Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Another round of Fish Extender gifts

One of the things my family looks forward to the most on a Disney cruise is the Fish Extender Exchange. This is something unique to Disney cruises that is similar to a Secret Santa gift exchange.

First, you sign up to be in a FE group via the DIS boards or a Facebook group specific to your exact cruise.

You need to have some sort of pocket organizer that you hang as your delivery box outside of your cabin. I ordered ours from Ebay.

Fish Extender hanging on right side of cabin door
During the cruise, you deliver something to every cabin in your group. Some people choose to deliver one gift per cabin, while others give out one gift per person.

There are Pinterest pages and Facebook groups devoted to gift ideas for the Fish Extender Exchange. My kids enjoy receiving candy, stickers, tattoos and pirate stuff. Many people give out Disney-themed gifts or something that represents their home state. I like giving and receiving more practical things, like this flashlight we received on our last cruise:

Flashlight with a touch of Mickey

For this round, we will be handing out these 3" magnetic clips that can be used to hang stuff on the magnetic stateroom doors (or as a chip bag clip):

The clips have our cruise group name and date on them.

If I had a crafty bone in my body, I'm sure I would try some of the awesome craft ideas on Pinterest. But I'm not. So in the past we've handed out other "practical" gifts, like customized pens and sticky notes with the cruise name and date.

There are over 100 families on our upcoming cruise that are participating in this gift exchange. We do not have to deliver 100 gifts, thank goodness! The list was split into smaller groups of 20-25 cabins. We opted to participate in 2 groups, so we will be exchanging with about 40 other families.

My kids love coming back to the cabin at various points in the day to see what kind of goodies await! It's like having a Christmas stocking that is refilled over and over again.

Have you done this on a Disney cruise before? Would you do it on a future cruise? What are your favorite items to receive?

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