Disney Halloween cruise pixie dust ideas

We are very lucky to be departing shortly on a Halloween on the High Seas themed Disney cruise. This will be our fourth Disney cruise, and after dabbling with Pixie Dust on our last cruise, this time I've signed up for a variety of different gift exchanges. I just hope we'll have enough space in our suitcases!

I've written before about the ways that you can add some extra magic to a Disney cruise. To find out exactly what is going on, you need to join the specific Facebook group for your cruise. There will almost certainly be a Fish Extender exchange, where you arrange to exchange gifts with other specific cabins. These gifts have a higher value, and tend to be tailored to the recipients. There will very likely also be plenty of additional exchanges that you can sign up to, for example ornaments, postcards or candy.

Pixie Dust is separate to these exchanges. It's a small gift given without the expectation of receiving anything in return, a way of spreading the fun and excitement of a cruise, and either given completely at random or to people that you spot while on board. On our last cruise the group set up a list of people that were interested in receiving and giving pixie dust, and we also placed lots of magnets on random doors around the ship. People that are taking part in gift exchanges will usually hang a bag or hanging organiser outside their cabin so that gifts can be left easily.

You can see my Fish Extender here - Moana themed Fish Extender.

For this cruise I've made a bit more effort when it comes to pixie dust, so I thought that I'd share a few of the things that I've put together.

Hama bead Disney magnets - These magnets are part of the cabin gift for my Fish Extender exchange, but they'd also make great pixie dust. They are very simple to make and use only a few Hama beads. I used pictures of the ship we are sailing on, as well as the Halloween on the High Seas logo.

I used the same design, this time with Mickey ears in place, to make some simpler magnets. They are just printed onto glossy card, laminated, and with a small magnet attached to the back. They take up hardly any room and are very light, which is a bonus for packing. They are also easy to pop in a bag and distribute around the ship, perhaps to add to doors that take your fancy. All my pixie dust has a small label on the back to explain that it's a gift, along with our cabin number.

The laminator came out again for these Halloween on the High Seas bookmarks. Again printed on glossy card, they are just laminated with a hole punched in the top and ribbon threaded through. I added a blob of glue to the back of each ribbon to make sure that it stays firmly in place. I've included some of these in my Fish Extender gifts as well, with plenty left over to leave outside random staterooms. Like the magnets, they each have a note on the back to explain that the recipient has been pixie dusted.

Finally, I've made up some little bags of goodies. I've not decided how to distribute these yet, I may just leave it up to the children! These bags contain a variety of different things that I picked up from Halloween last year and over the last few months - small Halloween trinkets like plastic spiders, erasers and mini notebooks, along with Disney themed bits and pieces like jewellery, nail stickers and nail polish. Each also has some Mickey Mouse head punched confetti in Halloween colours. I hope that they will make someone smile!

We had a very long countdown to this cruise, and the fun of preparing for the different exchanges and putting together little gift bags has definitely helped to build the excitement! I'd love to hear about your Disney cruise gift exchange experiences!

Related post - Crafting for a Disney cruise