Fish extenders

[SusanKey]

Hello, I was wondering more about fish extenders. Do you give a gift for each member of each family every day? If there are 9 other families involved, with at least 4 members in each family, that is a lot of gifts. It seems like the cost of this and the packing space needed can add up very quickly. Is this how it works? Thanks!

 

[bobbiwoz]

Each CAN have its own rules. So, there could be different answers to each question you ask.

In my experience it has been one gift for the whole cabin to share, but i primarily participate in candy/snack exchanges, and usually each person gets own gift.

Generally there is a range of the gift cost.

 

[Chemist]

Usually its one gift per person per cabin. Its not uncommon for there to be family/group gifts, though. Its pretty common for the children to each get their own thing.

 

[ajo]

Generally it is one gift per cruise, but FE groups can make their own rules.

 

[ArielRae]

I have given one gift or multiple small items per person in a cabin during the cruise.

I have also delivered one gift meant for the whole cabin to share.

Every cruise I have done a FE on we have only delivered gifts to a cabin only once. We have never given multiple gifts over the course of a cruise. Usually the person organizing will give you a set day to deliver your FE gifts so everyone isn’t delivering all the same day and it makes it more spread out over the cruise to receive items.

 

[SusanKey]

Thank you everyone!

 

[TestingH2O]

Usually the person organizing will give you a set day to deliver your FE gifts so everyone isn’t delivering all the same day and it makes it more spread out over the cruise to receive items.

I would not classify this as a “normal” practice. In fact, that sounds pretty controlling. What if you had excursions or onbitard activities on your day? No, most organizers understand that everyone’s schedule is different and just ask that you deliver before dinner on the last night so people have time to pack.

To OP - every FE has different rules about how many cabins, what types of groups, etc. cruises might have several different types of exchanges on one trip. For instance we did a kids exchange, an ornament exchange, and a lip gloss exchange on our last cruise. Kids were for each individual child. Ornaments were one per cabin. I’d suggest joining your FB group to see how they are doing it. If it’s individual, ask if they can make an exchange that is just for cabin gifts. I bet you won’t be the only one worried about cost and space.

 

[JM23457]

Usually the person organizing will give you a set day to deliver your FE gifts so everyone isn’t delivering all the same day and it makes it more spread out over the cruise to receive items.

We've participated in 5 FEs and have never been assigned a certain day to drop-off/pick-up, or even seen that suggested in any of our FE groups. That isn't usual or typical from my experience.

OP, in my experience, people give one gift per cabin or per person, based on the giver's preference. I've never seen one or the other mandated in an FE. There are also sometimes 5 cabin FEs available to join, if you want less of a commitment than a 10 cabin FE.

 

[Starwind]

We've participated in 5 FEs and have never been assigned a certain day to drop-off/pick-up, or even seen that suggested in any of our FE groups. That isn't usual or typical from my experience.

OP, in my experience, people give one gift per cabin or per person, based on the giver's preference. I've never seen one or the other mandated in an FE. There are also sometimes 5 cabin FEs available to join, if you want less of a commitment than a 10 cabin FE.

8 cruises, booked for the 9th and we've also never seen assigned days for dropping off FEs.

For our current booked cruise, the group voted on preferred FE cabin # size and the consensus was 5 cabins, so all the FE groups will be 5 cabins. IIRC there are about 6 or 8 different types of FE one can participate in for our cruise with that group [e.g. with kids, adult only, ornament, sock, recipe, ...].

 

[Snowwhyt]

8 cruises, booked for the 9th and we've also never seen assigned days for dropping off FEs.

For our current booked cruise, the group voted on preferred FE cabin # size and the consensus was 5 cabins, so all the FE groups will be 5 cabins. IIRC there are about 6 or 8 different types of FE one can participate in for our cruise with that group [e.g. with kids, adult only, ornament, sock, recipe, ...].

