cat 4 rooms and storage

[kajohn]

Hi, I have a family of 5 staying in a category 4 room. I hate living out of suitcases. Is there enought drawer and closet space for us to unpack all our clothes for a 7 day trip? Are there plenty of hangars, or should I bring my own? I will have hangers from my garmet bag for dress clothes, but I prefer to hang all our shirts and pants once I get there. Will the room steward bring more hangers if we need them?

Also, I will be bringing all our snorkeling gear and life jackets for the little ones. Could I store them out on the balcony if the room gets too crowded, or will the room steward bring them back in when they clean the room?

Thanks everyone for their helpful information I have been given already in my planning for my trip!

 

[SueEllen]

You should have plenty of room. (we had a cat 4 for Halloween)They do have some hangars in the closet, but I had a few of my own also. I never thought to ask the steward for more (duh) We unpacked our clothes and hung quite a few of them up. We stored our suitcases under the bed and in the closet.

have a great cruise!

Sue Ellen

 

[prymsu]

As long as you don't overpack clothes for all five of you, you should be ok.

I would not plan on storing anything out on the balcony. It might get blown overboard.

 

[trishy]

Extra hangers are necessary. We lived fine out of the storage space provided. We had our snorkel equipment in a large duffel bag out on the balcony the entire time. It's pretty heavy and never moved from its spot. We also used the balcony chairs to dry our towels and they never flew away, but this was in July both times - or maybe we just got lucky?

 

[kajohn]

Trishy, did you bring extra hangers yourself from home, or did your cabin steward bring you more? Glad to know your snorkel equipment stayed put out there, I think that is what we will do with ours also!

Thanks for the info!

 

[trishy]

Yes, I brought quite a few hangers with us (3 daughters = lots of dresses! ), but I didn't even think of asking the guy to bring us some more. There's a chest of small drawers next to the closet, more drawers (a bit bigger) on side of desk, a cabinet above the t.v. with shelves, a large cabinet with shelves by the slider, and the closet was pretty spacious in cruise ship terms. The luggage could be pushed underneath the bed. All in all, not too shabby. The cabin steward didn't move our stuff from the balcony - he was very respectful of our stuff. Have a great time. Can't wait for our next one.

 

[BriarfoxinWA]

About how much space is under the bed - from floor to bottom of the bed?? Just curious if my suitcases will fit in there.

 

[Irishmom23]

We had that exact problem! Only ONE of our suitcases would fit under the bed. I thought I would be smart and limit the number of luggage pieces, but ended up with suitcases that were too deep to fit under the bed. With five of us, the clothes that needed hanging took up much of the closet, and we could only fit two smaller suitcases in. That meant two other suitcases stood empty up against the wall across from the queen bed, which interfered with our walking space. We were on the 3 day Wonder, and then were spending a week in WDW, so I had to pack enough for 5 people for both aspects of the trip. When we take the seven day, I will be able to pack MUCH less, and I think I will use the duffle type suitcases for each of the kids, as they will be teens (or almost) by then. I will pack the "formal" clothes and the other less wrinkle resistant in the regular suitcase.

 

[Gillian]

You can also lift up the beds! Our suitcases were average size, not too deep, but they didn't just slide under the bed. We had to lift up the bed, slide the suitcase under & then put the bed back. There was plenty of room, but the beds have a little lip around the outside. We learned this trick on our Royal Caribbean cruise. Our cabin steward showed us! On that trip we had a big case, about 10-11" deep, but it fit!

On DCL we took 2 smaller suitcases, no more than 9" deep. Our neighbors had 2 that were about 15!! They were almost cubes. I wonder where they put those??!!

I usually pack clothes on hangers, with plastic drycleaning bags over them. You can fold them in half or thirds to pack and just hang them up to unpack! Couldn't be simpler, solves the hanger problem, and almost eliminates wrinkles

 

[Karel]

We took numerous smaller suitcases, and fit most of them into the closet. There was one backpack though that seemed to be in the way no matter where we put it. We had snorkeling gear too and that was in the bottom of the closet. There is one big cabinet by the sliding door with four shelves in it, and by the end of the week we were using the top as a shelf too. The problem is that when the pull down bed is down, you can't get into this cabinet. I would put the bed partially up in the morning to get to the clothes, fearing the bed would come crashing down on me any minute. My daughter, who is small, put her clothes into the desk cabinets but I'm not sure how much 'big people' clothes would fit in that. We are light packers and by the end of the week, I was struggling for space - OTH, we're not known for our tidy housecleaning either.

 

[BriarfoxinWA]

Thanks for the info! We have one really big suitcase thats about 14 - 15" wide - just barely makes the linear inches measurement for the airlines. I DO NOT want to be climbing over it for the full 7 days of the cruise!

 

[trishy]

Hi,
We have two sets of lugguage which pile into each other (small into medium, medium into large...) so we could "easily" (considering the options anyway! ) put them under the bed after lifting the bed up, sliding them under and putting the bed back. We kept backpacks on the upper closet shelf, had a shoe hanger for shoes (kept the closet floor free) and lots of stuff hanging (shirts, slacks, dresses, blouses). Basically just needed to store the kid's stuff into the drawers & shelves along with bathing suits. Any stuff we didn't need to use on the cruise, we left in the smaller size suitcase (like some beach towels, souvenirs from WDW, etc.). I hate having my walking path blocked by anything - suitcases, backpacks, shoes even - so annoying. I felt great in the stateroom and felt there was "just enough" room. DCL has nice size rooms.

 

[hydster]

with 5 of us in room 8550 and it was REALLY crowded in our opinion. OUr kids are small 9, 7 and 3 and it felt really crowded. We brought our own hangers from home (thankfully we did..much easier) and hung everything in the closet that needed to be hung. Another thing we did that was awesome (got the tip from this board) was to pack a complete outfit for our kids in ziploc bags. The bags had shirt, shorts, socks and underwear in them. Then we left 1 corner open and rolled the ziploc bag up until it was all rolled tight, then closed the opened corner and it sucked most of the air out so we were able to pack fairly light. We did 3 days at WDW and 4 days on the cruise and 3 more days at WDW after the cruise. Packing the kids clothes in the ziplocks helped alot then they just grabbed a bag and went and it also took up less space in the chest thing near the balcony and made it so we didnt have to keep opening up luggage to look for socks. Then at night when they were done wearing the clothes we put them back in the ziplock, scrunched the air out of them again and put them in one of the cupboards (above the tv) and it worked well. When the murphy bed is down however it is almost impossible to get anything out of that chest so if you put jammies in there or something you will need before morning I would suggest pulling them out before you go to dinner and putting them on top of the chest. We put our snorkel gear in the bathtub and tied our wetsuits to the chair out on the balcony with the zipper strap thing. It worked fine. Our luggage wouldnt fit under the bed even lifting it up so we ended up using the closet and standing them up in there which left NO room for shoes. I liked the room but next time we go we plan on getting 2 rooms just because the room felt claustrophobic to us.
We also couldnt have lived without the over the door shoe holder to hold all of our crap. I dont know how we would have lived without it. We also had our jogging stoller in there which didnt help the space issue but we managed. It wasnt the most convenient but we made due.

Hope this helps some!
Heidi