Excessive luggage after WDW stay getting on a cruise

[AuntieKels]

We'll be spending a week at WDW before taking the bus to get on the Disney Dream. How do you manage all the extra stuff you have with you from your WDW stay when you get on the ship? In addition to our 2 weeks worth of clothing, personal items, and souvenirs for the 4 of us we'll also have a double stroller. Is there somewhere to store extra stuff?

Advice, tips, and tricks welcome!

Thank you

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We'll be spending a week at WDW before taking the bus to get on the Disney Dream. How do you manage all the extra stuff you have with you from your WDW stay when you get on the ship? In addition to our 2 weeks worth of clothing, personal items, and souvenirs for the 4 of us we'll also have a double stroller. Is there somewhere to store extra stuff?

Advice, tips, and tricks welcome!

Thank you

Anything you need stored, must be stored in your room. Why pack 2 weeks worth of clothes? Just do a load of laundry (both the resorts and ships have self serve laundries).

 

[lilsonicfan]

Luggage stores well under the bed, so you should be able to put some of it under there. We were on a 17-ish day vacation, one week WDW, one week cruise, a few days at Universal - we brought 2 big suitcases and 3 carryons, one carseat and one stroller. The stroller was an umbrella style. The carseat sat in one of the closets, the big suitcases under the bed (I didn't unpack all of our clothes at each place) and we did laundry a few times, I believe 3-4 in total.

 

[Corwin]

We've done several two-week trips consisting of a stay at WDW, DCL cruise, followed by another stay at WDW. We'll be doing another one next year.

We bring one suitcase per person, one rolling hang-up bag for dress clothes, a bag for my wife's shoes , and a huge scuba bag (masks, fins, snorkels, and dive accessories for me and my son). All toiletries are travel-sized.

We don't typically unpack in a normal hotel room. In a cruise cabin, you have no choice. Almost everything gets unpacked and put away. Suitcases go under the bed (some inside others). Scuba gear stays in the bag until needed.

I've found that you don't actually need two weeks of clothes for a two-week WDW/DCL vacation. On the ship, we spend a lot of days in swimwear, and you only dress up for a few hours for dinner.

For our next trip, we'll be staying in a 2BR DVC room on both ends of the vacation, so we'll have a washer/dryer in the room. I plan to cut down on the clothes I bring even further. I hate doing laundry on the ship, though. Why waste valuable ship time in a laundry room?

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Why waste valuable ship time in a laundry room?

Well, you don't have to stay in the laundry room. As long as you return before your clothes are ready to be moved/come out, you can head out on the ship to "do things". We tend to do laundry early in the morning (we're early risers), but sometimes we've done it during lunch. Put a load in the washer, go get lunch, one of you runs back to laundry room to move clothes to dryer, and then both come back at the end of the cycle to remove from dryer and return clothes to room.

 

[Dug720]

Anything you need stored, must be stored in your room. Why pack 2 weeks worth of clothes? Just do a load of laundry (both the resorts and ships have self serve laundries).

And just to clarify, this includes the stroller. That may not be left in the hall as it would block the entire hallway.

 

[ironz]

Well, you don't have to stay in the laundry room. As long as you return before your clothes are ready to be moved/come out, you can head out on the ship to "do things". We tend to do laundry early in the morning (we're early risers), but sometimes we've done it during lunch. Put a load in the washer, go get lunch, one of you runs back to laundry room to move clothes to dryer, and then both come back at the end of the cycle to remove from dryer and return clothes to room.

Right! And, on the ship, since you pay for the washer and dryer with your keycard; you get a notification on the DCL app and on the Wave phone when the washer and dryer are done. I did a small load of laundry on our recent cruise and it was super easy.
Note: there is laundry detergent for sale in the laundry room (also via your keycard), but I bought laundry detergent sheets off of Amazon based on a tip I read here on the DIS and carried those in a ziploc bag in my suitcase. Takes almost zero space and TSA compliant.

 

[Corwin]

Right! And, on the ship, since you pay for the washer and dryer with your keycard; you get a notification on the DCL app and on the Wave phone when the washer and dryer are done. I did a small load of laundry on our recent cruise and it was super easy.

That's good to know. My wife has always been nervous about leaving laundry in a machine unattended because she's afraid of the cycle ending without her being there, and either inconveniencing someone else or finding that someone has removed your laundry for you.

We only did laundry once (on our first cruise), and she insisted on babysitting it the whole time. On the other hand, this was before they had smartphone apps or Wave phones.

 

[Starwind]

That's good to know. My wife has always been nervous about leaving laundry in a machine unattended because she's afraid of the cycle ending without her being there, and either inconveniencing someone else or finding that someone has removed your laundry for you.

We only did laundry once (on our first cruise), and she insisted on babysitting it the whole time. On the other hand, this was before they had smartphone apps or Wave phones.

The machine will tell you how long the cycle will be. I set the timer on my phone for several minutes less (how much depending what I will be doing) so I have enough time to walk back to the laundry room to arrive just before the cycle finished. Works well and havedone laundry on every cruise and every trip to WDW.

