How do you coordinate showers with only 1 bathroom?

BraveLittleToaster2

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Feb 21, 2010
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We have a family of 5. My husband and I will need to shower everyday and our 2 older children will need to shower every other day. So some days that's 4 showers.

Logistically, how do you handle showers on vacation? We go to rope drop at parks but our kids aren't early risers so we usually aren't up with enough time for breakfast and 4 morning showers before hitting the park for 9am. Our kids hit the hay around 830pm on vacation so I'd hate to bring them back early just to do it. Maybe sometime in the afternoon for a break ?

Anyway, just tell me how your family works through only having 1 bathroom. We are staying in a 1 bedroom villa
 
My two siblings and I always preferred to shower at night, and my parents in the morning. Worked out just fine for us getting to Rope Drop :) Hope you enjoy your vacation!
 
Well, Mommy and Daddy can shower together. You didn't mention the kids ages so I'm assuming they are too old to put in the tub together. My son always preferred to take a bath the night before since he hated getting up in the mornings. That worked until he was about 9 or 10, after that he would get up in the morning. If ya'll get up before the kids, I'd have one kid take a shower the night before and then ya'll are probably done before kid #2 wakes up.
 
On a "normal vacation", kids shower at night, and adults in the morning. I usually shower while DH gets coffee/breakfast, and the kiddo would catch extra ZZZZ. If your kids go to bed at 8:30, I'm guessing they are on the younger side. A shower only needs to be 5-10 min each.

At WDW in the warm months, everyone showers every night!! The humidity and warm temps require a shower in my opinion.
If I wear sandals, my feet are dirty.
I probably sat in something "unidentified" that another guest left behind. Could be gum, spilled soda, baby drool, etc.
Boys and men (and some women for that matter) sweat, like a lot of icky, drippy, sweat!!!
Kids (and adults) most likely spilled an ice cream down their hands and shirts.
Standing in lines in very close proximity to other smelly people, myself included at times----yuck!
WDW does a pretty good job of keeping up on the cleaning, but lets face it.....you're touching, sitting on, handling "stuff" that thousands of others have too that very same day. And not all of them adhere to the same cleanliness principles as I might, kwim??

Plus, I like to flop exhausted into a cool, clean bed---feeling clean myself. (And some mornings I will rewash my hair if it goes all crazy during the night!)
 

We're only 4 people, but two are teenage boys so 4 showers every day in one bathroom! Two boys take showers at night before bed. Husband is an early riser so he's in and out before the rest of us get up. I get up and in the shower while the others start getting ready in the bedroom and bathroom vanity area. All out and on the bus in time for rope drop! Not easy, but it can be done! And breakfast those mornings is something in the room we can grab and eat quick while we're getting ready.
 
We always have multiple bathrooms, but our schedule for our family of 5 would stay the same as any other day. Our kids shower at night, our daughter is bathed at night, my husband and I shower in the mornings.
 
My kids showered before bed or just after the pool, I showered before bed and DH showered in the morning after his coffee and p***. I normally shower in the mornings but on vacation it was easier to do it at night so that I could get kids dressed and ready as well as myself while DH showered. Not to mention, its nice to wash off the sweat and chlorine and sunscreen before bed.
 
many times there's 4 adults in the room and we all shower every moning.
we just start out early and none of us take a long shower.
if someone wants a long shower they do it at night.
we eat something like pop tarts and juice in the room and we easily make it to rope drop.

i'd say that if your kids go to bed at 8:30pm each night that the could get up early enough to take a shower in the morning.
or if its just too difficult to wake them up then take the small amount of time i takes to do it before bed and just have them go to bed a little later.
 
We travel with 3 of us, and two of us shower twice daily when we are at WDW. Generally DH showers in the morning and before bed, I shower in the morning and during our mid-day break and DS13 showers during our mid-day break. None of us take long showers, and we don't mind if someone else is in the sink area while we are in the actual shower.
 
There were 7 of us last trip 3 adults and 4 kids 9 and under. We stayed in an RV at The Fort.
I had them take a shower every night to get off all the yucky sweat and dirt from the day. Didn't take long to cycle through the kids. We'd put them to bed then my mom would shower in the trailer and once she was out my husband and I would walk to the comfort station and shower there while she stayed with the kids. Worked out great since mornings are pretty hectic for us :)
 
I'm up first. The alarm goes off at 6:15, and I'm up and in the shower.

When I finish, my husband gets up while I go in search of coffee and tea.

By the time I get back, my son is in the shower, and I get the girls up for breakfast so we can make rope drop. They both shower at night. We're out the door by 8 am, at the parks by 8:30ish for a 9 am rope drop.
 
If we wear shorts to the parks, my kids & I would never go to bed at Disney without taking a shower. I agree with the above poster, there is so much sweat, food, dirt, etc that we sit in & touch all day. I get up in the morning & take another shower as that's just how I like to wake up in the morning. Once I get out of the shower, I wake the kids & DH up to start getting ready. Almost all the hotels have the vanity outside of the bathroom so multiple people can get ready at once. We also don't have a ton of privacy in our family so that helps as well. Occasionally if the kids are exhausted, a quick dip in the pool will substitute for a shower before bed.
 
Thanks! Looks like kids at night adults in morning works well for a lot of you. I will try and have the older two do their showers before bed quietly and then take mine early am. I just hope the noise from the shower doesn't wake anyone.
 
We have a family of 5. My husband and I will need to shower everyday and our 2 older children will need to shower every other day. So some days that's 4 showers.

Logistically, how do you handle showers on vacation? We go to rope drop at parks but our kids aren't early risers so we usually aren't up with enough time for breakfast and 4 morning showers before hitting the park for 9am. Our kids hit the hay around 830pm on vacation so I'd hate to bring them back early just to do it. Maybe sometime in the afternoon for a break ?

Anyway, just tell me how your family works through only having 1 bathroom. We are staying in a 1 bedroom villa

I'm an early bird so I'm always in the shower early morning and it's usually just a quick body shower (no hair shampooing) I will shower again and shampoo usually after the parks and pool time later in the afternoon before dinner. my two little ones usually take it after their final nighttime swim. My husband and older daughter I don't recall. Lol. It's either later morning or afternoon so our bathing schedule is pretty spread out and works.
 
I don't think you need to worry about waking others while you are in the shower, unless they are really light sleepers it should be o.k. And, not for nothing, I'm the only girl with 5 older brothers and every house we lived in until we were teenagers only had one bathroom. At any time, 3 of us would be in the same school at any given time which meant we had to be there at that time (maybe 1 in grade school, a few in junior high a few in high school, different start times). It's doable.
 
Family of 5 here and we all shower at night. Don't like to go to bed dirty and sweaty. Obviously at night with younger kids, youngest goes first for earliest bed time possible.
 
I'm a light sleeper and I am normally so exhausted after a day at WDW I can easily sleep through someone else showering. If possible you can arrange the beds so the kids going to bed first are further away and the adults are next to the shower area. As other said just keep the showers short and brief and you should be fine.
 
Kids shower at night. It doesn't have to be long and sometimes we help to speed things along. DH and I shower in the morning and I go first as I have more to do with my hair and makeup and family sunscreen time versus his sunscreen and go. There might be occasions where we shower mid-day if it is a late evening but that will likely be more of the exception than the rule.
 




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