Laundry on Vacation

[ZiPaD3doDAH]

Hello!

I would like to know what YOU do with your dirty laundry on vacation.

Do you set aside a day to go the a nearby/hotel laundry before you go back home?

or do you carry the dirty laundry with you?

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

If you don't need the clothes again on your vacation, why bother washing them before you go home? Why waste the time and money?

 

[Riverhill]

I wash laundry almost everyday on vacation. I use the time to relax in the pool either mid day or at night. It only takes 1 hour. I hate the idea of packing dirty laundry in my luggage. This also cuts down the the amount of clothes we have to take in the first place.

 

[bigbabyblues]

We usually do laundry on vacation. When we go to the beach, we rent a house and use the washer & dryer there. One of us throws in a load of laundry every day, but we don't spend a whole day doing that. Throw it in before we leave in the morning, switch it when we come back to the house, etc.

If we're at WDW, we do laundry usually once during the trip (normally 8-9 days) while we're at the pool. If we need it a second time, one of us (usually DH) takes it down late on an evening when we get back from the park. However, we drive to both of these places, and it's not a problem to bring laundry soap and things.

 

[ZiPaD3doDAH]

Riverhill, I agree with you, and thats the way my parents taught me.

However, your whole suitcase ends up smelling bad when you get home. Which i find gross.

Just trying to figure out what others do in this situation.

 

[hanutedmansionmomma]

I always do laundry at least once. It's not that expensive, and then you don't have a pile of smelly clothes (hello summer trip!!) in the room or suitcase.

I get up waaay earlier than the kids, so I do it in the morning.

 

[mjantz]

I do laundry on our trips. We can pack a lot less & theres more room for purchases. I do have a collapsible duffel bag that we can throw dirty clothes in if needed. It can be checked & we can carry all of our purchases on the plane in our carry-ons.

 

[Kellydelly]

Riverhill, I agree with you, and thats the way my parents taught me.

However, your whole suitcase ends up smelling bad when you get home. Which i find gross.

Just trying to figure out what others do in this situation.

Unless we are renting a villa in Orlando when doing Disney, we usually take our dirty clothes home with us. I just put them in a plastic garbage bag to seperate them from the clothing that is still clean. I have never come home with smelly luggage, but then our clothes don't stink after we wear them .

 

[roliepolieoliefan]

I bring a bag and all our dirty laundry goes in there. Then in the suitcase and home. I do all the laundry when we get home. We have more than enough clothes to last us a week or two. I rinse the bathing suites out in the sink usually with a mild detergent I bring from home. Even the one time we were in a villa with a washer and dryer , I didn't do laundry.

I have 2 golden rules for vacation: no laundry and no cooking.

 

[Gigi22]

I do laundry, and still wind up bringing some dirty clothing back in our luggage! I do bring a couple of plastic laundry bags to stow dirty clothing in, and some of those nicely scented dryer sheets, so the luggage doesn't suffer too much. Before I do laundry at WDW, I carefully check the interior of both the washer and dryer--the last time I was there, someone at the Poly dried a heck of a lot of crayons in several dryers.

 

[rascooby]

My husband (who never does laundry at home) does laundry on vacation. We try to pack lightly and usually do laundry once or twice a trip. He takes it after the kids go to bed. When he brings it back I fold it and reorganize it into outfits. If we go somewhere that we have a washer/dryer easily available, we try to wash as much as we can before we go home. Coming home from a trip is hard enough to recover from, lots of dirty laundry just makes it worse.

 

[blessedby3]

I always do laundry on vacation....whether it is the beach, or Disney, or wherever. We have 6 in our family and we generate A LOT of dirty laundry...especially in the summer months!
I dont want all that smelly stuff sitting around, so when we are at Disney, I do a couple of loads while the kids swim at the pool. The laundry is right by the pool, so very easy. We stayed at BLT one year and had a W/D in the room....it was heavenly I did a load every evening after we showered and we never had laundry pile up! We stayed at POP this past June for 9 nights with our 4 kids and 2 extra kids that went with us. I did LOTS of laundry on that trip I had 4 or 5 washers going at a time
At the beach I throw in dirty clothes/towels constanatly. We have plenty of down time while resting mid day or while everyone is getting ready to go out for the evening. I never bring dirty clothes home with me from vacation...besides the clothes we are wearing. Its a big help when we get home and are unpacking too. Clothes go straight into the drawers and I dont have to look at 12 loads of" no fun"

 

[DisneyLover83]

Before I do laundry at WDW, I carefully check the interior of both the washer and dryer--the last time I was there, someone at the Poly dried a heck of a lot of crayons in several dryers.

