A traveling Mom’s tip: Laundry
by Anne Larison
We have been fortunate enough to have taken a few trips lasting 10 days or longer. Rather than try to pack enough clothes for a family of 4 for 2 weeks, I have taken on the task I prefer not to do on vacation – laundry.
I have done laundry in a deluxe resort at Disneyland as well as on a luxury cruise liner. It didn’t put a crimp in my vacations and being organized made the task fairly simple.
When I know that I will be visiting the laundry room on whatever trip we are planning I prepare with a few essentials:
Pre-measured laundry soap. I use ziplock top snack bags to hold the amount of laundry soap for an average size load. This is both convenient and saves money. Those little boxes of soap sold in laundry rooms can be expensive. I usually take a few more bags than I think I’ll need. It doesn’t add much to the weight of my suitcase. I put all the little bags into one large, gallon size ziplock bag.
Dryer sheets. I will take several dryer sheets in a snack bag for the same reasons stated above.
Roll of quarters. Taking my own roll of quarters saves time, when I don’t have to visit the front desk or purser’s desk seeking change for the machines.
A good book. Whether I get to the laundry room early in the morning or late in the evening, I can kill some waiting time reading while the boys rev up or wind down from the days fun back in the room.
Doing laundry on a trip can be as easy as 1-2-3!
Happy Travels!
Doing laundry on the Disney Wonder isn’t so bad. We put a load in to wash and went to eat lunch at Beach Blanket Buffet. I made a note of the time so we could return to put the load into a dryer and went up to deck 4 to enjoy the view and the wonderful deck chairs. My girls even did their homework while the laundry was getting done.
As a mom to 6 I can so relate to HAVING to do laundry on vacation. Imagine the amount of suitcases with 13 days worth of clothes for 8 people.
Anyway, I just wanted to offer up the fact that laundry detergent also comes in the form of tabs. I believe the company is Wisk, but don’t quote me on that. Anyway, they come already wrapped, so it is a small convience before the trip, since you don’t have to spend time measureing out your detergent.
I used the Whisk tabs a few yrs. ago. I tried to get them again this year, but was told by the manufacturer (P & G ithink) that they no longer make them. I was very dissapointed as the tabs are so much better in traveling, nothing to spill or bags of detergent to break open. My local drug store, CVS has a section with travel sizes of everything and pouches of liquid detergent are available there. A little heavier, but very convenient.
Don’t forget that some of the cruise lines do the laundry for you. Stuff as much as you can into one of their laundry bags and it even comes back ironed!! I think on our Holland America trip it was only $12 per bag- which may add up for those of you with large families- but at least it doesn’t cut into vacation time!