Just about every single cast member I've seen in WDW wears pins. Maybe they aren't always around their necks -- I've seen a few with these special ones on their waists.
I've heard from several people in real life (yes, I know people that work at WDW) and also now someone in this same thread, that said they had real gold-plated pins in the Atrium Club, and *maybe* at GF (no one has personally confirmed this to me yet and it may be rumor just like a lot of other things on here) It may not be advertised, it may be a secret -- maybe it's only certain times of the year or certain times of the day when they have some, maybe you have to ask them about them -- I don't know... Like I said, I've never stayed at Atrium Club so I personally can't confirm it. On my next trip, I think I will ride the elevator like Royal Canadian said and ask someone to please take me to the Atrium Club room so I can try to get one of those pins! It would be a very secret thing for me to try. Don't worry, I won't break any rules and I won't eat any of the snacks unless the CM I am trading with says it's ok for me to have some. I really don't think they will miss a couple cookies or whatever it is they have up there.
It also makes sense to me that they have these pins there because Atrium Club costs a lot of money to stay there and I bet there are some secret things about it -- there has to be something else secret like this, because it doesn't make sense to me that people pay all this extra money just to get some snacks and have someone make your PS's for you. Getting back to the pins though, it of course would be difficult to prove they really are gold plated pins without going to a gold expert -- maybe they just tell people that they are.
I lost some of my pin collection a couple years ago because my guests and I were eating at Ohanas for dinner, a great place to eat by the way, we had a really nice view of the castle and were seated by the window. When we were done, we went to the quiet side beach to watch the fireworks from there. You can also see part of the hula show from that place. But on the quiet side of the beach you can't hear the fireworks music, I think Disney really should do something about that, but that's a different subject. Anyways, this rude guy came up where I had my backpack sitting on those fold down chairs, and he just picked up my bag and took the chair. I said, hey, I was using that to keep the sand off my bag, but I guess he didn't care. Anyways, my pin collection was sitting on top of the backpack and when he moved it, some of the pins came loose and I couldn't find them in all of the sand!!@! Those were some really good pins too, and makes me mad since those pins used to cost less than they do now. I also know they changed the prices of the pins in the past few years but I didn't keep the backs of all of them to keep track of how much my pins cost -- but I'm pretty sure they have gone up in price since 1999!!1!
Anyways, I have about 8-10 pins still from trips and I've never seen a Contemporary Atrium Club pin or one that looks like what the new building is going to look like, so I bet they have to be very, very rare, don't you think?/???
