Shipping Clothes to Resort

[ThisIsTheWay]

UPDATE 3/7: Thank you all for your ideas, we've come up with a plan and sticking to it lol! Bringing 1-2 carry ons and the rest in personal size bags. That will save us money. We're not checking bags (personal preference), and we're not flying other airlines due to the reasons stayed in the original post. Thanks again!


We're considering shipping a box of our clothing and other miscellaneous items via UPS for our April trip to save baggage costs. Has anyone ever done this? Is it more of a pain than it's worth? I thought it would make sense because we are in NJ and not going to be wearing shorts/Disney shirts around here so it's fine to not have these items around for a week before or after the trip , we just have to make sure to time the shipping down there right so we get our clothes. We have Owners Lockers so we have all our toiletries and other things down there already. Staying at BCV, and I believe I've read that their conference center has shipping capabilities for sending the stuff home. We are a family of 5 with 3 kids ages 6-13, and it will cost us $600 round trip to bring our carry-ons. Usually we just bring them and pay the cost, and figure it's just the cost of flying a budget airline, but I'm realizing that we'd save hundreds by shipping.

(And no need for comments on how people would never fly Frontier or its peers - we use the budget airlines to be able to fly out of the super mellow small airports near us and not have to fly out of crazy Newark! Even if we end up paying for the bags, it's still worth it to be able to arrive 45 minutes before departure and walk right onto the plane, and United and the others out of Newark are still more money even when factoring in the baggage fees.)

 

[RoseGold]

I travel budget airline with my Owner's Locker, and I can do it in a backpack. If you have laundry, I bet you can too. I have pajamas and swim in the Owner's Locker. I just did it yesterday with just a backpack, and that included my work laptop and iPad.

There's too much risk here with the shipping. I'd either use just backpacks or pay to check one big bag. I hate baggage claim at MCO, but I'd do that over the other choices.

 

[edudansil]

I'm in this same boat! We are from DE and also fly the budget airlines. We've considered shipping as well, but have never done it.

Just yesterday I was looking up bags that are considered personal items on the budget airlines that seem to hold at least 3-5 days worth of clothes. Maybe this could be an option since every member of your party can have a bag? They sell specific ones online that meet the size dimensions. This is obviously for a light packer, so not sure if it would fit within what you're imagining.

 

[ThisIsTheWay]

I travel budget airline with my Owner's Locker, and I can do it in a backpack. If you have laundry, I bet you can too. I have pajamas and swim in the Owner's Locker. I just did it yesterday with just a backpack, and that included my work laptop and iPad.

There's too much risk here with the shipping. I'd either use just backpacks or pay to check one big bag. I hate baggage claim at MCO, but I'd do that over the other choices.

I'll have to see if we can squeeze each person's stuff into a backpack, but not sure we can because we always jammed packed our carry ons and had a bit of room in the backpack for electronics, small souvenirs, etc. DH and I did 2.5 days in December with only backpacks but it was a tight fit for me and I just barely made it! We don't check bags, we like being able to walk off the plane and just keep going to the Uber.

 

[ThisIsTheWay]

I'm in this same boat! We are from DE and also fly the budget airlines. We've considered shipping as well, but have never done it.

Just yesterday I was looking up bags that are considered personal items on the budget airlines that seem to hold at least 3-5 days worth of clothes. Maybe this could be an option since every member of your party can have a bag? They sell specific ones online that meet the size dimensions. This is obviously for a light packer, so not sure if it would fit within what you're imagining.

Hmm I'll have to look into this as well. I'd prefer not to have to buy 5 new bags as that will add up but maybe it's worth it.

 

[RoseGold]

So pay for one carry-on. That holds a lot of stuff, considering you already have an Owner's Locker. It's not like you have to have 5 carry-ons.

My backpack has two changes of clothes, work Ipad, work laptop, charger, brick, snacks, sunglasses, some paperwork, my small purse inside, and that's it. Oh, and some contacts to restock the Owner's Locker and our Magic Bands. You have a washer, you only need two outfits, and you're already wearing one.

 

[RoseGold]

Oh, and the rumor on Reddit is that Frontier is giving a bonus to finding personal items oversized, so I would be particularly diligent with measurements. Looks like there are $10 bags on amazon you can buy that are exactly sized. I actually might get one, I have a discount flight coming up.

 

[Pooh12863]

Oh, and the rumor on Reddit is that Frontier is giving a bonus to finding personal items oversized, so I would be particularly diligent with measurements. Looks like there are $10 bags on amazon you can buy that are exactly sized. I actually might get one, I have a discount flight coming up.

I don't know if that rumor is true but Frontier is cracking down on oversized bags. It's quite comical watching what people try to shove in the go/nogo bins, yea buddy that ain't gonna fit.

 

[xipotec]

Let me guess…Frontier? Spirit?

Any savings you get with either of these airlines could easily be negated by late and cancelled flights…..they are terrible airlines.