I like making 40 some cabin gifts for each cruise.
10-12 ornaments for exchange
4 sturdy magnet sheet photos (business card size to 3.5x 8) that are cruise specific for about 20 rooms.
If people are doing 5 per group then I see overlap. Which I had in one cruise but we decided one gift per overlaps.
I enjoy creating, some are nicer than others and others a flop(what I see in my head doesn’t translate)
I do the good ones again and again.
And I hide in my suitcase FE gifts that I know my family will like. That they think are from total strangers. They think they get amazing gifts!(Lol and I have extra packing room on the way home)

 

[monkeydawn]

Our FE group did have any rules except 10 cabins max per group. I wouldnt have minded a voluntary sign up for delivery day because we did end up getting almost everything delivered in a 1-2 hour window on the first sea day (basically when we were out delivering ours LOL). We choose to do one swag bag per cabin that contained both individual and cabin gifts. We had 10 cabins so we felt trying to stay around $15 total per cabin was an appropriate amount to spend. We crafted some stuff and found deals on other stuff. I did do a small Pirate Day makeover swag bag in addition to the main bag we gave out. I just happened to have some stuff that would work for it and thought it would be a fun bonus.

One thing that really irked me about our FE was that we had one cabin sign up in the 11th spot with a couple of weeks left to sign up, the one FE rule we had was 10 cabins to a group. Of course we had already bought all of our stuff by that point. There were some things where we had an extra so we just made a FE out of what we could, they got close to everything except the custom koozies we had ordered. I was also annoyed because at two weeks they should have started the third group (we were in the second group) or the lead should have directed them to do so. Who knows how many people might have joined if someone else had started it off first. And if no one had joined then I would have been fine with moving that cabin over to one of the other groups. *Petty Rant Alert* But the kicker is that everyone seemed to label their stuff, including them (it wasnt a rule we just all kind of did). All they gave was one very cheap sleeping mask that said Sleeping Beauty (cabin with two girls...I guess one of us was an ugly stepsister and didnt need sleep LOL). It was all just very rude and felt like a gift grab from them.

 

[TestingH2O]

One thing that really irked me about our FE was that we had one cabin sign up in the 11th spot with a couple of weeks left to sign up, the one FE rule we had was 10 cabins to a group. Of course we had already bought all of our stuff by that point.

As someone who has done FE and organized them, I have two thoughts on this.

First, there should have been a deadline, and anyone adding after the deadline should have been added to a Pixie Dust list. That way anyone who had extra stuff to give could, but no one would be put out.

Second, I have placed deadlines on sign ups and reminded people that sign ups wouldn't be final until X date. Well, people decided that the groups were final before the final date and then we come to find out that people have cancelled or no longer wish to participate when we get to the final closing date. Now people in the group are angry with me because they ordered personalized gifts even though the groups weren't final!

In summary, I don't think you were wrong to be annoyed, but I have lots of sympathy for FE organizers because some people are impossible to please.

 

[monkeydawn]

As someone who has done FE and organized them, I have two thoughts on this.

First, there should have been a deadline, and anyone adding after the deadline should have been added to a Pixie Dust list. That way anyone who had extra stuff to give could, but no one would be put out.

Second, I have placed deadlines on sign ups and reminded people that sign ups wouldn't be final until X date. Well, people decided that the groups were final before the final date and then we come to find out that people have cancelled or no longer wish to participate when we get to the final closing date. Now people in the group are angry with me because they ordered personalized gifts even though the groups weren't final!

In summary, I don't think you were wrong to be annoyed, but I have lots of sympathy for FE organizers because some people are impossible to please.

As someone who is the typical organizer in our social group I have a lot of sympathy for FE organizers too. A deadline is a great idea but I also would have asked the add on cabin to start a new FE group (letting them know if no one joined that I would add them back to the prior group). I was more annoyed with the people for doing it than the FE leader though.

We were I think the 6th cabin to sign up and it stayed that way for awhile. I did order all of our stuff as if there were going to be 10 and was fine with extras to pixie dust. It was going over the limit that annoyed me.