Pixie Dusting Ideas for Your Disney Cruise -

Pixie Dusting is a fun Disney Cruise tradition that can add some excitement and a sense of belonging and community to your cruise. It’s not required and it’s not organized by Disney, but it adds a little something extra. Unlike the added pressure of Fish Extenders (which is still a lot of fun, but more commitment) pixie dusting is a fun, carefree way to sprinkle some fun throughout your cruise.

I didn’t bother with Pixie Dusting for my first few cruises, but finally decided to jump on board on my 4th Disney Cruise, and I’m so glad I did. It’s a fun little excitement to add to your cruise.

I’m going to give you a bunch of ideas of pixie dust gifrs that people will actully be happy to receive. I try to avoid ever cheap plastic dollar store stuff, or anything that I wouldn’t want to receive myself. I know that overconsumption and waste isn’t the first thing we want to consider when booking a cruise – but if you’re going to bother buying/making a bunch of free gifts for strangers, you may as well bring stuff that people actually want! Stuff that is fun to give, and receive, that you will proudly write your stateroom on (if you want) and have others with awesome pixie dust items reciprocate.

So here are some nice, non-crappy items that actually would make nice little surprises for your fellow cruisers. A big question I asked myself is, would I want to receive any of this myself? And the answer is yes – so let’s jump in! The BEST Pixie dust ideas.

Pixie Dusting vs Fish Extenders: What’s the Difference + Which Should You Choose?

Fish Extenders usually means getting more, and sometimes bigger or more personalized gifts. With Fish Extenders, you’re buying for specific people and you often know something about them, like their ages, and favourites, before the gift exchange.

The example gifts I’ve seen for Fish Extenders tend to be a bit bigger, like Tshirts, stuffed animals, personalized water bottles, notebooks, things like that.

Whereas Pixie dusing is anonymous, and you drop of an abundance of whatever item you’re gifting to multiple staterooms. (You can decide how many – it can be 10 staterooms, or 50.) You choose based on budget and what spacing in your luggage allows.

So, if you don’t want to feel pressured to get gifts for specific people – then go with pixie dusting. That being said, you can do both. My first few cruises I didn’t bother at all, so I decided to both of them on my 4th Disney Cruise.

Amazing Pixie Dust Ideas That Are Fun to Give AND Receive

Here are a bunch of ideas of things to Pixie Dust to other staterooms. These ideas are things that people actually want to receive, which I know you can feel good about giving. You can bring anywhere from just a few of these items, to over 50 – its up to you, your budget and the size of your suitcase.

