Hey Veteran DVC'ers.....do you find you pack less than your first trips???

[edk35]

I am finding that we are packing less and less now for our trips to WDW. I think part of it is.....we stay in 2 br. villas so we have the washer and dryers and we don't need to bring as many clothes. I think for those that have the Owner's Lockers they probably bring even less stuff on their trips. I have not tried the locker yet....almost did but then changed my mind. However....I just feel like we are packing less for our trips. IT MAKES ME HAPPY. I used to get all stressed before the trips with lists and "staging" of the stuff we take days before or even a week before. Put it this way...we fly out on Tuesday morning for 9 nights....I have not even packed.

Of course I find summer trips so much easier/lighter to pack for anyway.

 

[toniosmom]

We will be taking our second DVC trip next March and I have already decided to pack less. I had waaaaay too many clothes and discovered that it was not an inconvenience to wash a load of clothes every other day. Lesson learned!!!

 

[disneynutz]

We pack less and we got an Owners Locker so we really pack less.

http://www.disboards.com/announcement.php?f=89&a=222

 

[DVC~OKW~96]

No, actually now that we live so close we take more! LOL!

 

[bookwormde]

Well we pack a lot less clothes, but do not seem to be able to lessen the “junk” (electronics, toys etc) that we take.

bookwormde

 

[Tink6666]

We are going to be taking our second trip as DVC owners and will only check one bag for our family of 4(with 2 teenage girls who change clothes a lot and wear multiple layers). I found that I did laundry at least two times when were there in Dec. so, we are packing less!

 

[Anal Annie]

I am finding that we are packing less and less now for our trips to WDW. I think part of it is.....we stay in 2 br. villas so we have the washer and dryers and we don't need to bring as many clothes. I think for those that have the Owner's Lockers they probably bring even less stuff on their trips. I have not tried the locker yet....almost did but then changed my mind. However....I just feel like we are packing less for our trips. IT MAKES ME HAPPY. I used to get all stressed before the trips with lists and "staging" of the stuff we take days before or even a week before. Put it this way...we fly out on Tuesday morning for 9 nights....I have not even packed.

Of course I find summer trips so much easier/lighter to pack for anyway.

YES! YES! Owners Locker all the way baby!! I should send you my OL list so you can see all the crap that I don't have to even THINK about when I pack next month!! ALL I have to worry about is clothes & RX's. And I know for August that I will only be packing our most lightweight stuff...Tanks & sleeveless tops are good day or night in the summer whereas in the other seasons I have to pack a little variety for changing day to night temps. But summer trips don't require the heavy stuff. Love that!

We do studios and I DO NOT do laundry but I have still become so much more efficient at the whole packing process! And don't forget about my wonderful packing cube thingys that I got! I am really anxious to test it all out in August since it's a longer trip. I used to have like 2 carry-ons and AT LEAST one large checked bag pp. I think we can now go for 10 days in 1 carry-on pp and just one really large checked bag that we all share. Actually, I am thinking of trying to go down with one of the carry-ons empty so that we have that extra wiggle room for the return trip. Just shove 50 Lbs worth of stuff in that one checked bag!! Gosh I can't wait to see my stuff again!! 4 weeks from today!!

 

[jamstew]

With Owner's Locker and a good packing system (I use Eagle Creek), I could easily go "carry-on only" for a week if I could lift my bag into the overhead. I'm going for 3 nights in late August (my shortest ever trip), and I'm going to see if I can do it with just the carry-on.

 

[Starr W.]

I never pack until the day before we leave. I spent years travelling on business so I know how to streamline every one's wardrobe. If a top or pants can't be worn with at least 2 items it doesn't go. And we only do the 20" carry-on suitcases.

Plus I have certain items that don't leave our bags, they are for travel only. Helps that my dentist loads me up on travel size Crest tubes when we visit!

Since we don't do WDW in the summer, I watch the weather forecast so I know what to pack. Convertable pants are great!

It was much easier packing for our recent trip to Myrtle Beach, than November at WDW. Those Purex laundry sheets work well.

The electronics are a bit of a pain, but DH handles that stuff. Blackberry chargers, laptop, Nintendo DS/PSP units/chargers/games.

 

[SuzanneSLO]

We pack about the same amount of clothes (but then we were used to staying in a condo on our longer vacations prior to DVC).

But we find we pack more of the stuff that makes the stay comfortable for us. We stay in a BWV studio and now bring along a shower caddy, pop-up hamper, folding coffee table, microwavable plates, flatware, knife, cutting board and a compact dish drainer. We don't pay checked baggage fees and only visit once per year, so an Owner's Locker would not make financial sense for us.

