I had, humbly speaking, a great idea for our most recent Disney Cruise with the family.
There are eleven of us in all: two sets of parents, four mobile grandchildren and one immobile but very active 1-year-old, and two grandparents (yours truly and yours’ better half). We were on the Disney Wish in October of 2023 during “Halloween on the High Seas.”
Photo courtesy of Stephen Mease on Unsplash
As an aside, I’m not a big fan of Halloween, and being on the high seas didn’t change that opinion. There just seemed to be a bit too many guests in Halloween attire throughout the cruise, not just on days with scheduled activities. I didn’t know if someone was in their costume or in their pajamas. I’m not cranky. In fact I like to think that I’m charmingly curmudgeon if I do say so myself, and I’m probably the only one in my family to say so.
If you’ve been on a Disney cruise and had even a vague sense of your surroundings while walking through the halls, you’ve seen hanging pockets at more than a few stateroom doors. These are “Fish Extenders.”
Fish Extenders are sets of guest-provided pockets that are hung from these metal hook things adjacent to each stateroom door.
Photo credit: DIS Contributor Lisa Rufle
The hook’s purpose is for cast members to leave cruise communications for the attention of the guests. The name “Fish Extender” comes from the shape of the hook. These hooks began as fish, but they may be on just the port side of the Dream and Fantasy, with seahorses on the starboard side. And the Disney Wish has Disney woodland creatures.
Fish Extender participants are organized by way of social media. A quick search on Facebook with your ship’s name and sail date may get you in a group ahead of the cruise.
The pockets are used by like-minded guests who exchange fun gifts throughout the cruise for the kids – and even adults – to discover on their return to the stateroom.
We as a family don’t do Fish Extenders – yet – but my brilliant idea was to sneak around with my equally favorite grandkids and drop little trinkets into the pouches for the unsuspecting junior guests. These gifts, kind of like stocking stuffers, included some candies and little mini self-inking stamps of Disney characters that I got on Amazon.
Little did I know that this is already a thing called “Pixie-Dusting.” So my idea may not have been original, but it was still brilliant if I do say so myself.
I didn’t know if our gifts would be lost among the legitimate Fish Extender gifts. But we knew they would eventually be found and enjoyed. The greatest thrill for me, however, was to see my grandchildren acting selfless and cooperating, watching them as they roamed the halls and seeing their excitement when they came across a stateroom with a Fish Extender. Then, it was a matter of deciding who would deposit what into which pouch.
They were sharing in the satisfaction of giving rather than taking.
Photo courtesy of Stephen Mease on Unsplash
I don’t know what it’s like for a Fish-Extender-participating child, but it’s gratifying to think that they might be further delighted by our little tokens of surprise.
Walt Disney used the term “plus it” when referring to improving on something or adding that little extra to enhance the guest experience. Cast members and Imagineers use “plussing” to enforce that approach. We can as well. So the next time you take a Disney Cruise, think about plussing a child’s cruise experience by bringing along little gifts to randomly drop in Fish Extenders. You’ll be glad you did, if I do say so myself.
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