Fish Extenders-Be Honest

[COASTIEandMATE]

This is our first cruise and I've decided that my 2 granddaughters, ages 11 & 12, should participate at least once. You never know until you try. That being said, I'm looking to do 10 cabins, only one gift per cabin. That sounds manageable on a 5 night cruise. We have a Disney outlet store within driving distance and I noticed they had little $2 items. These were reduced from the original price and I know I wanted one so I figured others will as well lol. I plan to check back periodically(one of the advantages of having a year before we sail). Plus, my granddaughters and I can spend a craft day making something kewl. Add to that a local treat and Viola! There you have it. Everything put in a cellophane bag tied in ribbon .
Winner, winner chicken dinner.

It can be a lot of fun and a great way to see every deck of the ship!! Be sure and print out a map of each deck so you can mark the cabin numbers and not have to backtrack! Remember "port" has the same amount of letters as "left" and just think of Peter Pan " Second Star to the "Right" for Starboard! If you loose track of which way you are going there are red and blue anchors on the carpet pattern for forward and aft!! Take your time and enjoy the cute cabin door decorations!! Aloha, Karen and Ron

 

[Lonegalathome]

Thank you so much for this thread!

 

[The Sasquatch]

We did it on a few of our previous cruises and said we werent going to on the most recent. Leading up to it, we jumped in because we all had the Disney planning bug. It was fun and we had a great ime with it. We got a ton of stuff and it was nice coming back at night to things left in our FE

 

[Dallas_Lady]

I originally signed up and joined a group..but backed out and when I was on the cruise I was SO glad I did not participate. All I had to do was relax enjoy my family and the cruise.

Not having to worry about going all over the ship to deliver stuff was priceless

Same here. We decided not to and I was glad. I'm not a fan of "stuff" and I didn't want to use our vacation time passing out item. Plus DH thought it was dumb

 

[Jenjuneh]

In fairness, I can't talk from experience since this is our first cruise. But I can give my reasons for participating in the FE knowing some of the gifts may not be completely awesome.

1. We have three kids and they will all be under the age of six. I know that they will be excited to see what they receive in their pockets!

2. This will probably be our one and only cruise. We only vacation every other year and we like to do different things. So I want to participate in as much fun as possible and this is a little extra magic that is only a little inconvenient for me.

3. I know I am going to have some time on the ship that I won't be able to do much. My girls will probably only be able to stay awake till 10pm. Enough time to see the evening show and head to bed. My hubby will stay in the room with them, but would pout if I left to do something he would like to do. The FE will give me an excuse to get out of our room and wander the ship.

4. I am crafty. So that means I can make awesome things for little $$$. I am also able to make my own fish extender so I am not laying down $50+ on hanging pockets. If it was costing me more, I would totally reconsider.

5. We are driving to port, so luggage is not really an issue for me.

6. It is better to give than receive. I am also making my girls my FE gift for girls, so I know one gift will be a keeper!

If your circumstances are different, I completely understand why you would skip it!

Thanks for this! I pretty much mirror the above, but was starting to rethink doing FE. I'm back on board! It's my son's make a wish so I him to experience as much as possible!

 

[MSPeeler]

Plus DH thought it was dumb

Mine does too....

 

[darnheather]

Now that I've done it I can't imagine not doing it. So much fun. Just two nights ago (came home 2 weeks ago!) my girls and I dumped out all the candy and went through it picking our favorites like we do at Halloween. Some of the things we were given we'll probably not use but I set them back in the gift cabinet I have for last minute gifts.

 

[Napoleon Dynamite]

Skipping it this time around. We did our first one last year, and received a few cute things, but also a lot of trinket junky stuff that I really didn't want to have to pack to bring back. TONS of candy items also. I thought it was a pain running from cabin to cabin to deliver gifts on a short cruise.

 

[nearlyfallinstar]

Thanks for this! I pretty much mirror the above, but was starting to rethink doing FE. I'm back on board! It's my son's make a wish so I him to experience as much as possible!

It was worth it! The girls loved checking their pockets to see what was in them!

 

[jtba]

It was worth it! The girls loved checking their pockets to see what was in them!

forget the kids! i like checking them too!!!

 

[MnMzMoMi4LiFe]

I participated in the FE on our first cruise. It was a Surprise Sweet 16 for my b/g twins so it added to the "party" experience like party favors. It was fun to put together the bags and it did help pass the time. I made personalized magnets, print outs from ETSY, and key fobs. (Ideas that I got from this site) I made them look fairly decent but that's just me. I wanted their Sweet 16 to be special. I didn't pack the gifts in my luggage, I had a small pre-paid USPS box sent DIRECTLY to the ship. My advice, if you can, do your best to reflect your creativity and try to make something unique to you, where you're from or your cruise.

As far as coming home, we packed the gifts that we received in a small carry-on that was checked. We were already under the amount of checked luggage to bring (2 per person) so it wasn't a big deal.