Special or fun straws. It can be metal ones, or the plastic ones with a little Mickey charm on them. These are fun to drink out of on a cruise, especially with all the included fountain drinks
Ice cream sprinkles or candy. People can use ice cream toppers to sprinkle on their free ice cream on Deck 11. You can make little kits that have sprinkles, or even candies that go well with icecream Skittles or Smarties. Side note, make sure the candy comes in the original factory sealed container, so that its permitted on the cruise
Blank thank you card(s) – even if its just one per stateroom. One thing I always forget to put in my Disney Cruise packing list is thank you cards to hand out to dining room staff and room attendants. Getting a blank card with a pixie dust note would be a simple surprise that they could use immediately and wouldn’t clog up their luggage!
Lip balms – I don’t think there’s anyone who can’t use lip balm. You can buy blank lip balm sticks in bulk, and even design them or put your stickers on them
Mini First Aid kit – you can make your own mini first aid kit, or buy a bulk of mini first aid kits on Amazon (50 of them for $30). Band-Aids and other first aid items are these people often forget
General ‘care’ package – You could make your own kit with useful items that people may have left at home: Band-Aids, laundry detergent sheets and lip balm, or even under-eye patches. There are a LOT of late-night activities on the cruise, and some cruisers, especially the night owls will really appreciate these under eye patches!
Small artwork -our sailing has a talented artist who is painting custom pictures of Disney characters as pixie dust surprises. She’s taking requests and painting the characters and colours that people want. It seems well-received, and if you’re good at art then why not something handmade and unique?
Glow sticks – glow sticks are fun for pirate night, or another deck party, but in general they’re just fun for kids or even adults to wear for a fun night
Bookmarks – These heart-shaped page corner bookmarks are nice. You can also buy other ones that you think are really cool, maybe even a souvenir from where you’re from. Or, you could also make your own, with your own designs, ribbons or threading. And either laminate, or not. As a reader, this is something I’d love to receive
Glitter ducks. Normally, I avoid pixie dusting with things that will end up in drawers, donation bins or worse – the garbage. But I think sometimes you just need a glitter duck, like these ones. My daughters are crazy about them. We got pixie dusted one on our first cruise and it made their day
Joke cards – joke cards have those cheesy ‘dad jokes’ that are good for a chuckle. These small joke cards are designed to put in kids lunch boxes, but you could gift a small stack of them to each stateroom you gift to.
Magnets. Normally, magnets might sound like a boring or cheap idea but there are some REALLY nice Disney cruise-themed magnets that you can buy on Etsy. I bought these Mickey ice cream cone magnets to pixie dust, and we definitely kept a few for ourselves
Fidgets – both kids and adults like find fun in just playing with a fidget. It’s a good sensory activity or stress reliever. Nice to have in long lineups too. You can buy bulk of fidgets in a set like this, or just buy all of one kind
Small accessories related to a themed night on the cruise. Disney Cruises all have themed nights, especially for holidays like Christmas and Halloween. You could hand out stuff that people could use for these themed nights, like Mardi Gras beads, clip-on earrings, temporary tattoos or bandanas
(Factory sealed) chocolate, candy or snacks. Factory sealed is a requirement for any food entering the cruise, so unfortunately, you have to be careful with this when it comes to food related pixie dusting. I saw one person bring sealed, individually wrapped Disney cookies from Costco, and they were a big hit!
Bubbles. Bubbles may turn into a heavier item that you wouldn’t be able to gift to too many people, but bubbles are always fun, especially for the staterooms with kids
Keychains, but make it something well-made (made of wood), simple, or Disney-themed ones like these Mickey and Minnie themed ones
Balloons – you could give a set of 1-3 balloons to each stateroom; people can blow them up and decorate their room or door with them; I think it would be a really nice idea. To be kind to the planet, try to buy biodegradable ones
Stickers that are Disney themed, but you could also buy unique stickers, or customize your own sticker design at Jukebox.com
Small souvenirs unique to where you’re from. We’re from Canada, so a special Canadian souvenir that anyone would appreciate is tiny little jars of maple syrup. I also have lots of ideas for Californian gifts. If all else fails, I’ve seen some people be excited about a deck of cards from another city, especially if you live close to somewhere iconic or exciting

Don’t Forget…

After you make or buy your Pixie Dust gifts, there are two other things to decide.

Pixie Dust gift tags. First of all, some people choose to put a sticker or a tag on the gifts that say “You’ve been pixie dusted,” or something to that effect. You can either buy blank white stickers and write that on, buy pre-made stickers that say that (lots of people selling them on Etsy), or you could just attach a gift tag. I personally chose gift tags made with cardboard and craft paper twine, and handwrote a note
Reveal yourself or stay anonymous? Secondly, you’ll want to decide if you want to gift anonymously or if you want to reveal your stateroom/names on the tag. Some people include in the note “you’ve been pixie dusted FROM stateroom #, with the names.” Or just the stateroom number. Both are completely fine, and its up to you!

If you reveal your stateroom number, then it opens up the possibility that they may try to pixie dust you back if they can or are even participating in pixie dusting. But even if you leave your stateroom, there isn’t a guarantee. On our last cruise on the Disney Treasure, we received some really cool pixie dust gives, but were unable to reciprocate because we didn’t plan to participate.

But thats part of the joy of pixie dusting – you’re not doing it hoping to get something it return. It’s just about spreading a bit of joy and surprises on board. If you feel like doing pixie dusting will add stress leading up to or during the sailing, then I’d skip it. Like I said, I only joined in on the fun for my 4th cruise and they are magical either way.