Should I bring the ol' laptop?

[LilTinks]

Hi all~ I'm wondering if there's any compelling reason why I should bring my laptop along on our upcoming Disney trip. I was initially thinking that it would just be good to have in case I needed info on park hours or restaurant reviews, as well as to download my photos everynight, but now I'm thinking it might not be worth the extra load. Also, I've seen several posts regarding locking up laptops in the room, and I don't feel like taking it out and putting it away everytime we step out...

All opinions welcome and thanks!

 

[*KeepMovingForward*]

Hi all~ I'm wondering if there's any compelling reason why I should bring my laptop along on our upcoming Disney trip. I was initially thinking that it would just be good to have in case I needed info on park hours or restaurant reviews, as well as to download my photos everynight, but now I'm thinking it might not be worth the extra load. Also, I've seen several posts regarding locking up laptops in the room, and I don't feel like taking it out and putting it away everytime we step out...

All opinions welcome and thanks!

I take my laptop for the sole purpose of dowloading my photos each day. I take thousands of them while away and if I waited until we got home it would take forever. I don't do email or anything like that when we are at Disney because I don't want to deal with that stuff on vacation. As far as park hours, you can download those before you leave and well, for restaurant reviews, we never had to worry because we always pretty much knew where we were eating (or what our choices were) before we ever left home.

Some rooms have safes that most laptops will fit in. The times when we couldn't lock up my laptop I just put it back in my briefcase carrier and threw it in our trunk (only an option if your renting a car). I don't think having your laptop is really a necessity, but it depends what you will need it for. Not all hotels offer wifi, so depending on where you stay, you may not even be able to use it for net access.

 

[Disney-For-Life]

Hubby and I used to bring the laptop, until we bought a larger memory card for our camera. It is a bit of a pain to travel with, especially coming from Canada, as we have to take it out and show it to security everytime. We no longer take it for trips to Disney. That being said, we never felt insecure about leaving it openly on our table in our room. The only thing we locked up were our passports, ID/Cards and money.

 

[fishnips]

I usually bring a laptop with me just to download photos. I take way to many photos each day and it is a timesaver to download the photos at night before going to bed.

I keep the laptop in the trunk of the car or in the room, I was never concerned with security in the hotels I have stayed at.

 

[Scraper]

yes we also download our pictures even with large memory cards. We take thousands also.

 

[*KeepMovingForward*]

yes we also download our pictures even with large memory cards. We take thousands also.

Glad I'm not the only one. I have a 2GB memory card for my camera, but we still download the photos every night. We had a mishap once where whole memory card with a almost a weeks worth of pics got erased with the touch of a button (DD decided she wanted to look at the pics while DH and I were sleeping). If I had dowloaded the card each evening during that trip, we would have lost nothing, instead we lost almost a whole vacations worth of photographs.

I never felt bringing my laptop was a nuisance-even with having to whip it out for airport security. Certainly no worse than having to take my shoes and jacket off. I'm not that trusting about leaving my laptop out for anyone to swipe or use in my room. I have way too much personal info on mine to take that chance. Not even a concern about the cost factor...just the privacy issue and potential hassle it's loss would cause.

I have heard about people using a photo wallet to download their memory cards onto. I personally have never used one and not sure exactly how they work, but have heard folks say that it is compact and allows them to store their pictures and download them to their computer when they get home without having to keep the photos on their camera's memory card.

 

[TheDizMom]

You have little ones so it might come in handy on the plane if it has DVD watching capabilities. My cousin was there recently and we had so much fun e-mailing back and forth while she was there. It was fun to hear how it was going for them and since we had been before she asked for advice along the way too. It might be kind of a fun way to bring the grandparents along for the ride instead of a post card. We didn't talk every day only about 3 times but is was fun and since we were going a few weeks later she updated me on a few things. Just some other reasons besides the pictures.

You would definitely be smart to lock it up though when not in your room. Depending on where you are staying the safe is big enough and easy to open and close. If you are at someplace like the AS resorts the last time I was there the safe was way to small for it, so it may be another factor in your decision. I don't know if that has changed since 2005, so it may be something you want to ask your resort before you go.

 

[tinkerbell615]

Boy, I sure am glad that someone else sounds indecisive like I am about to bring or not bring the laptop. I am new to the laptop world and really want to take mine with me. I wanted to download pictures as well as use it for emailing purposes if I want to.

I am just REALLY worried about having it in the room and not having it fit in the safe. We are staying at ASMu and I know it will not fit. I would love to just feel comfortable leaving it out in the room but I am an obsessive worrier and I would be afraid something would happen to it while I was out. I have read that you can buy locks for your laptop. Can anyone tell me where to get one. I don't really understand the whole concept.

Also, we will be driving but I am extremely worried about leaving the laptop in the minivan due to excessive heat.