 

[ThisIsTheWay]

Let me guess…Frontier? Spirit?

Any savings you get with either of these airlines could easily be negated by late and cancelled flights…..they are terrible airlines.

As noted in my original post, yes it's Frontier, and the ease of being able to fly out of our small local airports is worth it. Knock on wood, in our almost 10 years of flying budget airlines, we have only been delayed once by more than a half hour (and it was 1.5 hours) and never cancelled.

 

[ThisIsTheWay]

So pay for one carry-on. That holds a lot of stuff, considering you already have an Owner's Locker. It's not like you have to have 5 carry-ons.

My backpack has two changes of clothes, work Ipad, work laptop, charger, brick, snacks, sunglasses, some paperwork, my small purse inside, and that's it. Oh, and some contacts to restock the Owner's Locker and our Magic Bands. You have a washer, you only need two outfits, and you're already wearing one.

We always filled each of our 5 carry ons so it would take a lot of downsizing to fit into one plus the backpacks, but it's worth looking into. I did think about just paying for one or two carry ons. I'll have to do a test run soon to see. We like to have different shirts for each park so 2 outfits won't cut it!

 

[JodyK]

I've seen some smaller bags designed for these airlines recently with like wheels that come off and such. Deff wouldn't make it to the size of a standard carryon but might be worth looking into.

https://takeoffluggage.com/

 

[ThisIsTheWay]

I've seen some smaller bags designed for these airlines recently with like wheels that come off and such. Deff wouldn't make it to the size of a standard carryon but might be worth looking into.

https://takeoffluggage.com/

That's interesting, thanks for posting the link! Unfortunately the size I would need is sold out.

 

[Miffy]

The question really is, How much would shipping a package to WDW cost? It might be the same as the cost of checking a bag.

I just FedExed a box to myself--so I won't have to shop for anything when I get to WDW--and it cost $43. The last box I shipped was $35 (somewhat fewer items). I don't know how this compares to Frontier's baggage fees or to UPS's fees.

Also, I guess you have to take the stuff home with you, too. So that's yet another fee.

 

[ThisIsTheWay]

The question really is, How much would shipping a package to WDW cost? It might be the same as the cost of checking a bag.

I just FedExed a box to myself--so I won't have to shop for anything when I get to WDW--and it cost $43. The last box I shipped was $35 (somewhat fewer items). I don't know how this compares to Frontier's baggage fees or to UPS's fees.

Also, I guess you have to take the stuff home with you, too. So that's yet another fee.

I did consider that, but we would only need to ship maybe one big box, and even if it's as much as $75 each way, that would be $150 total vs. $600 in bag fees so still good amount of savings!

 

[Miffy]

I did consider that, but we would only need to ship maybe one big box, and even if it's as much as $75 each way, that would be $150 total vs. $600 in bag fees so still good amount of savings!

Oh wow. That is some hefty amount of bag fees. I'm with you on the box-shipping scheme. Seems way better.

I guess you're too far away to drive, which would incur many other expenses anyway. Just a thought that raced through my brain.

 

[xipotec]

As noted in my original post, yes it's Frontier, and the ease of being able to fly out of our small local airports is worth it. Knock on wood, in our almost 10 years of flying budget airlines, we have only been delayed once by more than a half hour (and it was 1.5 hours) and never cancelled.

I am knocking all the wood contacts around me so this isn't the time they get you!!!!

We did the same as we have a local closer as well. The issue here is it also landed at Sanford not MCO and we had so many delays and issues it was a huge stress right at the beginning of our vacation.

NJ is a but far for this, but we actually drove last trip (10 hours with 3 stops , one for sit down breakfast) and it cost about 500 total for 2 people. Way less stressful….crazy to say it, but it was

 

[Pooh12863]

I did consider that, but we would only need to ship maybe one big box, and even if it's as much as $75 each way, that would be $150 total vs. $600 in bag fees so still good amount of savings!

You could easily fit 3 carryons in 1 full size checked suitcase. Just another option to think about.

 

[ThisIsTheWay]

You could easily fit 3 carryons in 1 full size checked suitcase. Just another option to think about.

Thank you, but we don't check bags anymore, we love getting off the plane and heading right to the Uber!

 

[RoseGold]

The what-if here with the shipping that would still make me not ship things. The box could be a couple days late, and it's not like Disney holds packages for a week or something. It could get lost or damaged or sent back or whatever. What if there's no box to send it back with? Even if it arrives perfectly, you have to mess with shipping it back. When exactly are you going to do that?

If you really need this much stuff, then you're going to have to pay for it one way another. It's not like shipping five carryons worth of stuff is going to be $ 75 either. That's a whole lot of stuff and weight, and shipping things is not cheap either.

I did a three week assignment with a backpack, purse, and a carryon, and that was without an Owner's Locker. I'm not sure why you "need" this much stuff, but if you can't condense to a couple carry-ons, I would pay for checked bags before I would putz with shipping all this stuff you "need."