Beyond the freebies, we also bought stuff on the cruise (of course). I'm not going to show you everything, only the ones that I think are interesting enough.
First, there was the special t-shirt for the Member cruise.
I also saw this t-shirt and thought it was cute. So I bought it. I'm wearing it right now.
OK, now let's talk about pins.
First of all, there was this Limited Edition of 1000, Member Cruise pin. Between the two of us, we got 6!
We bought other pins during the cruise, but these two are the ones we'll highlight here. The one of the left is an ordinary rack pin, but I thought it was hilarious enough that I had to get it. After all the amount of food I stuffed into myself at The Cabanas, I wanted to wear this while eating there, but I didn't. the one of the right has quite a nice design to it. It is an LE, and it was on sale. So how could I refuse?
And then, there were the mystery pins. If you purchase more than $30, you get to buy, for $4.95, these mystery pins. They were sold in each in black pouches, and you don't know what you'll get till you open it. There are 6 different pins total, and they were all in the shape of anchors, but with the motif of the various Disney characters. I don't think I need to tell you who the characters are, do I?
Between the two of us, and with trading with other passengers, we managed to get 3 complete sets. Two of those sets will be traded away.
By the last full day of the cruise, they completely ran out of these mystery pins.
We didn't buy this pin. We got it when we attended the DVC presentation.
A little bit more about pin trading during the cruise. On the normal cruises that we've been, there were very little pin trading activities. The cast weren't wearing any pin lanyards. The only pin trading activities we had were with the officers during one evening of the cruise. That was it. So that's why, for this trip, I didn't bring that many pins to trade. I thought we would have some chance of doing trading with the officers, and then when we get to the parks, we'd do the rest of pin tradings there.
Boy were we wrong! The crew at the stores were wearing the new cast lanyard pins, while the DVC people, especially the executives, were wearing lanyards full of LE Artists Proof pins!! And they were doing this throughout the entire cruise! Holy cow! By the 3rd day of the cruise, we were literally running out of pins to trade, and I had to sacrifice several of the new cast lanyard pins that I traded for to continue to trade for these LE pins!
At the end of the cruise, we brought back plenty of very nice LE pins. Some we will keep for our collection, but most will be in our trading books. Not sure when I'll ever go back for another Member Cruise, but I've learned my lesson!
Well that, boys and girls, was my wonderful DVC Member Cruise. We had a great time, but I don't think I'll take another cruise during this time of the year. I've always enjoyed just sitting outside during previous cruises, but for this one, I was confined mostly indoors due to the hot and humid weather. It wasn't bad when the "indoors" is a ship this big, and with lots of things to do and see, but I still prefer being able to enjoy the ocean breeze. Next year's DVC Member Cruise will be an Alaska cruise. I would love to do that, but the scheduling just doesn't permit it.
This concludes my trip report. Thanks for reading!
Zz.
