Suggestions for organizing my hotel room at csr

[mi2kdz]

Ok, we've made our reservations, we'll be staying at CSR for 8 nights. There are four of us. My husband and two children 8 and 10. Now for what is really stressing me out. I'm worried about my hotel room being in a constant state of chaos. This is our fourth trip to DW, but our first staying on sight. We usually get a two bedroom condo at one of the Marriot resorts, which allowed me to unpack, hide the luggage, and organize the unit to feel as if we lived there, and my work was done. Aahh, time to relax. This trip however, I was determined to stay on sight. Can anyone give me organization suggestions, so that my room doesn't look like the pictures I've seen. So far I've purchased an over the door shoe hanger to put in the bathroom to hold all of our toiletries, trying to keep the sink area from being cluttered. The room appears to only have three drawers to unpack into, and no door on the closet, to hide the luggage. I know this sounds petty, but when my living space is a mess, I'm a mess. HELP!!!

 

[gigi1313]

i can totally understand... i think once you get there you will find ways to make the best use of the space... we pack less than we need and plan to do laundry at least once thru the trip... it's easy to do while at the pool...

another thing that i have tried is instead of packing each person's stuff in their own suitcase, pack the first three days worth in one suitcase and the next three in another and the last few in a third (if you are bringing three, for four of us, we usually use three) and that seemed to help because i could just stand the full/end of trip suitcase in the closet area and not worry about it 'til the current one (which i unloaded into the drawers) was full of dirty laundry... then *switch!* i also pack in "outfits" (i.e. shirt/shorts/underwear/socks all rolled together for each person rather than all my shirts in one pile, all my shorts in another, etc)... also using the hangers to hang pj's which can be reworn, dry bathing suits which will be reworn, etc...

hope that helped... ENJOY!

 

[MAGGIED]

Just a few things that I do to make the trip easier:

1. Buy an inexpensive over the door shoe holder... then you can place all your bathroom essentials in the sleeves and it will be off of the counter top and you won't have to search things out..

2. I plan my kids outfits... I bundle together the shorts, shirts, undie's and socks then tie them together with a ribbon - the kids just pick a budle and eveything is there (even at ages 15 and 12 my kids still love the convenience of this)

3. I take 2 laundry bags - one for dark clothes and one for white - then if I have to do a load of laundry everything is already separate and it's quicker - I also prepackage at home in ziplock bags some laundry powder (double the bag) so I have it ready to go

Lastly....

4. I bring along an extra suitcase for all the things we buy to bring home... As we bring them back to the hotel we put them in it....

that's all I can think of off the top of my head....

 

[Dopey's Girl]

If we are staying with limited drawer space, here's something we do:

We use the drawers to unpack the kids stuff. We put suitcases upright in the closet area, then put one suitcase on top of them horizontally and use it as a "drawer" for the adult stuff. I also pack outfits together, so we don't constantly "root" throught the stuff in the suitcase (which makes me crazy! )

Also, we keep a few "rules" in place (most of the time). for example, all shoes get piled under the window by the front door. that prevents the "has anyone seen my other tennis shoe?" craziness. we make sure there is a specific place to put dirty clothes, etc.

don't stress about the room. If it gets cluttered, it really is OK! It's about the fun, remember that.

One other note: if the room REALLY is tight for you, you can rearrange the furniture some and they're oK with it. Example: move the table and chair by the dresser instead of under the window, etc.
HOPE you have a good time!

 

[Buzz2001]

We always unpack an put all our clothes in the armoiur. Then we put the suitcases in the closet area near the sink. If you go to my CSR website below, I have a diagram of the room setup. There is plenty of room there for your shoes too. You also have the space between the armoiur and the closet wall.

You will have 3 large ,long oversized drawers in the armoiur along with a small 3 shelf compartment on the side of the TV that fits in the armoiur.

 

[DisneyMomx7]

We bring dollar store shoe hanging racks for all the kids clothes. I pack the kids clothes in large ziploc bags - whole outfits (top, shorts, socks, underwear and girls hair accessory). I put the empty suitcases in the closet. GF has a lot of room for toiletries but otherwise I would use those small accessory hanging bags.

 

[Buzz2001]

1. Buy an inexpensive over the door shoe holder... then you can place all your bathroom essentials in the sleeves and it will be off of the counter top and you won't have to search things out..

I like this idea. I think I'll give it a try. thanks for posting!

