opportunity will appear! We’ve seen everything from Traffic cones, to ‘Pinelope’ the pin trading trash can.
Of course you will also want to keep your eyes out for those Cast Members with Pin Trading Lanyards and bags! Any Cast Member with these can trade with you! Typically these will be Cast Members in the Gift Shops and Guest Service areas. Most restaurant and ride operators won’t have them as they need to be focused on the safety of guests.
We went pin trading! Here’s what we found
To celebrate the return of Cast Member Pin Trading, we’re heading to the Monorail Loop to Hit up the resorts and of course the Magic Kingdom. You can check out our full experience in the our vlog here: COMING LATER THIS WEEK
The Polynesian
At Bou-tikki you can usually find a pin board behind the main check-out stand (near the mug wall). This is usually great board that has TONS of different pins!
Cast Member Kaitlyn also had a pin satchel with som fun pins! We loved those Pinocchio and Figaro pins and the Genie one!
We ended up snagging this new Vampire Stitch pin that’s part of the Cast Member Exclusive Collection.
We also stopped by the Check-in Desk at Ohana to get a peek at this super fun and unique pin board! We didn’t trade for anything here, but the siamese cats from Lady and the Tramp were a new one we hadn’t seen before.
The Grand Floridian
We were finding quite a few of the special Cast Member Exclusive pins at the resorts and even some more rare pins! The R2D2, Avengers Symbol, and Pegasus were all part of these collections. Those Bunny pins are also of a collector set that they had available for Easter.
We stopped by several of the shops and almost every Cast Member had a Pin Trading satchel and was super excited to trade some pins with us.
We did find a few of the Cast Member Exclusive Pins we were on the hunt for including this Toy Story Pixar Collection and the Wall-E pin!
The Contemporary
While on the Monorail over to the Contemporary, we chatted with a family who was also doing some pin trading today. They were showing us their pins and we noticed this Green Army Man pin from the collection we were trying to find. They were SO sweet and offered to trade!
Don’t be afraid to ask other guests to pin trade with you! Sometimes, this can be a great way to find pins that are more rare and unique. Just be understanding is someone says no to a trade.
Over in the Market Gift Shop, we finally found Cast Member Ileana who had an actual pin trading Lanyard! This is the sundries store in the corner of the Contemporary and you can usually find a Pin Board here too.
We did end up trading for this Maui Hidden Mickey Pin!
At BVG we found several Cast Members trading and even got a ‘mystery pin’ where you have to answer a trivia question to get a surprise pin. It ended up being this Rey pin that was also a Cast Member Exlcusive!
Magic Kingdom
Magic Kingdom was where we spent most of the morning trading by hitting up almost every gift shop! The Emporium is where we started and of course we had to start with the pin board.
We snagged this Beach Mickey pin. I’m pretty sure we also have the Donald one from this collection!
We also found several Cast Members with Pin Satchels. The Emporium can get VERY busy later in the day, so I recommend doing your pin trading here earlier in the day before crowds get crazy.
We did trade for several pins here! I loved the gunmetal color of this Mickey one.
At the gift shop near the exit of Pirates of the Caribbean, we found LOTS of great pins! One Cast Member was holding another’s satchel so they actually had TWO satchels!
This was where we found probably some of our favorites from the day! We definitely kept the Oliver and Beaker pins, but we did also find this cute Stitch pin and Coco pin.
The best was this little Pig! This is actually part of a starter set that has a bunch of Pirates of the Caribbean themed pins and I thought it was perfect that we found it in the Pirates gift shop! I won’t lie…. we did trade this later and I’m kinda kicking myself for it.
Something super cool they’ve started doing with newer pins is including this little ‘diamond’ mickey jewel on the back. It’s a great indicator that it is indeed a real pin.
We popped over to the TRON gift shop and chatted with a Cast Member about the new pins. She let us know that they will be sharing these new sets for the next few months and then in July there will be Brand New sets debuting! We’ll definitely have to do more trading when these are released!
We were even able to snag this Princess Leia Pin that goes along with the Star Wars Cast Member Pin set.
Keep your eye out for Coordinators (they are usually the people walking around in dress clothes that don’t look like costumes). We hit the jackpot with some we found outside the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor! We were able to find two more of that Pixar Set and an R2D2! I wish I would have grabbed that airplane pin too… I forgot we were collecting those.
The R2D2 Pin also had the mickey diamond on the back and these RC and Buzz pins were some of our other favorites from the day!
Pin trading is an absolute BLAST and a great way to do something unique on your Disney trip! The best part is that you can get as ‘serious’ as you want or just have a fun time. Just be warned, once you start, it can be hard to stop!
Let us know which one of these pins was your favorite in the comments and let us know where we should pin trade next!
