How to keep organized - your tips?

[KalamityJane]

These are all AMAZING tips! I'm coming back to reply to you all because this is incredible! Thank you all so much!

 

[MunFam]

I was wondering about the longer cruises; if that changes things! We will have 5 people, 2 rooms, 15 night EBTA. We usually pack light (10 days in FL last year was 1 big suitcase under 50 lbs, and 1 carryon sized suitcase). This time we will be gone for 27 days total (spending time in FL before and after) so I was worried that would change how much we would bring/organization.

One bit of advice is run at least one load of laundry the second day you are on board. It seems like the longer trips have more before/after stay people on them, so the laundry rooms are busier. We ran a load the second day and another load on day 10 or 11, because I do not like bringing home a ton of dirty laundry.

The nesting suitcases were a lifesaver! Another note for the longer cruises; pack some of your favorite "at home" snacks...around day 10, Oreos and a bag of Doritos were SO AMAZING! LOL. By about day 10, the novelty of room service and dining food wore off and it was nice to open the tall cupboard next to the mirror and have a whole snack shack available for a quick snack while watching a movie in the stateroom. We packed nuts, a multi pack of those individual bags of chips, oreos, a giant thing of popcorn, pringles, M&Ms and Skittles. We also brought two cases!! of water and went through all of it. We reorganized prior to the cruise and consolidated everything down so we had room for water and food. DCL does not have a weight max per bag, so pack em tight! The other thing we packed and I know this sounds dumb, but a pumper bottle of hand soap. It was sooo nice to not have to use a slimy bar of soap to wash our hands. On a short cruise, its no big deal, but on a long cruise, it was awesome. Even DH was happy to have it. We left the remaining soap behind. Oh, and I packed half a roll of those paper towels that already has the Dawn dish soap in them to wash our water bottles. Worked great!!