Good Question!
When we had the awesome adventure of our first Disney Cruise we noticed most of the cabin doors had been decorated and hanging from the “Fish” shaped hooks(this is where the “Fish Extender” name comes in)were organizers. We thought at first that maybe the occupants lived on the ship and these were for their mail..
Wouldn’t that be the LIFE!
The original Fish Extender was created on the 2005 Westbound Panama Canal cruise.
When you start to research the “Fish Extender Society” you will feel like it’s an exclusive and private society. The “Fish Extender Society” is a well oiled machine. The organizers of the individual groups for different sailing dates and ships must be CEO’s of major Corporations. They organize cocktail parties and ice cream socials! I Give them kudos. If you can get involved with your sailing dates early you should be fine. You will just need to go online as soon as you book your trip and check out all the Fish Extender Boards and find your Disney Ship and sailing dates. We reached out to several Disney Cruise Boards and they all said they were full…. It is important when you book your cruise that you either start your own group or join one as soon as possible.
It is a gift exchange and depending on your budget your group can be as large or small as you want it to be. You can include adults or just keep it between the children (depends on how you set it up).
So, after reaching out to several fish extender boards we realized we were on our own (there was ten in our group). We didn’t know if we would be sailing again on Disney because our children are teenagers, and are losing interest. We decided to go for it and have it between the three families.
Choosing the gifts to give will really depend on where you are traveling from. We traveled from Utah and it was tight packing them. We didn’t want to check another suitcase and pay the baggage fees.
I crafted most of my gifts using water bottles, drawstring backpacks, waterproof phone cases, teenaged photo scavenger hunt, t-shirts and decorated their doors for them. I gifted them their gear for “Pirate Night”. Our children were all teenagers and girls so they received sunglasses, nail polish, hair accessories, lip glosses, baseball caps, sleep eye masks, the ideas are endless. Check your local dollar stores, I found Disney Nemo and Disney Frozen Mints. It doesn’t have to be costly.
They looked simple enough to make and trust me I am a VERY beginner seamstress.
The Movie ‘Moana” was starting the week of our cruise so I wanted to incorporate this theme into our Fish Extender. I found Moana material at Joanns Fabrics and paired it with a fabric that reminded me of the ocean. My daughter loves Minnie Mouse so hers was based on this character. I feel the extender does not have to be one theme. Choose your characters based on your families favorites. The Fish Extender patterns I was finding on websites were narrow ( I wanted them wider for the gifts to sit in deeper) and expensive to purchase. I created my own pattern on printer paper and took it from there. I purchased wooden dowels and wooden end caps for the extender painting them in matching colors with acrylic paint. I purchased matching ribbons for them. I did not attach the lower fish extender permanently, it is held on with lower ribbons, this allows you to add more extenders or change it completely to a different theme depending on Disney’s popular themes when you cruise. There are so many different fabrics and themes for Disney. My friend has a professional embroidery machine which she put our last name on the top extender for the adults and our daughters name on hers. The Fish Extender can be used for a closet organizer after you cruise.
