Fish Extenders? Who, What, How, When ???

[Maesa]

This is our first Disney Cruise. I've been seeing a a lot of "fish extender" stuff. I was going to pass on it because it would be one less thing I needed to worry about or plan. But now I am thinking, when I arrive on the ship I will probably regret not participating in it and being its our first trip and I don't want my 2 daughter's be left out. I think I need to start making my fish extender?? And the fish extender is basically a mail holder, right? Decorated "DISNEY"?

Ok - I leave the fish extender outside of my door. Now - who puts stuff in there? Random guests or I have to arrange with other cruisers before hand?

Now the giving side - I guess same question - do I arrange with other cruisers or do I go around and put my gifts in random first extenders?

How often? Do I do this once every day? or a couple times a day.

My cruise is for 3 nights/4days. How much items do I buy?

All your ideas, comments, suggestions and previous experience is greatly appreciated ! Super excited

 

[wombat_5606]

The first place you should start to find your answers is this sticky at the top of this page -

http://www.disboards.com/threads/dis-dcl-faq-new-alphabetical-listing-of-dcl-information.2068966/

 

[msmama]

I recently completed my first cruise with my son (8) and I will say he did NOT feel left out about the fish extenders. He did ask what they were once, and I explained that people got in groups and delivered each other presents but he didn't seem to care.

Several times I passed people passing out their gifts (usually while I was heading back to the room to drop off/pick up something) and they seemed to be having no fun at all. My thought was, I'd hate to waste the time handing out gifts when I could be doing something else. (There was a lot of, "is this one of ours" and flipping through papers and "oh, we missed xyz" etc). All in all, I was happy with my decision not to participate. Also, I was already loaded down with enough stuff. I wouldn't have wanted to add more (going or coming).

He was actually more concerned/interested in our lack of door decorations. And we spent a lot of time looking at peoples doors!

 

[lanejudy]

As to "not feeling left out" -- while it can sound like EVERYONE participates in an FE, in reality it's relatively few passengers onboard involved. We've never felt left out. So that's up to you. The kids may not even notice.

Answer to your other questions -- unless you plan to just "pixie-dust" your own kids, you'll need to join an FE group. Head to the Cruise Meets Forum and see if there is a group started for your cruise.

Enjoy your cruise!

 

[KashasMom]

We have participated a few times. I'm not "crafty" so it can be expensive and time-consuming, not to mention lugging all the gifts if you're flying. For our upcoming cruise I bought gifts for my daughter and will put them in our FE each night. Just works better for me. We did have a nice FE made for our family. We also like to decorate our door with magnets. Have a great cruise!

 

[dragynally]

When it come to gifts I like the KISS philosophy. I usually do a magnet with a picture of the map of the cruise. That's it. Very little room taken up. Also because of the time it takes to stop by each room my DH and I are going rouge and pixie dusting people instead of doing a proper group. This way it is a surprise for others and no one feels the need to give us anything.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

This is our first Disney Cruise. I've been seeing a a lot of "fish extender" stuff. I was going to pass on it because it would be one less thing I needed to worry about or plan. But now I am thinking, when I arrive on the ship I will probably regret not participating in it and being its our first trip and I don't want my 2 daughter's be left out. I think I need to start making my fish extender?? And the fish extender is basically a mail holder, right? Decorated "DISNEY"?

Ok - I leave the fish extender outside of my door. Now - who puts stuff in there? Random guests or I have to arrange with other cruisers before hand?

Now the giving side - I guess same question - do I arrange with other cruisers or do I go around and put my gifts in random first extenders?

How often? Do I do this once every day? or a couple times a day.

My cruise is for 3 nights/4days. How much items do I buy?

All your ideas, comments, suggestions and previous experience is greatly appreciated ! Super excited

This might help:
WHAT IS A FISH EXTENDER? (FE)
Outside your room onboard is a message holder, in most cases it's shaped like a fish (but can be a starfish or sea horse):

The fish is there for Disney to place important communications to you such as excursion tickets and notes from the Cruise staff. It is like a mailbox for your room. A Fish Extender (FE) it is something that you hang off the fish, much like a pocketed organizer.

By hanging the Fish Extender off of the fish, the Cast Members can still use it for its original purpose.

Once a cruise meet thread is up and running, someone in the group will (should?) step up and say "I'll maintain the Fish Extender exchange list". That person is the center point for all those who want to participate in the exchange. The list can be as simple as DISnames/room number/number of guests or as involved as full names/room number/ages of guests/like & dislikes/allergies/favorite characters/whatever is deemed necessary to know assemble the gifts.

Then each room on the FE list (note this will not be everyone on the Cruise Meet thread for your specific cruise), makes a Fish Extender holder. THIS IS NOT A ONE ON ONE EXCHANGE, YOU ARE PART OF A GROUP. All the people in the exchange buy or make little items and place them in each other's fish extenders. It is great fun to come back and check the items you have received.

The most common Fish Extenders are ones that have a pocket for each person in that stateroom. Some are very fancy, some are very plain. Some are store bought, some are homemade. Search "Disney fish extender" and you will get options that range in price. You should make sure your Fish Extender is between 8" & 12"" wide. Otherwise it starts to get in the way of your stateroom door. It should not exceed 5 feet; otherwise it will hit the floor. If you are creating your own it is suggested you make the pockets a little deeper than normal too. It will keep items from falling out and keep curious hands from reaching in (average depth is 5-6 inches)but 8-11 is a better way to go if you are making it yourself

They also make up gifts (either individual gifts or room gifts - whatever is decided by your group) to be delivered during the cruise).