 

[disyady]

I have found that the most chaos is created by the kids' stuff - so my 3 each have their own small rolling suitcase which all of their stuff (toys, souvenirs, walkmen, etc) must be in at all times unless they are actually using it. I have a small container that anything that gets left laying around gets thrown into and it's up to them to retrieve their own things from there. This really helps to keep things neat which eliminates most of those "Has anyone seen my....." moments!!

 

[dis-happy]

Experienced mom of 3 talking here: (and I like neatness too)

Pack everyone's underwear/socks in one gallon sized ziplock per person. It's so much easier to pack, sort and find.

Lay out each child's outfit the night before--underwear, socks, top, bottom. Then they don't make a mess rooting through the drawer or suitcase. Each morning just fold up the jammies and place in the drawer.

Turn dirty clothes inside out, refold and store (either in a stack in the drawer or in the suitcase). It takes up way less room and you know at a glance that it needs to be washed. It's also all set for the return home which makes packing up to leave much easier.

If we do just one night in a hotel on the way there, I pack a single small bag with what's necessary for that one night. Much easier than hauling everything out.

 

[bobcat]

Each of my kids usually gets two drawers to themselves, one for clothes and one for all the other stuff they accumulate during the trip. I love the dressers at POP becasue we had so much room to store everything. I even got a drawer for myself. I organize any food that we bring, usually snack items, on top of the dresser. I take a collabsible crate to hold the food and it keeps things looking neat. I also use the shoe hanger and love it. I take extra wire hangers and hang my clothes up. They take up no space in the suitcase and I don't have to ask housekeeping for more.

One item I will never take a trip without again is a collabsible mesh hamper. It fits perfectly under the sink area and we can keep all our dirty clothes organized as well. For longer trips I can carry it to the laundry room and for shorter trips I can just dump it all in an empty suitcase.

 

[lrjc]

I'm going to but a small basket at the dollar store to set on the bedside table, maybe one for each table, for our change, wallet, watch, glasses, etc.

 

[Mark P.]

If you have a Bed, Bath & Beyond near you, they have quite a few travel items.
One thing we purchased there, and found to be very convenient, are laundry hampers (black & white) that collapse to the size smaller than a frisbee. When they're open, they stand about 3ft. high, and are squared, but they don't take up much room at all.
We just transfer the clothes from each one into a laundry bag when we're ready to do laundry.


For detergent, we found that Tide Tablets take up less room, and we don't have to worry about powder spilling.
Each foil packet contains 2 tablets (for one load). For some reason these are very hard to find in our area, but every now and then we find them at BJ's, and stock up.

 

[lajones81]

Hi!
I don't have a lot of advice for organization, but if you would like to see more pictures of the resort check out this link:
http://allearsnet.com/acc/g_cs.htm
Have a fantastic vacation!

Lisa

 

[buckeye]

Just one more thing to add....we use softsided, dufflebag-type suitcases, so they can be stored under the beds. We would put our dirty clothes in them too. That frees up the closet area and looks less cluttered.

We are a family of 4 and stayed at CSR this past summer for 10 days. We never felt that we didn't have enough room. We kept snacks on top of the armoire. Kids shared a drawer, adults got their own. Had a shoe hanger for toiletries. No problem!!

Enjoy your trip. You're going to love CSR and being on site. I actually prefer being in a "room" as opposed to a bigger condo. I feel less like I'm in a house that I need to clean up---and more like I'm on vacation!

 

[ncbyrne]

We pack all of our clothes into the jumbo 2.5 gal. zip locks - 1 day per bag. We don't unpack the clothes from the suitcase, we just pull out a baggie per day. Shoes go on the closet floor. Toiletries stay in our train cases and we just put them on top of the bathroom vanity and use things from it as we need it and then put it back.

 

[Daisy'sMom]

Since everyone is talking about putting outfits into baggies I'll throw in that airport security like that technique so they can search your bags more quickly. Plus, even if you don't pack the whole outfit at least pack your undies in baggies so a security guard won't be handling them. Sorry this isn't on topic, but I wanted to share this tip with somebody.

 

[gary4jenn]

For our last trip I got some large boxes from the Disney store for each kid. I packed them flat in our suitcase and each child had their own box. That way all the treasures for each child had a "home".

It made the room a lot easier to keep clean!

 

[Mark P.]

Here's a neat site with all kinds of travel-sized odds and ends:

Minimus - For All Your Travel Size Item Needs