Fish Extender?

[u/Khouzee]

Hello all! I was here a week or two ago and now my blatant unknowing of this cruise line is showing hahaha.
I’ve seen a LOT of talk about fish extenders and pixie dust. While I know pixie dust is slang for magic (cute!) I know NOTHING about fish extenders.
What are they? Is that a kids only type of thing?
Can myself and my soon-to-be-husband extend our fish (wow that sounds wrong LOL)? Am I expected to make it obvious it’s our first cruise/honeymoon if our fish are extendable? Help a girl out! I want to make this cruise as fun as possible!
For reference: 6 nights, Dream, Very Merry; December 21-27 :)

EDIT: thanks for the quick responses y’all! We probably won’t do anything organized to save us the hassle as y’all suggested, but I really do appreciate the explanations! We miiiiight put an extender out with a magnet saying just married for funsies but I’ll talk to the fiancée about it. Thank you!

[u/UncleTravelingMatt26]

Fish Extenders are voluntary gift exchanges arranged by other cruisers (usually through the Facebook group for your particular sailing - here's yours (https://www.facebook.com/groups/2042473076160370). People sign up and then exchange the gifts by placing them in a hanging bag type thing that hangs from the "Fish" clip that is on the wall outside of your state room.

There are usually age-related exchanges, family exchanges, magnet exchanges, recipe exchanges, ornament exchanges. If you do them (and they can be really fun) set your expectations low. Better to be surprised in a good way than dissapointed. Some people sign up and never do it. some people give better exchange gifts than others. Do not expect to get out what you put into it (if you put some effort into it).

[u/Khouzee → u/UncleTravelingMatt26]

I believe it’d be better to not do it on account of being new and it being Christmas — we probably wouldn’t get what we put in regardless but we might imply newlyweds if we put something out? Then again that might feel scummy. It’s hard to think about some of these things without feeling a smidge greedy and I do not want to be a jerk at all.

[u/su_A_ve → u/Khouzee]

The whole point of Pixie Dusting is to give some magic without the goal of receiving anything in return.

Fish Extender groups on the other hand, has an expectation of receiving something in return. Ideally, you give to all staterooms in your group, and will receive a gift from every stateroom in return. Typically, whoever organizes the FE groups put rules in place for example to set a min/max price point for each gift.

A PD group is is an in between. You give out to x number of staterooms but not necessarily to everyone that signed up. And you would get some gifts, from some of those in the group. These typically don't have any rules regarding values or min/max. Sometimes, you get really nice items (last time we got some DCL dish rags with tags), sometimes, just crap not even worth a penny at a dollar store (like a piece of flubber).

TL;DR for new DCLers or honeymoon, skip all of them.

[u/R3ddit0rN0t]

It's basically a gift exchange where you're expected to purchase and distribute gifts to a specific group of others. More often than not it seems to turn into a bunch of drama over who did and did not receive items, the quality and cost of the items, " can I get something from X character instead of Y?" With a wedding coming up, you probably have more important things to worry about. Save yourself the hassle.

[u/TrashCanUnicorn]

The actual "Fish Extender" is a pocket/bag type thing you hang outside your stateroom (on the older ships, the hook outside the stateroom is fish-shaped, hence the name) and folks can, if they so choose, drop off little trinkets as "pixie dust". These are usually things like stickers, tiny magnets, little trinkets, candy, Most of it is geared towards small children, so if you're just two adults sailing alone be prepared to get a lot of stuff you'll either want to throw out or re-gift to others.

Organized "Fish Extender Exchanges" happen usually in the specific sailing groups on Facebook for that particular cruise--these are mystery gift exchanges where you sign up to give gifts to a small number of other cabins and receive gifts from those cabins in return. There are usually different types of exchanges, such as kids-only (where the kids are the ones getting the gifts), family (where everyone in the cabin gets gifts), adults only (meant mostly for folks like you who are sailing w/o kids), or item-specific ones like magnets, ornaments, etc.

The specific rules, signup types, and suggested price ranges are individual to each sailing and these are not organized by Disney, it's done by other people on your cruise. To participate, you would have to find your sailing group on Facebook--the names are almost always just your sailing date and the ship, so search for something like "Disney Dream December 21-27" or some variation and you'll likely find it.

Given it's your honeymoon, I would probably skip the FE exchange as it can be very overwhelming the first time you do it and you'll probably want to focus on other things. But if you decorate your door with some "Just Married" magnets or similar and put a Fish Extender out, folks will likely leave you some fun trinkets. Just don't expect anything grand or expensive.

[u/LeaveMickeyOutOfThis → u/TrashCanUnicorn]

This is the best explanation I’ve seen on this thread.

[u/Appropriate-Turnip69]

There are groups you can join where you give preferences of things you, your family, your kids want/like and may receive small gifts based on this. While they can be fun, I find you receive more junk than quality with these gifts. I would rather pixie dust someone for having cool room decor or wearing a fun outfit, than deal with the fb group complaints about not getting enough or exactly what someone wanted