I'm spending the day doing a TON of laundry so I thought I'd check out the boards for more info on fish extenders. There is a thread that had some great information not only on how to make fish extenders, but how some groups have distributed the items and what items were given/recieved.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1219607
Various ways to distribute:
Option 1
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All DIStag participants will purchase a small gift from their hometown to give to all taggers. We will receive a spread sheet made up by your's truly, at our first DISmeet (time and place still to be determined). In addition to the spread sheet you will receive some sort of magnet. The list will look something like this:
JLDSMD Jeff Cabin 1234
cntkg1 Nancy Cabin 6576
oybolshoi Brenda Cabin 6580
LindyLoo Linda Cabin 4321 etc.....
You will start with the person listed directly below your name. Deliver your "gift" and leave the magnet at the top of their cabin door. Should your "gift" be too large to fit in the 'fish mail holder', locate any Stateroom Host/ess and request they take your gift directly into the room. When someone leaves you a gift and the magnet, deliver your surprise and received magnet to the next person on your list-and so on. When you get to the last person 'participating' at the bottom of the page (LindyLoo in our example)...start at the top of the list (JLDSMD). Continue until you get to the person listed above YOUR name.
So if I've still managed to confuse you, this is the skinny of it all...
Jeff takes one of his gifts and his magnet. He tags Nancy's door with the magnet and puts his gift on the 'fish mail holder'. Now he waits until someone tags his door. (In our example LindyLoo would start with Jeff). He will take that new magnet and a new gift and tag Brenda's door. He waits again until he gets tagged and then tags Linda's door and leaves behind a gift.
So this means if we have 20 DISers who want to play tag, we will each have to bring 19 little gifts.
We have all week to play and we'd probably cut it off on Thursday. Any leftover gifts at that point can just be left on fish mail holders without tagging with the magnets.
When we played this on our other cruise the gifts were anything from personalized pencils, bumper stickers, candy, yummy hometown recipes (Yorkshire pudding mmmmm), keychains, playing cards etc.... Most were packed in gift baggies and labeled with the name of the DISer who left it behind.
It really was tons of fun (for us anyway) and we only ran into one snag. One DISer's entire family got sick and he had to bail on us halfway through the game. We all just continued on anyway without the magnets.
Basically this version is like a chain letter. Everybody starts off with the person on the list just below your name. Then, once you get your first gift you go to the next name on the list under yours and take them theirs and so on in a rotation until all names have been gifted.
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Option 2:
What I'm doing for our next cruise is just making a list of participants with each person's DIS name and Cabin #. If they'd like to share the names of the people in their cabin that's great. Also, we'll include the ages of the kids if people want to share that info, too.
No suggestions have been made on what type of gifts to give. This way, each person can bring whatever they'd like.
I've been keeping everyone updated on how many DISers have contacted me so people can start planning how many items they need to bring. A week prior to sailing, the final list will be PM'd to everyone who's participating.
Then, each person can distribute their goodies whenever they'd like during the cruise. Soccermom-Cheri, with 30+ people participating, chances are pretty good that the gifts would arrive randomly throughout your cruise.
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Items given/received:
we received magnets, necklaces, pens, pencils, assorted candies, stickers, Disney puzzle pieces, glow in the dark bracelets, and more. I thought maybe they would skip us, and mostly do the rooms with kids, but we got loads of stuff!!
The possibilities are endless, but some things I received were magnets, pins, postcards, local treats, pencils, candy, homemade CD's, Disney recipes....
We gave out magnets & pens that I had made especially for the cruise (we also handed out those pens at our DIS Meet - there were a plethora of them). We got as gifts - dice and beads from Vegas, pin from Oklahoma and some paper, post-it notes that said Rome-ancing the Mouse (our logo from our cruise), taffy from New York, magnets for our door, a UK flag, bottle opener from the Coliseum, more candy, shaped soap, postcards, and other gifts of that type. These were really nice to receive each day. I also got a postcard from a non-DIS neighbor who saw my magnets on my door and gave me a postcard from his native Gibraltar. I thought that was so nice, so I gave him one of our pens. All of the gifts were nice, and I especially liked the ones that represented the area where they were from, and the small gifts of the places we had been...
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It all depends on how we all want to work it. I'd be happy to keep a spreadsheet of participants and as soon as cabin numbers are confirmed add that information to the spreadsheet. I can distribute the lists to everyone at the first meet or put it in your FE on the first day.
I am SO looking forward to May! It can't come soon enough for me.
Jane
I cant believe it, we have always wanted to see one launch! Out trip is getting better and better!!
How embarrassing for us when someone from our hometown actually gets on the show, and it ends up being one that they make fun of (the guy wearing the orange plaid shirt with the "yellow" Dumb & Dumber hair at the end of the show last night).
. You people are geniuses
Maybe we should all get together and do some karaoke on the cruise and rock out our inner American Idols.
