We recently spent five days and four nights on the Disney Dream and it was just as magically memorable as you can imagine. Though we planned our trip about a month before we set sail, we were too late to join a Fish Extender group. You can read more about Fish Extenders in the post I wrote for the DCL Blog but a quick summary is these are small gifts from family to family that people put in a bag or tiered hanging box outside of your stateroom on the fish (hence Fish Extender) or seahorse depending on which side of the ship you are on.
Here’s ours:
(Somehow I forgot to take a picture of it outside our stateroom.)
Even though we were too late to join an official Fish Extender Group, we found about 16 families to Pixie Dust. Pixie Dust is just like a Fish Extender only surprise and with less obligation. I liked the ability to add some surprises and not feel like I needed to have something specific to each family member.
We ended up creating some ship cheat sheets, personalized postcards and small items for the children like silly face glow sticks, coloring books and silly bands.
These are the ship cheat sheets:
These are the postcards:
The first day we arrived on the ship we spent about an hour delivering our gifts, which our daughter affectionately named Mickey Mail. It was a great way to begin learning our way around and see the ship.
For the next four days, our daughter checked every time we came back to our room and before we left to see if she had received any Mickey Mail of her own. She was thrilled with everything she received and particularly appreciated a Princess Sophia playdoh set and an Elena of Avalor hooded towel.
I highly recommend participating in a Fish Extender or at least finding a Pixie Dust group if you’re planning on a Disney Cruise.
We also made some really fun magnets for the second cruise we took. Including some personalized ones for those in our Fish Extender group with their favorite characters.
p.s. If you’d like to purchase the Dream Cheat Sheet or the personalized postcards, let us know!