On our last 2 trips, for the 2 of us, we carried on 2 bags (plus my purse and my DH's waist pack) and checked 3, one more checked bag than on prior trips! -- Suzanne

 

[jamstew]

If a top or pants can't be worn with at least 2 items it doesn't go.

That's one of my rules as well. I take a pair of bottoms for every 2 days & 2 tops for each bottom--everything has to be mix-and-match.

 

[Starr W.]

That's one of my rules as well. I take a pair of bottoms for every 2 days & 2 tops for each bottom--everything has to be mix-and-match.

And since we book 2br units, I have a washer and I'm not afraid to use it,
so I only pack enough for 3-4 days for a week long trip.

 

[Dean]

We drive so we tend to take a lot. In general, we pack different for timeshares. We take less clothing if we have a W/D but more food and cooking related items, clothes washing, etc. Overall we take less for timeshares than a comparable trip for a hotel.

 

[edk35]

I never pack until the day before we leave. I spent years travelling on business so I know how to streamline every one's wardrobe. If a top or pants can't be worn with at least 2 items it doesn't go. And we only do the 20" carry-on suitcases.

Plus I have certain items that don't leave our bags, they are for travel only. Helps that my dentist loads me up on travel size Crest tubes when we visit!

Since we don't do WDW in the summer, I watch the weather forecast so I know what to pack. Convertable pants are great!

It was much easier packing for our recent trip to Myrtle Beach, than November at WDW. Those Purex laundry sheets work well.

The electronics are a bit of a pain, but DH handles that stuff. Blackberry chargers, laptop, Nintendo DS/PSP units/chargers/games.

Yes the chargers. My dh does that job too for all the cell phones, game systems and now the laptop. SO....I told him to do that TODAY instead of running around before we leave on Tuesday searching for them.

 

[wdrl]

Since my retirement two years ago we've done over a dozen extended road trips, all by car. Like Starr W., we have things that are always left in our travel bags: Phone chargers, camera chargers & batteries, cables to download photos to our Macs, etc. We just added a new item to our travel bag: a power strip. We've been in way too many motel rooms where we have to move furniture to find an outlet to plug the phone or battery charger. By leaving these things in our travel bags, we don't have to scurry around trying to find them at the last minute.

Another change in our travel packing is that now my wife brings along ALL of her medicines, vitamins, OTC pills, etc. It use to be that she brought just enough for the length of a trip plus an extra day or two. But a week-long trip to New Mexico last year turned into three weeks, which necessitated some extra effort to get refills at the local Walgreens.

With so many road trips under our belts, we know exactly how to pack our car, what goes in the back seat, what goes in the trunk, etc. My wife says that if we ever decide to trade in our Volvo for a new car, we need to take all our suitcases and related travel items to the car dealership and see if everything fits in the new car BEFORE we buy it.

 

[Anal Annie]

That's one of my rules as well. I take a pair of bottoms for every 2 days & 2 tops for each bottom--everything has to be mix-and-match.

I try to follow that rule as well... But what I find on our summer trips is that when it's 90+ degrees out with near 100% humidity even the bottoms sometimes need changing every day too!!!! And we definitely need an xtra round of undies for each of us for those hot & humid days!! I'm sure this tidbit is TMI but summer vaca time is when I usually buy our annual maintenance set of new underwear! We each get a new pack or two and I just throw the new packs in the luggage piles! Oh Yay! New undies for Annie in less than a month!

 

[lah3hh]

I definitely pack less and less each time we go. Even if we stay in a studio (since there is only 3 of us) I take advantage of the free 'general' washers and dryers.

Now that I have OL, I even take a lot less additional stuff including toiletries. Packing for 9 days at WDW takes me a lot less time than packing just a couple nights somewhere else.

After a while we all get this down to a fine art and less stress over the process of getting there.

Love my DVC and love my OL as well.

 

[Maryrn11168]

We definately pack less!! With all the weight restrictions the airlines are enforcing I even happier that we have a washer/dryer in the room!!! Ipack the minimum for all of us and throw in a load of laundry before we leave the villa for the day or even at night when we get back to the room!!! Love it!!!

 

[Dodie]

It's just DH and me, we have an Owner's Locker, and we usually stay in a 1 BR (i.e., washer and dryer). We only take a carryon bag for our trip these days. It's AWESOME!!!!

 

[beccasmom]

We definitely take less. For two reasons - we fly, so we can't really take more stuff without paying dearly for doing so (and we refuse to do that ) and we started to order foodstuffs from Garden Grocer and we don't bring as much of that except for some odds and ends that don't take up much space or weigh much.

Also, with the washer/dryer in the units, it makes life so much easier in terms of not packing entire wardrobes . It forces us to figure out what we will be wearing with what and makes for easier packing. If we drove, I'm sure we'd take more stuff (which we wouldn't need anyway), but we've become expert packers at this point and are doing fine!