At CSR last May someone had put gum in several of the dryers.... the gum was white, the inside of the dryers are white It was terrible Maybe it was a sign that laundry and vacation don't go together

 

[pershing]

Pack light, do laundry!

After years of WDW trips, that's my motto. I bring enough for 4 days, and do laundry. That way the bathing suits can get dried on a regular basis. (Let's face it! They don't dry in the room!)

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I do it once on vacation. Less to pack that way and not so much work to do at home. I bring the 3-in-1 laundry sheets in a ziploc baggie. We collect our dirty laundry in a dollar store pop up hamper. Easy peasy!

 

[disneydivermom]

We used to travel with many bags and not do laundry. Once airlines started charging per bag (cost me $80 once for our 4 checked bags ) times changed when packing. We pack much, much lighter. My husband is now the only family member who checks a bag. When not in a DVC resort I go once on about day 4 and do laundry. I do laundry again the night before we leave. There is nothing better than coming home from vacation and putting clothing back in the drawers and not have laundry the #1 priority.

We are recent DVC members and now pack even lighter and doing our laundry at DVC resorts no charge. I love coming home from vacation without work to do .

On our last vacation I used the laundry bag supplied by Disney (in the closet) for the few clothing items we wore the night before we returned home. Because the dirty clothes were in a thick bag they did not contaminate the clean clothes.

My goal for our May vacation is carry-on baggage only and come home with 0 laundry .

 

[Sagginit]

when i went to WDW as a kid yes, my dad was a morning person so did it before we got up and while we were still getting dressed. as an adult no never happened. we brought the stuff with us both years (those 3 in 1 sheets) and then neither one of us wanted to spend the time doing it. we have a pop up hamper we put the dirty stuff in and when we repack it goes in bags into the suitcases.

my last fall trip to AZ/Las Vegas i used the throw away trick. i brought some items that were on their last legs and needed to go (panties, pjs, flip flops for the pool, and a few tees). when i was done with them i just threw them out. now im not talking holes or stains, but one tee had the bottom seam starting to come undone (just folded back up) and another had the seam starting to pull in another place so while it wasn't visible i knew the items would not make it thru another wash. i also brought smaller toiletries that i could use and toss to make more room for souvenirs. worked surprisingly well.

 

[englishteacha]

I do laundry when we have a washer/dryer in our condo. I much prefer packing a few favorite outfits and doing laundry than packing a week worth of clothes! Last year in Feb., we didn't have laundry in our condo, so we packed a weeks' worth of both warm weather and cold weather clothes. It was warmer than expected while we were there, so we didn't wear our jeans or sweatshirts at all. It was just too much. Next time, I'll pack half as much and take the laundry somewhere midweek!

When we volunteer at a summer camp for a week, there's no laundry facilities available to us, and we put the dirty stuff in a plastic bag. It's camp, and the stuff gets DIRTY. It's such a pain to wash all the laundry when we get home. I have been known to wash things out in the sink and hang them on the clothesline just so stains and stink don't set in sitting for a week!

 

[marmalade]

I always do laundry the day before we leave. I love coming home to a clean house (my DH has OCD with cleaning before we leave on vacation) with all of my laundry clean and folded and just needs to be put away.

 

[tzolkin]

I wash laundry almost everyday on vacation. I use the time to relax in the pool either mid day or at night. It only takes 1 hour. I hate the idea of packing dirty laundry in my luggage. This also cuts down the the amount of clothes we have to take in the first place.

I don't do laundry every day at home. I don't think we would even have a fraction of a load each day. Last trip was the first time I did laundry at Disney-- once mid trip (10 nights) and I only had two loads. My parents came along with us and I even washed some of their clothes so there were 7 of us.

Unless we are renting a villa in Orlando when doing Disney, we usually take our dirty clothes home with us. I just put them in a plastic garbage bag to seperate them from the clothing that is still clean. I have never come home with smelly luggage, but then our clothes don't stink after we wear them .

This is similar to us. I use a pop up mesh hamper in the room and then put all the dirty clothes together when I'm packing up. If there are any clean clothes left they get packed in a separate suitcase. Our luggage never stinks, but I do always air it out once we get home before I put it away.

We do drive, so I have plenty of room to pack as many clothes as we could possibly need for a 2 week trip (we always have extra clothes that never wind up being worn) and I also don't have to worry about anyone going through my dirty clothes at the airport. Perhaps if we were flying I would consider bringing less and doing more laundry.