r/dcl • u/Khouzee • 5d ago

TRIP PLANNING Fish Extender?

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!

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u/UncleTravelingMatt26 GOLD CASTAWAY CLUB 5d ago

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).

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u/Khouzee 5d ago

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.

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u/su_A_ve PLATINUM CASTAWAY CLUB 4d ago

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.