I am going to WDW in June and staying at Pop. It will be me, my sister, DS17, and DS12. I’m a little nervous because I’ve never stayed at a value resort and I’m worried about the smaller rooms. However, after our trip to WDW, we are going on a cruise and I know the cabin on the ship will be even smaller. With all that said, I am looking for packing suggestions to utilize space in our luggage and in the room. I know I tend to over pack, but I think I need to learn to slim it down for this trip.
What are your must have items that I shouldn’t skip on and what should I leave at home?
My big suggestion would be to get packing cubes. Each person packs their own things in their set of cubes. Then the cubes can be transferred to the drawers at the resort or the drawers/shelves on the cruise and back to the suitcases in between. It makes it so much easier to keep track of everything.
We also bring a laundry bag to store items that have been worn and won’t be needed again. It can be tossed into a suitcase easily.
Storage space can certainly be an issue on a cruise, but I think you will be pleasantly surprised by how much space there is in the rooms at Pop Century. The bathroom alone has a ton of shelf space.
We extend the cube option a bit further. Each person has a different colored cube. We also stack top and bottom for the day together as they are going in the cube.
We use pillow cases for laundry bags. We sort by color as we shed. If we do laundry during the trip, we pour the whole bag into the washer and toss in the pillow case. When everything in dry, we stuff the clothes back into the pillow cases, haul them back to our room and pour out the clean laundry on the bed to fold. Otherwise, laundry is already sorted to wash when we get home.
My best suggestion won’t help you here, unless you have a good memory. When you are unpacking from a trip, take a good look at all the stuff you did not use/wear. Unless there is a good reason (like it didn’t rain so you didn’t use the ponchos), do not bring those things on your next trip.
My other suggestion is to not pack stuff you may not use, especially if it is something that you can easily buy if need be. A good example here is first aid supplies - the parks have plenty of first aid stations, and all the basics are available at the resorts if need be. Remember - you are not going on a solo trek across the Antarctic, so you do not need to pack for every possible situation.
I go the opposite of packing cubes. What we do is bundle wrap or bundle pack, there are a bunch of videos online on how to do that. It is amazing how much you can get in just a carry-on which is all we ever take.
The main stumbling block we have is with shoes, so ours are multipurpose, with boys that’s easy. which makes up for their big feet!
We usually take “technical” fabrics- microfiber etc. they pack light and wash in the sink. We take travel soap paper from Travelon. Even my dresses are rayon or silk, they pack super small.
We don’t pack outfits- we have “capsule wardrobes” which is just a fancy way of saying all the stuff typically goes with all the other stuff.
With this system we have even spent a month in Europe. I was not going to hall five people’s full-sized luggage around the Continent. Our kids were about your kid’s ages at that time, and they did great with it.
Actually, I could travel indefinitely this way- if I should ever be so lucky!
I’m talking about shoe racks that hang on the rod in the closet.
You can get it cheaper and smaller elsewhere, like Target or Marshall’s. My kids used them when they lived in the dorms to keep small stuff, toiletries, and meds organized but they didn’t use then for shoes.
At WDW, high humidity and temperatures call for at least an outfit a day! But our shorts tend to be neutral colored and can go with all tops. Packing tops and bottoms together just makes it easier to grab each morning! You know, when we are trying to RD
It’s not the hanging shoe storage that’s the problem. It’s hanging them over the door, which can scratch. Get one with a hangar end so you can hang it on the hook in the stateroom (on the ship) or remove the hanging hardware and put a cord or dowel on a cord through the ends to hang on the hook. That’s what people are doing now.
So this is fine, as you can hang it on a hook or in the closet:
This is not fine, as it goes over the door and will scratch. For this, remove the hooks and replace with a dowel tied on and a cord to go over the stateroom hook:
You can also bring magnetic hooks to hang things, as the walls of the ship are magnetic.
These are great and you can get them at Amazon or at Lee Valley… probably other places, too.
Absolutely! Eeew, previously-worn outfits at WDW would be terrible.
The way we do it, it all goes together so not a whole lot of worry about things not matching, and because we are careful about the fabrics we can wash them easily, even in the sink, and they’ll dry readily, so the clothes are clean every day.
If you have little ones, the outfit thing can be a real lifesaver- our kids (and the OP’s) are old enough to figure it out themselves. One hopes.
which makes up for their big feet!
