To launder or not to launder?

I leave a morning open toward the end of our trips (if they are over 3-4 days), do the laundry early (usually no waiting). Though doing laundry on the trip is not my idea of a good time, I really do appreciate not having 6 days of smelly laundry to do when I get home. Little investment....big payoff!
 
No laundry on vacation for me.... Only exception was the trip that my 4 and 1 yr olds both had the stomach bug and things HAD to get washed.
 
If it's more than 4 days, I do laundry. This allows us to only do carry ons on our trips. At Poly, I dropped DS off at Lilo's Playhouse, put the laundry in, grabbed a Dole Whip and simply relaxed by the pool. Watched Wishes at the beach and, voila, laundry was done! They have laundry rooms on the ship as well!
 

If I am renting DVC points I might end up doing a load during the middle of our trip during a rest afternoon. It doesn't really take any time away from anything. Just throw in a load, go to lunch, come back and switch to the dryer, go to the pool, come back and grab your clean clothes.
 
When we stay onsite, no I don't do laundry. This most recent trip we stayed at a time share. We also had a totally insane schedule when we returned from our trip so I wanted to go home with clean clothes. I would toss in a load before we headed to the parks then switch it over into the drier when we got back. It worked perfectly for us. Yes, we repeated clothes but we enjoyed wearing our matching shirts a second time in a different park. I loved going home with only one day of dirty clothes (we got home at midnight and had to leave at 8am that morning for a weekend away with grandparents so having everything ready to go was well worth the effort of doing the laundry, which really was no effort at all since we had the convenience right there).
 
That is why I bring a laundry basket. Everyone puts their dirty clothes in it so the clothes are all contained.
We pack in ziplock bags, when the clean outfit comes out the dirty outfit goes in and I write dirty on it in sharpie. This really helps when packing to come home since we toss the plastic bags back in the suitcase once marked dirty.
 
My wife says no laundry is to be done on vacation but I do it anyway. Usually on a 7 day or longer trip.

I sweat a lot in the parks and often run during our mid-day breaks and things can start to grow on the clothes. Plus, it cuts down on the catch-up work that must be done after we return home from vacation. I only do the laundry during down time so it doesn't take away from anything I'm doing; usually at the pool and the machines do all the work. I set the timer on my watch as a reminder so I don't leave clothes in a machine after the cycle is complete (drives me nuts when people don't return in a timely fashion...). I did the laundry once while playing tennis since the laundry room was near the courts.

It can save a little on packing space. I usually bring a small amount of detergent from home.

I like the zip-lock process mentioned above. I've done this occasionally but need to add it as a regular thing for packing. I don't want to put dirty clothes in the bags immediately though; they need some air time...
 
We're in a DVC villa, so we wash clothes almost every day (7-8 people in the room).

I hate going home with dirty clothes because then I have to try to keep the dirty clothes separate from the clean ones.

Also, this way we don't have to pack as much.
 
One of the reasons we stay offsite is so we can have a washer and dryer in our unit. On rainy park days or pool days it really makes me appreciate it more. I wouldn't want to have to make special plans to wash wet clothes/towels. It is so nice to wash as you go to me. I always started a load on the way to the parks and dried at night.
 
With five kids, it would spoil my vacation knowing I had to return home with a week's worth of dirty clothes to wash for all 7 of us, so it just makes life simpler to do a load here and there while on vacation. It's really not that big of a deal because I'm typically not washing linens, just our clothes. When we stayed onsite at AS Music I packed several small, one load boxes of Tide that I purchased for 75 cents each at a laundrymat near our house and I think I did laundry twice over the course of that week long trip (usually while we were at the pool since that is where the resort laundry room is). When we stayed offsite in a condo we had our own washer and dryer which made it even simpler because I could just throw a load in the wash in the morning while we were getting ready and toss it in the dryer before we headed out the door. This was one of the things we loved about staying in a condo, having our own washer and dryer while on vacation with kids is priceless :laughing:
 
Our trips usually include Universal and the beach so laundering is required. Usually we do it on our no park day - hit a water park in the morning and do laundry while we are at the pool. Disney has upgraded their machines so you can get notifications when the machines are done which is helpful.
 
We have gone for 8 nights and next trip is 9 nights. I honestly just don't have enough amusement park type clothes (nor space in our car for 5 people) to NOT do laundry. We go in June..you can't rewear your clothes the next day unless you wash.
 
I always do laundry at least once, sometimes twice. We don't do short trips, and we may have been travelling anywhere from 3-7 days before we even get to WDW. Its no big deal to throw in a couple of loads when we come back to the resort for an afternoon break.
 
We’re DVC members, so we have the convenience of in room laundry, and will usually do two or three loads during a one week stay (family of three). When we go on a non-Disney trip, we just over pack and deal with all of the laundry when we get home.
 
Nope, don't do it and don't cook and don't take snacks and food to have in my room (unless a bottle of wine counts). I'm on vacation and darn it I'm vacationing. I do rinse out bathing suits if we use them and hang them on a chair on the balcony or in shower but we always take at least two so they don't have to be worn the next time we go to the pool. We've stayed in DVC villas a few times and as close as I come to cooking is making a pot of coffee or heating up leftover cake in the microwave (that is pretty much all the cooking I do at home too, DH cooks most of the time, he works from home I work outside the home). We have stayed in condos twice on dive trips and I did do a load of suits and t-shirts every night, just because it was 4 of us and with luggage restrictions flying, we just didn't have enough room. Usually it takes a big bag for our gear then DH and I have to share a bag for our clothes and put other gear in our carryons. My son and DIL did the same thing. I have enough suits to go on a five day trip without washing but DH doesn't and he goes through at least 3 t-shirts a day just because they get wet on the boats and we usually do two dives in the morning and two in the afternoon then he has to wear something at night (I refuse to let him walk around the condo nekid). Even then we don't cook at the condo, we go out to eat, although we might make sandwiches for lunch since there isn't usually a lot of time between dives.
 
I just can't bring myself to do laundry on vacation - do too much of it at home.

Yes, I'm with you, figmentmommy:laundy:For me, a vacation is not doing laundry, not cooking, just enjoying myself not doing what I normally do all the rest of the year! There's only 2 adults, so, it's a nobrainer for me. I can understand families needing to do laundry, though. We usually go for 9 or 10 days and I take 2 huge suitcases packed with 2 days extra for each of us. No carryons or backpacks on the plane. We don't like to mess with them. I take my huge purse and put it in a huge tote with items we need while on the plane and maybe when we get to our Disney resort.
I guess we just like to get away from all the cooking, driving, laundry, everyday tasks at our ages. My husband hates to drive in Florida, so using DME is a must and he thoroughly enjoys using Disney transportation and not fighting traffic.
I know my outlook is different than most on here, but we are only 2 adults and this works for us!
 
We're staying DVC this trip and I understand we get free laundry! We're also taking a longer trip than last time and returning to work the day after our (12 hr) travel day. So, we'll be doing laundry for the first time! I'd love to go home with no dirty laundry, but I think that might be too much. I'll do as much laundry as possible with the goal being nothing dirty going home. It would make our week back so much easier!
 


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