“Pixie dusting” for the first time Disney cruiser

What on earth is pixie dusting?

This all started when I was picking up some pirate apparel off Facebook Marketplace for our first Disney cruise. (Why was I buying pirate gear, you ask? Read our Disney cruise tips for the first time cruiser to find out more.) The mom I bought from enthusiastically gave me an entire bag of Disney goodies – from stickers to Pixar socks to keychains and even Star Wars pancake molds. These were extra “pixie dusting” gifts she received, she said. Up until then, I had never even heard of pixie dusting.

I did my research, and quickly fell down a very long and time-consuming rabbit-hole. Quite honestly, you can enjoy a perfectly good Disney cruise without knowing about pixie dusting at all. But I wanted to write a separate pixie dusting post in addition to our other Disney cruise planning posts, because it was a fun and magical part of our cruise experience (and really, extra as heck).

(For the essential Disney cruise information, be sure to check out our tips for Before the cruise, and During the cruise. :P)

What is pixie dusting???

Pixie dusting is a guest-organized phenomenon on Disney cruises where passengers can drop off small gifts for other random passengers to add to the magic of the cruise.

There is a more organized gift-exchange option, which Disney cruisers call “fish extenders”. These are small gift-exchange groups you can sign up for on your cruise’s Facebook page. You will be assigned 5-10 other staterooms, and you prepare personalized gifts for all the guests in those staterooms. Participating staterooms will have “fish extenders” hanging beside their cabin door (basically glorified closet organizers labelled with the names of the guests staying in that room), and you can drop off your gifts into these during your cruise. (They call this “fish extenders” because the hooks beside your cabin door are in the shape of fish.)

The idea of a fish extender is a little intimidating – especially for your first Disney cruise. People really go all out. Lots of cruisers make little gift baskets, and many personalize their gifts with the person’s names or favourite Disney characters. We saw a lot of tumblers and bags, and lots of little art sets and stuffies for the kids. When you are preparing 20-30 of these, it can get overwhelming… not to mention having to pack it all and travel with it.

Pixie dusting is less commitment, but still lets you participate in the fun. You can still hang up a fish extender, and you will find little gifts in your bag throughout your cruise. There’s not as much expectation, but I feel the unexpectedness of it all makes it that much more magical.

What is the point of pixie dusting?

Just like Tinkerbell, pixie dusting is the Disney passenger’s way of spreading a little bit of extra magic during your cruise.

Planning out your little pixie-dust gifts helps get you in the mood while preparing for your cruise, and gets the kids involved, too. Ours LOVED getting to walk around the ship when they had downtime, and dropping off gifts for other cruisers. And finding “pixie-dust” in their own fish extender was an absolute highlight every time they returned to their stateroom.

Pixie dusting pitfalls

When I first read about pixie dusting, I was immediately omg, I would never do this! This is so much work! I was going on a cruise! I just wanted to pack my swimsuit and my book and think about relaxing.

And truthfully, it was added work. I sleuthed Pinterest and the web for ideas. I had to make multiple trips to different stores. Lil S and I spent a night writing out our Pixie dust gift tags.

And then I had to worry about packing it all, in addition to the packing I already had to do for the cruise, and our 2 week trip through Upstate New York and NYC. Luckily, we were driving. If we had to fly, I would have serious reservations about taking things I did not need to take.

You also have to be mindful of things *other* cruisers might not want to take back with them. We hear all the time that people leave gifts behind in their stateroom, because they don’t want to or cannot haul it home with them.

Do I need to register or sign up for pixie dusting?

You don’t technically need to sign up. You can simply arrive bearing gifts, and a fish extender.

If you want to sign up, you can do so on your cruise’s Facebook page. These pages are typically run by veteran cruisers, and there will be someone organizing their cruise’s fish extender and pixie-dust exchanges. You just have to provide your stateroom number, and if you would like, the names and/or ages of your cruisers. This makes it a little easier to give any gender or age appropriate gifts. You can also list things like favourite characters/movies, or any allergies – but in our experience, these will largely be ignored for pixie dusting.

Keep in mind that if you do not purchase a wifi package on board, you will not have access to the Facebook page. You will have to download the lists beforehand, or take screenshots to save to your phone.

When do I pixie-dust during my cruise?

Any time! That is the beauty of pixie dusting – you might find that bit of extra magic at any time during your sailing.

We found most people give gifts during the first few days, and definitely more on sea days. If you bring anything “themed” (eg. pirate eye patches), you will obviously want to give these before your “themed night” (eg. pirate’s night).

You need to drop off all your gifts before the evening of your last night. People who want to put out their luggage to be carried down for disembarkation have to do so by 10pm.

