Disney Cruise 2015 ~ Ship Time

(Sunday, Feb 22, 2015)

When we returned to the ship from Grand Cayman we enjoyed time doing a variety of things.

Hannah and I took some time and delivered some of our Fish Extender gifts.  (A Fish Extender (FE) is something you hang outside your stateroom door and it has pockets on it.  We signed up for a FE group on FB and there were 14 other cabins involved.  We left a couple of gifts in each of the other cabins FEs and they left gifts in ours.)

I knit dishcloths for each cabin with Mickey on them.

The teen to 8yo’s received a Canadian candy called Smarties.

Children 7 and under received crayon roll-ups that I’d made.

It took some time to prepare our gifts but it was such fun and I worked away on them for about 5 months.  My friend Norma also came over one afternoon to help out which was a lot of fun.

After we returned to the ship from Grand Cayman, Hannah and I delivered some of our gifts.

From there it was off to the pool for a swim before supper.

We took time for some character photos before supper.

Soon after we sat down for supper and even before eating, Hannah was asleep in my arms so Rolly pulled up a 2nd chair for her and voila, a bed was formed.  So cute!

She slept for well over an hour, woke up to watch the show and then was raring to go!  We went to the live show called, ‘The Golden Mickey’s’ in the Walt Disney Theatre.  It was excellent!  After that Hannah was still full of energy so I signed her in to the kids club for an hour so and then at 11pm we ordered room service as my sweet girl was hungry!

She polished off this macaroni and cheese and then we headed to bed.  Tomorrow was another sea day with lots to do on the ship!

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!