SW

 

[BruinEd03]

We'll be spending a week at WDW before taking the bus to get on the Disney Dream. How do you manage all the extra stuff you have with you from your WDW stay when you get on the ship? In addition to our 2 weeks worth of clothing, personal items, and souvenirs for the 4 of us we'll also have a double stroller. Is there somewhere to store extra stuff?

Advice, tips, and tricks welcome!

Thank you

As everyone else alluded too, do laundry at the resort and on the cruise. Also, pack an extra empty duffel bag that you can check in. In addition, you can also expand your roller bags after the trip and check them in. We also pack some snacks that can and will be consumed along the trip (which opens up more space).

 

[bumbershoot]

Well, you don't have to stay in the laundry room. As long as you return before your clothes are ready to be moved/come out, you can head out on the ship to "do things".

I would and could never do this.

I do laundry, but I babysit it.

As a 20something I had the bulk of my clothes stolen from an apartment laundry room, and it was devastating. I can’t have that happen again.

 

[DietCokeMommy]

It will be hard to store a double stroller, I would really recommend renting one while you’re at Disney for the week and trying to make so without it on the cruise. Or just being an umbrella stroller on the cruise for your younger one.

 

[MomOTwins]

We did the laundry at the hotel the night before leaving for the cruise. I did it after the kids were in bed and had a drink at the bar and read my book and went through disney photos while I waited. Really not a big deal. There is no possibility of other people taking out your stuff because the machine locks until the cycle is over, and you know what time it is going to end.

We use the delta children LX side-by-side double umbrella stroller on all of our disney world trips. It is inexpensive and folds up VERY small (almost completely flat and maybe 8-10 inches wide, and was no trouble to slide it under our bed and still have plenty of room for our four suitcases under the bed on the cruise. Here's a link:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Delta-Ch...t6kpVexQ8Y6dSVAFb13q0wj6hS3NUAFhoCsEUQAvD_BwE

 

[AuntieKels]

It will be hard to store a double stroller, I would really recommend renting one while you’re at Disney for the week and trying to make so without it on the cruise. Or just being an umbrella stroller on the cruise for your younger one.

I’ve totally thought about renting or downsizing our stroller situation but we’re also visiting great grandma and doing none Disney activities while in Florida. Maybe I’ll change my mind by next spring.

 

[LizGirl]

I like to do all of our laundry at the resort before boarding. There is not as much competition for machines. Last year, I did a load while we were packing up the hotel room and eating breakfast. We shoved the clean clothes in a suitcase and went to the port. You can even relax out by the pool to make sure no one runs off with your stuff.

Renting a double stroller for the parks from one of the off site companies will likely be worth the effort. They are not terribly expensive and are good quality. Maybe bring an umbrella stroller for your youngest to use on the ship?

 

[AuntieKels]

It sounds like laundry is in my future! We did laundry a couple times during our Disneyland stay and felt it was well worth the effort but that is our home park and I don’t worry about missing anything. WDW and the cruise may not happen again for a while and the idea of laundry is less appealing but probably worth it.

 

[mousefan73]

We stayed at BEach Club and they held our suitcases while we were on the dream. They would have transferred them to ASMu where we stayed post cruise. We just swung by ourselves in the rental and got them on the way to ASMu ourselves to be done with it.

There is also a luggage storage place near WDW lake buena vista something. Google

 

[T & R]

You can stop by a UPS store on the way to the boat and ship one of your luggage bags home. They have a luggage shipping service and even special suitcase shipping boxes. I think when we did it, it was around $40. If you factor your airline's bag fees then it only costs you an extra few bucks and it's one less suitcase you got to lug around. We did this before we got our airline's credit card. Now with AA credit card we don't have bag fees so we bring extra luggage to fill up with junk we buy.

 

[hanscarlet]

We did laundry on day 1, almost first thing when we got on the ship as the laundry machines are small... but the concept of doing laundry greatly freed us up packing wise and we were able to just pack a week's worth of clothes.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

I like to do all of our laundry at the resort before boarding. There is not as much competition for machines. Last year, I did a load while we were packing up the hotel room and eating breakfast. We shoved the clean clothes in a suitcase and went to the port. You can even relax out by the pool to make sure no one runs off with your stuff.

Renting a double stroller for the parks from one of the off site companies will likely be worth the effort. They are not terribly expensive and are good quality. Maybe bring an umbrella stroller for your youngest to use on the ship?

Yes, this! There are not nearly as many people using the WDW resort machines as there are people using the ship machines. Laundry on the ship can get cutthroat. On a longer European cruise on the Magic, I saw a fight break out and saw one woman return to the laundry room to find someone had mistakenly taken her laundry.

For a two week trip, I typically map out what we are going to wear everyday, pack for 7 nights and do laundry once. I find I don't end up packing extraneous stuff that way. It makes packing up at the end super easy as well.