The components of pixie dusting: what you need

The fish extender

If you want to participate in pixie dusting, you need something to hang on your cabin hook.

Many people order personalized fish extenders from Etsy, or you can make your own. You *can* have a personalized compartment for everyone in your stateroom, but for pixie dusting, you don’t have to.

We bought a closet organizer from Amazon, and spruced it up with Mickey silhouette stickers. Some people just used reusable cloth bags. We cruised during the Halloween week, and some hung up trick-or-treating bags.

The gift-tags

Most passengers include a printed label with a message like:

“You have been pixie dusted! From room xxx”

Optional additions include:

• the recipient’s stateroom number (if you’re giving from the list)
• a short message (“Have a magical cruise”)
• the ship’s name/destination
• where you’re from (especially if the gift is a hometown specialty)

There are a ton of free templates you can download online, or you can make your own. You can also buy templates or even the tags themselves from Etsy.

We wrote ours out by hand on Mickey chalkboard stickers, using a chalkboard pen. Lil S loved adding “the sparkles” to our tags.

You *don’t need* a gift tag! We received plenty of pixie-dust without labels.

Small gift bags

If you are giving out things like candy, pencils, stickers, tattoos, consider tucking everything into a small bag. They are easier to package, pack, and gift, and easy to spruce up with a ribbon and gift-tag.

The gifts

You can bring a few or as many as you like. (If you just wanted to bring a fish extender and receive gifts, that is fine too!) We brought along 40 or so.

You can browse your local dollar store, or stores like Walmart or Target, or pick up things from Amazon. We found most of ours at our party store. Party favours make great pixie-dust gifts.

Which brings us to…

Pixie dusting ideas

The ideal pixie-dust gift is small, non-fragile, useful, and Disney themed.

Passengers are going to be traveling, sometimes flying. You don’t want to be giving mugs or something that is going to be difficult to pack. We are proponents of decreasing plastic in general, and we recommend avoiding small plastic trinkets that don’t do a whole lot and break almost immediately. And for the love of all that is holy do not include anything a small child might use to wreck havoc in their stateroom (markers, paint sets, glitter, etc.)

It’s easier to pixie-dust if your gift is 1. gender neutral and 2. appropriate for all ages. We brought a mix (because some things were too much fun to pass up!) and had to consult our stateroom list a number of times to make sure we were leaving relevant items behind.

Pirate night accessories

On every Disney cruise there is always a pirate’s night, so your gift will be put to good use. Consider things like:

• Felt or plastic pirate eye patches
• Beads and necklace “treasure”
• Ring pops
• Chocolate coins
• Pirate tattoos
• Anything Pirates of the Caribbean related

Magnets

This is another timely one. We loved getting more Disney magnets to stick on our door. Because it was our anniversary, our favourite was a heart shaped one of Mickey and Minnie smooching.

Rubber ducks

The kids got to know a good portion of the ship by hunting for ducks. They *loved* finding all the different ducks. Therefore, it was an extra treat when they received them directly in their fish extender. If your cabin isn’t into ducks, you can always hide them on the boat for others to find.

Glow sticks

Easy to pack and always a hit! Great on its own or to stick into a pirate night bag.

Disney accessories

• Disney themed socks
• Sweat bands (we found a pack of avenger ones)
• Scrunchies (we found some with Minnie ears, and some Disney princess themed ones too) – we thought these worked better than headbands, as they were much easier to pack.

Disney themed lip chap or lip gloss

There were a number of cruisers on our ship giving these away. We had little Elsa lip glosses, but we like the idea of lip chap even more. Staterooms can be dry, so lip chap would definitely come in handy.

Candy/snacks – local specialities

We got a ton of candy in our pixie-dust gifts. Perhaps because we were the Halloween cruise and were getting candy on top of more candy, we left most of our candy behind. But I think even without the treats the kids got from “trick-or-treat” night, a Disney cruise already involves so much food you definitely won’t miss the candy.

But because cruisers come from all over the world, local specialities would definitely be a hit. (For example, as Canadians, we frequently bring maple candies when traveling.) We added a few “loonie” chocolate coins to our pixie-dust bags.

Temporary tattoos and stickers

You can get these in almost every Disney character! It’s always fun to add a few to your pixie-dust bags, or give them out on their own. Big S and Lil S loved swapping stickers with each other and adding to their collection.

We also gave out things like make-your-own bracelets (where you could swap different Disney stickers), small Mickey bubbles wands, and light-up Disney bracelets. These were a little more difficult as they were bulkier to pack, and we had to be more specific as to which stateroom we left them for. We received a lot of candy, and things like twirly straws, pencils and little notepads. The kids were ecstatic about quite literally everything. It was really special to see how excited they were, and that made pixie dusting completely worth it.