 

[*KeepMovingForward*]

I am just REALLY worried about having it in the room and not having it fit in the safe. We are staying at ASMu and I know it will not fit. I would love to just feel comfortable leaving it out in the room but I am an obsessive worrier and I would be afraid something would happen to it while I was out. I have read that you can buy locks for your laptop. Can anyone tell me where to get one. I don't really understand the whole concept.

Also, we will be driving but I am extremely worried about leaving the laptop in the minivan due to excessive heat.

I never had my laptop suffer any damage or problems due to being left in the car while we were in the parks for the day. I can understand your worry though.

Now I never heard of a lock for the laptop, but would be interested to hear more info on that. Is it supposed to prevent theft or just prevent someone from using your laptop?

 

[tinkerbell615]

I never had my laptop suffer any damage or problems due to being left in the car while we were in the parks for the day. I can understand your worry though.

Now I never heard of a lock for the laptop, but would be interested to hear more info on that. Is it supposed to prevent theft or just prevent someone from using your laptop?

I am also not clear on the lock. I have, however, seen a lock for a laptop mentioned several times on posts before. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will come along and clear this up for us soon.

 

[Colinsmom]

Laptop locks physically "chain" the laptop to the bed or something else that is immobile. It is a thick cable (like a bike cable) that can in theory be cut but would slow most thieves down. It latches to a small slot in your laptop. Here's one; if you google laptop cable lock you'll come up with many more options!

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A0001666

It won't keep anyone from using your computer - that's what passwords and other good security software are for.

 

[tinkerbell615]

Laptop locks physically "chain" the laptop to the bed or something else that is immobile. It is a thick cable (like a bike cable) that can in theory be cut but would slow most thieves down. It latches to a small slot in your laptop. Here's one; if you google laptop cable lock you'll come up with many more options!

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A0001666

It won't keep anyone from using your computer - that's what passwords and other good security software are for.

Oh. I see. Thank You.

I don't think I need one of those. Maybe I can just put the laptop under some clothing or something.

 

[TMB1203]

I usually bring my laptop (to check emails or to do homework) but this past trip I decided I was going to leave it at home. It was nice not to have to drag it through the airport.

I never locked mine up either. Never really thought about it. I would put it back in the case and put it in the closet when I wasn't using it.

 

[*KeepMovingForward*]

Laptop locks physically "chain" the laptop to the bed or something else that is immobile. It is a thick cable (like a bike cable) that can in theory be cut but would slow most thieves down. It latches to a small slot in your laptop. Here's one; if you google laptop cable lock you'll come up with many more options!

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A0001666

It won't keep anyone from using your computer - that's what passwords and other good security software are for.

Interesting, although I doubt I'd ever use one. It seems like it would be just as much hassle to lock it up as it would be to throw the laptop in my briefcase and put it in my car.

I don't know...for me, the lock mechanism would no give me peace of mind-only because I have been the victim of theft twice and my experience has been that if someone is intent on stealing something like that and they can't...they will destroy the thing on you out of spite or frustration.

 

[Eyore4Ever149]

We enjoy bringing our laptop for multiple reasons

1. Watch movies (Disney of course) on the plane
2. We do have large memory cards, AND purchased the Ipod memory stick
but we still download LOTS of photos at the end of the day
3. Check email and touch base with the office- DH runs a popular VoIp blog that requires moderating.
4. I like being able to research anything I might need to online that might come up- ticket prices for an unplanned trip to Universal, or restaurant reviews, whatever.
5. My favorite- I like having DH show me photos we took thru out the day or past days- reminds me of something fun or special we did, or captured something on camera the other person missed, its fun to have a "day in review". ex: I was in the bathroom at Magic Kindom, a horse and carriage for some special event came up and parked and was just leaving as I came out. DH had tons of fun pics for me to look at that evening at the resort.

We did not like leaving laptop in car for long periods due to the heat. I dont know what it could do, but it sure does get HOT in a car in Florida!

 

[juligrl]

We took ours and were glad we did!

1. We used it as a DVD player for our then 2 year old DD on the plane on the way down and back.

2. We downloaded our photos to it every night which we needed to do since we take a lot of photos and filled our photo cards every day.

 

[jessica52877]

We usually have ours and just leave it set up in the room. Never a problem.

 

[LilTinks]

Thanks for all of the feedback. I was just about to commit to bringing my laptop for pictures and e-mailing the grandparents, but when I called the hotel they said that if we wanted an internet connection it would be $10/per day. Oh, and she didn't think that the safe would be large enough for a laptop (someone asked this AM if they could lock theirs up behind the front desk because his laptop didn't fit).

So now I'm undecided...again. I think my DH has one of those photo wallet thingies so I can download without a computer, but it would have been nice to send images our first family Disney vacation to the grandparents back home.