SeaWorld Orlando's Pin Trading Event Is Back This Saturday at Expedition Odyssey Gifts, With a November Date to Follow

SeaWorld Orlando's pin trading event is back this Saturday. Two dates are listed on the park's events page, September 5 and November 7, filed in the events menu under select dates from September to November.

The two dates

SeaWorld's page lists both sessions with times and locations:

• Saturday, September 5, 2 to 4 p.m., at Expedition Odyssey Gifts
• Saturday, November 7, 2 to 4 p.m., at the Shoppes at Waterfront

Both of those fall on a Saturday, and both run the same two hour afternoon window. SeaWorld rotates the event through a handful of park shops rather than settling on one. This year's June date was listed for Glacial Collections, the park's penguin themed shop. This round pairs the gift shop at Expedition Odyssey, which SeaWorld currently lists under New At The Park as Expedition Odyssey: Fire and Ice, with the Shoppes at Waterfront in the park's Waterfront district, which also hosted the November session in 2024.

What it takes to trade from SeaWorld's boards

SeaWorld's separate pin trading guide says guests can trade up to three pins per SeaWorld Ambassador per day, and may also "trade with other pin-traders in the park." Neither of those carries a same day purchase condition. The events page calls these dates "perfect opportunities to grow your collection and trade with fellow enthusiasts." Trading from the park's own event boards is the part with a condition attached. The page says that to participate "you'll just need to purchase pins the day of the event and show your receipt," and adds that the park will have "new ones in store for you, too!"

So board access on the day costs one pin purchase, with the receipt as proof. Ambassador and guest to guest trading carries on as usual, with no same day purchase condition.

What "additional events" means

The page opens with "Save the date for Pin Trading," then urges readers to mark their calendars for more pin trading later in the year, describing September 5 and November 7 as "additional events." Read cold that raises a question, because the page as it stands never names a first event.

Archived copies of the same page answer it. In May the list ran to three dates, and the one at the top was June 20 at Glacial Collections. SeaWorld has since dropped that line and changed the navigation label from select dates, June to November, to select dates, September to November, while leaving the "additional events" wording in place. So the two sessions left are the back half of a three date run, not the whole of it. The pattern is not new either. Archived versions of the page show a September date at Wild Arctic and a November date at the Shoppes at the Waterfront in 2024, and a June date at the Expedition Odyssey Gift Shop in 2025.

Worth knowing before Saturday

If you collect, the practical details are simple enough: show up at Expedition Odyssey Gifts between 2 and 4 p.m. on Saturday, buy at least one pin, keep the receipt, and you can trade off the boards. One caveat: the current page does not say where the pin has to be bought. Earlier versions of the same page did, telling guests to buy "from any stores in the park that sell pins," and they also described a game that decided which board you got to trade from, plus a rule limiting trades to official SeaWorld, Busch Gardens and Sesame pins. None of that appears on the page today. Park admission is required to get to either shop, since both sit inside the park.

Sources

• SeaWorld Orlando, "Pin Trading at SeaWorld Orlando"
• Internet Archive capture of the same page, May 15, 2026, listing June 20 at Glacial Collections
• Internet Archive capture, September 20, 2024, listing the 2024 dates and locations
• Internet Archive capture, June 20, 2025, with the since removed purchase and game details
• SeaWorld Orlando, "SeaWorld Pin Trading"

Image credits: Pin trading image courtesy of SeaWorld.