Hi Jude (and everyone else)
What is the FE exchange? I guess you can tell, we've never participated in it before. But I'm definitely open to ideas and would love to get help in planning this trip.
My daughter knows now although originally I didn't tell her until we'd officially booked it. She would have been too excited! She's never been to Europe before, but her older cousins have and she's eager to go...
-- Roberta
Hi Roberta
I will probably not do the best job of explaining the FE exchange but I will try!! I read about it on the Dis boards last year before we cruised and the girls really enjoyed taking part. Here goes, basically cruisers sign up to a a group and details of their stateroom numbers and the members of their family are exchanged (one person keeps all the info and ensures everything is shared as appropriate).
The idea then is to exchange small gifts with the other staterooms - you can buy a small gift per person or perhaps one per stateroom e.g. the girls received things like Disney puzzle books and crayons, American Candy (and as we are British is was nice to receive some American goodies), Pirate gear for Pirate night, a Mickey Head money box, a Mickey head bead key ring with their initial on it, stickers - you get the idea, small fun gifts, some particularly relevant to the countries the other families came from. I got things like a shopper, scottish fudge, mini bottle of wine, keyring, chocolates, mini scrapbook ready to fill with small photos, post its, magnet etc. I gave out some Irish things, some goodies made as keepsakes from the cruise, Cadburys Smarties etc - don't want to say too much in case I do some of the same things for this year.
It was great fun to come back to the stateroom and find the pockets of our Fish Extender - shown in my previous post - filled with goodies. I put in a card with the gifts I delivered so people would who it was from. Some of the ones I received were anonymous, others had notes - thats up to the sender.
It would be nice to take part again - its particularly fun to get things from other countries and I enjoyed picking up things specific to the UK and Ireland to give as presents.
Do a search for FE Exchange or Fish Extenders and I am sure you will be able to find out a whole lot more and make up your mind whether you wish to participate. Last year there were 11 staterooms in our group I think. That number was manageable - after all you have to pack all the stuff you are giving out and bring it in your luggage - and of course take home all the goodies you receive - if you were doing an exchange between a large number of staterooms it might make luggage an issue.
I'll keep a check on the thread and see who else is interested - you can let me know your thoughts in due course.
What age is your daughter? Mine are 11 and then 6 year old twins. They do not know yet - I'm holding off for a while before I tell them!!
Night for now
Jude