One note about the gifts, some groups set up specific delivery dates, and specify "each person gets a gift" or "only one gift per room" or (even) maximum/minimum price ranges for gifts. Other groups just say "whatever", so people can choose what/how many gifts to give. Some give individual gifts, others only one gift per room, while others might do one for the adults and separate gifts for kids. Or only gift the kids.

 

[Madani]

We did as presenters above mentioned. I enjoy sewing and had a good time making a fish extender and door decorations. But I didn’t want the pressure of “having” to bring the right number of the right kind of gifts. So instead I just bought things for my daughter (age 5) and slipped them in here and there. And together we filled small, clear gift bags with lollipops, skin cream samples and lip balms, and she decorated the bags with Frozen stickers. We both had a good time walking around and finding fish extenders to pixie dust with our gifts, and she LOVED coming back to the room and finding treasures in her fish extender. So we had fun, but no pressure, with it. And we were pixie dusted in return, which was also a cute surprise. When I ask her now about what she remembers about the cruise she always says “finding stuff in our pockets.”

 

[MunFam]

Our cruise group was so big that in addition to the regular FE groups, people started sharing that they had extra items and a "Pixie Dust" list was established. We went around dropping off Pixie Dust gifts within that group, but it was not a formal exchange with formal rooms. It was fun.

I liked having our FE hanging so we could easily ID our room. I also brought along a gift for DD each night and had the SR host put it on the bed with the towel animal for DD. One night it was a crown for the princess dinner, one night a light up toy for Pirate Night. Basically, it was my way of controlling buying everything in the gift shop since "Mickey" was delivering a gift every night.

 

[amandaroseziegler]

We have participated a few times. I'm not "crafty" so it can be expensive and time-consuming, not to mention lugging all the gifts if you're flying. For our upcoming cruise I bought gifts for my daughter and will put them in our FE each night. Just works better for me. We did have a nice FE made for our family. We also like to decorate our door with magnets. Have a great cruise!

What a fanatic idea, we did the exchange our first cruise and I put a lot of time and energy into our gifts and was a bit disappointed with a lot of the gifts we got. I'll be doing this our next cruise. Thanks for the idea!

 

[TrySomethingNew]

My FE making supplies in the pic. Yes, nautical dish towels bought at the craft store. I made 4 pockets, using some fabric I already had at home for the back. I think I was done with it in 2hours-cut, iron, sew.

So many ideas on what to make/give. Are you interested in being crafty? If not, there are many things you can purchase that won't break the bank. Search these boards for FE ideas and you'll find a lot. We've received some very nice items in our FE, and some items not as interested in, but we enjoyed them all. And the kids would race to see what we got (even the teen). Good luck.

 

[SleepyDeb]

I estimate that 10-15% of doors have fish extenders. I estimate that 50% of the doors are decorated with magnets. We have not traveled with children, so I haven't had to worry about the "feeling left out", but I'd go with magnets over FE if it was one or the other.

Not being a crafty person, FE sound like just a big pain. But, I think decorating with magnets is fun.

 

[diznymom]

We love the FE exchanges. I also believe in the KISS system (Keep It Simple and Small). Some of our favorite gifts we have received are magnets.

 

[4DISNEYFAN]

Having fun making mine with the family. Great bonding time.

 

[Shanti]

This is our first Disney Cruise. I've been seeing a a lot of "fish extender" stuff. I was going to pass on it because it would be one less thing I needed to worry about or plan. But now I am thinking, when I arrive on the ship I will probably regret not participating in it and being its our first trip and I don't want my 2 daughter's be left out. I think I need to start making my fish extender?? And the fish extender is basically a mail holder, right? Decorated "DISNEY"?

Ok - I leave the fish extender outside of my door. Now - who puts stuff in there? Random guests or I have to arrange with other cruisers before hand?

Now the giving side - I guess same question - do I arrange with other cruisers or do I go around and put my gifts in random first extenders?

How often? Do I do this once every day? or a couple times a day.

My cruise is for 3 nights/4days. How much items do I buy?

All your ideas, comments, suggestions and previous experience is greatly appreciated ! Super excited

We had a great time with Fish Extenders on our cruise in December. I am not crafty (and am also a very busy mom & schoolteacher), so instead of making things I bought inexpensive yet useful or cute DCL-themed items from Etsy. They are often sold in batches of 10, which made the buying process easy. I didn't individualize gifts for each cabin, just gave everyone the same gift, which had been carefully thought out so I still felt that the gifts we gave were very nice.

I signed up for a 10-family FE group via my cruise's Facebook group. The gifts were small and took up very little room in our luggage. It was a Merrytime cruise, so my son wore his Santa hat while we found the 10 cabins to pass the gifts out to. We had fun with it, and the gifting process helped us learn our way around the ship. It was very pleasant to receive gifts in our Fish Extender throughout the cruise. We'll participate in an FE during every cruise from now on. It added a little bit of Disney magic to our cruise experience.