DISNEY CRUISE FISH EXTENDER

You went ahead and booked a Disney Cruise! Congratulations!!!! You have just made a wise decision. You will have the time of your life. In fact, I remember when I took my first Disney Cruise. I had so many unanswered questions. Maybe you heard someone mentioned joining a Facebook Group dedicated to your cruise. Once in that group, people will start saying words you have never heard like Disney Cruise Fish Extender.

What is a Fish Extender? This post serves to educate you on Fish Extenders by answering your basic Disney Cruise Line Questions about this tradition, instructing you on how to join a group, and participation in that group once you are cruising.

SO WHAT IS A DISNEY CRUISE FISH EXTENDER?

Outside every stateroom on a Disney Cruise ship is a funny looking brass fish. These fish are used to leave communication from the ship to you – receipts, thank you notes. Think MAILBOX, except they aren’t shaped like a mailbox and you can’t open them! I know it is weird; I didn’t make it up.

Someone decided to start hanging “mailbox” like contraptions from that brass fish and leave gifts for others through this “mailbox” like system.

These mailbox-like “fish extenders” are either bought or handcrafted (or you can even use a shopping bag). They can have one pocket or pockets for each person staying in your stateroom. Our family made an adorable Toy Story Fish Extender. Watch for our tutorial post coming soon.

WHO STARTED THE DISNEY CRUISE FISH EXTENDER?

There is a “someone” that did make up the Fish Extender tradition. The woman’s name is Debbie Chitester. She gave her family and friends the mailboxes and gifts on a cruise back in 2005. After that groups started form DIS boards and Facebook. There are online shops that sell the fish extenders, and there are tutorials to make your own.

HOW DO YOU JOIN A FISH EXTENDER GROUP?

So I answered the questions: What is a Fish Extender? And Who Started these groups? But now you need to know how to join a Fish Extender Group. While I do not have experience with the DisBoards Fish Extender Groups, I have read that people are sometimes in huge groups with 50 cabins. We joined a Facebook Group dedicated to our cruise, and there were opportunities to join smaller Fish Extender Groups. These groups ranged from 8-10 cabins, but the group I was in only had 7 families. A spreadsheet was created that listed all the names of everyone traveling in our group, ages, allergies, and favorite Disney characters, movies, rides, etc.

WHAT DO YOU PUT IN A DISNEY CRUISE FISH EXTENDER?

GIFT GIVING:

Some people make gifts and some people buy gifts. I decided to give individual gifts, but there were families that gave a group gift for each cabin. There is no right or wrong answer. I gave books to the majority of the children. I purchased adorable books at Ollie’s for $1-2 each. We bought Disney pens to give to the dads in the group.

The types of gifts we received ranged from mugs with Mickey Straws and a small bottle of root beer to go up to the ice cream counter and make your own root beer float, trading pins for each of us, trading pin lanyards, candy, a pillowcase and permanent marker to get signatures of the onboard characters, and pencils.

I had wanted to make Mickey Flashlights for the children in our fish extender group, but I ran out of time before we left.

HOW TO EXCHANGE GIFTS:

I found an online site that has premade labels to attach to the gifts. I put our name and cabin number and tied the labels on each gift. Some people use Ziploc bags to put the gifts in for delivery. Sometime throughout the cruise, but don’t wait until the last night, deliver the gifts to your assigned cabins. We delivered ours over a period of two days. If you wait until the last night, the family may have already packed their bags. 

Even if you choose not to participate, you can still have fun looking at all the creative Fish Extenders and getting ideas for your next Disney cruise.

Happy Sailing