I have been trying to convince DH that we should get an OL but he is not convinced....so I decided a visual would be helpful to convince him. We're going to SSR over Memorial Day weekend and then to BCV and VB in August...so I started creating my "Disney Box". I had an empty plastic bin sitting here that is a little bit smaller (21x13x10.5) than the OL size of 22x20x13. So I created my list (now a full 3 pages long) and started filling it. It is stuffed now and I am starting to just pile stuff on top of it. I am just almost done with my "pretend OL". I just weighed it and it's 29 Lbs including the stuff piled on top...so allowing that I am not quite done & that my scale could be off a pound in either direction I began pricing the cost of mailing the contents down ahead of time VS checking a bag for everything at $15 per flight (then I would have to use a bag that folds up so I could bring it home - so it would need to be large enough and sturdy enough yet foldable).
Anyway, I just called the SSR phone # on my confirmation and asked about this charge to receive packages and was told not at SSR. I asked the CM to double check with a supervisor and he supposedly did. So I went to USPS.com and put in some approx. dimensions based on the size of the OL and my bin, figuring I'll look for a similar size box to package it all in. The Parcel Post price (cheapest) does vary a few dollars according to the size box I use. If I use the exact OL size of 22x20x13 and 30 Lbs it is $27.22. If I change the dimensions down to 20x15x12 & use 32 Lbs it goes down to $24.37 even tho it's an additional 2 Lbs, it's smaller in size so that affects it a little. From my mailing PO zip code to SSR it says 5 days for Parcel Post, although I'm sure I would allow closer to 7 or 8 days "just because".
Anyway, I am almost ready to show off my box to DH and to let him know it's approx. 30 Lbs worth of stuff we could avoid packing each trip. I still don't think I could pack all of us in JUST carry-ons for a 10 day trip (bcuz I won't do laundry) but it would certainly help for taking LESS bags and our shorter trips would definitely just be in carry-ons.
Additional question to John @ OL..... We know we have 2 trips planned for this year but are not sure about next year yet. We may try to go again next spring over spring break to use our AP's again so that would be our 3rd trip within 12 months. But then we may not go again for awhile once the AP's expire. I know the DIS discount allows for 2 deliveries / year...but have you ever thought about allowing for some of the deliveries to be rolled over into another year rather than wasted? Like whatever that cell phone plan is - the Mom in the commercials is always telling the family there's nothing wrong with the unused minutes. They work the same rolled over or not. I was thinking that I'd hate to WASTE a delivery if we would have a year where we don't go as often...but then there might be a year where we go 3x within 12 months following a year where we only went once or something. Don't know if you follow that question, but just wondered if you ever considered that as an option or not?? I could see that being one more sticking point with DH in my attempts to convince him OL is a good plan for us. I fully expect he's going to argue that if I just transfer all of this stuff into the appropriate size bag each time that it's still cheaper to just pay the $15 per flight rather than the annual fee etc... And he would be right on that one. This is still going to be a hard one for me to win...
