Hi everyone! My family is travelling on the Magic in two weeks (thanks mom!) One sister has asked me if the washers and dryers on the ship “lock” and can only be opened with your card, or if anyone can go in at any time and open a washer/dryer that’s in use? She seems to be concerned that, if she put in a load and left for a short time, someone could get into a machine with her kids clothes in it. If anyone knows whether you have to scan your card to open them once they are in use or not, please let me know. Thanks very much!
Jaina
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If it’s in a cycle it’s locked.
Nobody will touch your clothes though. Just set a timer and come back to move them when it’s time. I’ve done laundry at all WDW resorts, and on the cruise line too, and I’ve never had anyone bother my stuff.
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Ohhhh do I have a story for you guys!!!
So I was on the 7n dream in northern Europe and the laundry situation was a bit crazy. Half the machines were broken and the whole ship was trying to wash clothes the whole time, probably because they had all been on precruise land trips, like us. So I go to four laundry rooms to finally find one open washer. Put my stuff in. The app pings you when your stuff is done. So I get my ping but DD is mid chicken tender related meltdown so it takes me, tops, 10m to get down there. I come down to open the machine and lady says “oh those are mine. Yours are over here.” And points to a pile of clothes dripping – no, running – all over the floor. Like a giant puddle growing by the second in the middle of the tiny laundry room. Clearly the spin cycle had not worked
It’s clear that since it’s her clothes in there, she did it, but she’s not fessing up, so I start saying aloud “gosh, I just got the ping 10 minutes ago, who does something like this? Wouldn’t you see that the machine hadn’t spun and not want to put your clothes in there? And someone is going to fall!” So then I picked up the laundry room phone and called guest services “I got a message 10 mins ago that my machine was done and I came down and someone had removed the clothes, but they hadn’t spun and are sopping wet, so the floor is flooded. Someone will fall. So sorry someone did this, could you please send someone with a mop?'”
I hang up the phone and she looks at me and says “it was me” and I looked at her and said “yeah,” as in, way to go genius.
She continues. “There’s a line for these machines you can’t just leave your stuff in here.”
Me: “I know. I visited 3 other laundry rooms before finding this one machine that clearly doesn’t work. I came 10 minutes after getting the alert because I was trying to feed my kid. Now my clothes will never dry and this whole room is flooded.”
And then I walked out with my dripping pile of clothes.
DH said I should’ve thrown punches. I sure did feel like it.
And after 4 cruises that is the only unpleasant interaction I’ve ever had on a Disney ship. Fwiw, laundry usually isn’t a big deal.
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Wow. We sail on RCL a lot, and it does not have a laundry that guests can use (just a laundry service). Their website says they do not “for safety concerns.” You certainly explained that possibility well! I’m sorry you had such a horrible experience.
omw I’m so sorry. Punches definitely warranted but glad you didn’t get yourself in a fight over such stupidity. What would’ve been perfect, is to set a timer for when her clothes were set to be sopping and run in & pull them out to the floor and run back out, hopefully before she got there. Then she’d have the same sorry situation.
How did you get the clothes dried (or transported home in a somewhat better than sopping wet state)? We did laundry twice on the Dream (5 nights over Spring Break) and the machines on the Dream were definitely not my favorite. I had to re-wash most loads & drying took like 3 cycles minimum. I used 2 different laundry rooms too, Deck 5 aft and Deck 6 forward (we were deck 6 mid-ship but closer to aft & kids club was right near the aft 5 laundry room so it was convenient to drop kids off, then head to start laundry).
I’ve heard tell that the Transatlantic and European cruises are a bit of a bloodbath for the laundry.
We just got off the Magic and I again did laundry twice and while the room closest to us was down a dryer, I never had a problem getting a machine (although I don’t ever have the time to think about starting the laundry until like 10-11pm & know that if I did it earlier I would miss the notification for the machines, but we’re up late anyway and it’s less competitive so it works).
And then to answer OP, just as was said above, the machines lock in cycle but anyone can remove your clothes once the cycle is finished. I try to do laundry late at off-times to prevent any of that. But the app does notify you when your washer/dryer finish & before you leave it does tell you how many minutes and you can just set a timer to come back a few minutes before to be waiting for the machine.
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