A Fun Experience – Disney Fantasy Fish Extender Exchange

Another thing I learned on DISboards was about Fish Extender Exchanges. 

Outside of each stateroom there is a metal fish attached to the wall where Disney staff leave notices.   Guests have found a second use for these and oh what fun it is!

Before leaving home I chose to order a fish extender from Bullfrogs and Butterflies Boutique on Etsy.  (Thanks so much for your help with the shipping MaLeah!!)  I had thought of making one but when I found this one and the cost was reasonable the decision was an easy one.

When we unpacked our suitcases on the cruise I hung our fish extender outside our stateroom and the fun began!

A little background.  Before our trip I found a group on Facebook (using my Mom’s account as I have chosen not to get a FB account of my own) and signed up with them.  It was fun to get to know people who would be sharing our cruise a little bit before we left.  One of the options available was to sign up for a Fish Extender Exchange group.  In the end there were 19 staterooms in our group and 3 groups formed from our FB group.  Our family was responsible to take a gift or gifts for each of the other 18 staterooms in our FE exchange group.  I chose to make photo albums called ‘accordion albums’.  Norma came over one day and we spent the majority of the day making them.   Thanks for your help Norma!!

The finished albums.

We also took Smarties which are a (nut free) Canadian candy to give to the kids.

We made 1 accordion album for each stateroom in the exchange and took a box of Smarties for each child in the stateroom.  We took time on 2 different days to deliver our gifts to those in our group.  It was fun to tour the ship and Hannah had such fun looking for the stateroom numbers as Nana and I called them out.

Being part of the exchange also made it exciting to return to our stateroom!

I had to laugh one day when I couldn’t find Hannah’s sparkle shoes….until she told me to check the Fish Extender.  LOL!!

Here are just some of the great gifts we received!  I’ll admit some were tore into so quickly that I didn’t even have time to take pictures of them before they were gone!

Mater teeth were a big hit with Hannah!

Minnie Mouse hair accessories, the Minnie rectangle with the bow and skirt was wrapped around a chocolate bar, candies for the ice cream station, a notepad with pen, St Patrick’s day treats, book, crayons, activity book and picture of Mickey.

Tissues, Minnie Play Pack of activities, Princess candy, Pirate chocolates, a handmade dish cloth, Monsters University stuffed animal, pirate notebook and a Minnie Mouse paint brush to be used to brush the sand off our feet on Castaway Cay.

Colouring package with 3 homemade Mickey shaped crayons, Mickey flashlight, a trading pin, a couple of Pez containers, luggage tags, Tinkerbell face cloth, handmade luggage handle covers, handmade crayon holder,waterproof iPhone cover personalized with the date of our cruise and picture frames.

And two gifts that deserve pictures on their own.  A beautiful peg game.

A Disney Fantasy cruise line bag that we began to use immediately as did others in our group as we saw them around the ship.  It’s great and I love using it now to remind me of our trip.

I don’t think anyone on our cruise reads the blog but just in case someone does, THANK YOU!!!

It was such fun participating in this fun exchange and we’ll do it again in the future for sure!  If you have an option to do this I highly recommend it as it’s fun on so many levels!