Yes, yes, I know, I have already written a extremely long blog post expounding in great detail about *all* of the things that one might need to pack for any length of cruise. And when I wrote it we were preparing for a 15-Night Hawaii cruise, so those were the parameters in which I was working, 15 days seemed like an eternity to be away–well for this country girl anyway.  Admittedly, there is a plethora of information in that one post and it might be a smidge over-whelming. 😉  All that said, since most of our cruises are 7 day adventures, in this new “Series” I want to show how I’m planning to downsize that extreme list and share how I am going to try like crazy to consolidate everything into one large suitcase.  In that other blog monstrosity, I covered “What’s In My Carry-On Bag”, tons of “Must Haves”, and I even included my “Packing Tips & Tricks”.  I thought it was time to break up the monotony of that long post into several separate, shorter, more succinct, and a bit easier to peruse through posts, especially since I’m going to be downsizing the amount of ‘stuff’ I take which will work well for a 8 day cruise–yes, I do count embarkation day as Day 1 and disembarkation day as Day 8–I’m talking Saturday to Saturday cruises here (or whatever other day of the week a cruise starts on and ends on exactly a week later).  For Hawaii, I took a small’ish’ Spinner suitcase ***just*** for my “Must Have” items.  Here is how that suitcase looked right before I closed it up:

Whew–I took A LOT on that cruise…I will admit though, I did utilize every single item I took. BUT, my goal is to downsize a bit considering 8 days isn’t that long to be gone, so,  I have gathered the following items to take along with us on our next cruise which will be to Canada & New England on the gorgeous Regal Princess this Fall.   So let’s get started.

Disinfectant Wipes:

The very first thing that we do when we enter our Stateroom is to wipe down all surfaces, door knobs/handles, the telephone, the tv remote, the balcony railing, etc…

Hand Soap:

Bar Soap:

We do not care for the shower gel that they provide in pumps in the shower, so we bring our own favorite bar soap…

Odor Eliminating Spray:

 I think the reason that I take this is obvious… *wink*…

(there are no exhaust fans in the bathrooms on a cruise ship)…

I never use Tums off of a cruise, but I always use Tums while on a cruise…

A Pop-Up Folding Laundry Hamper

This fits nicely into the Stateroom’s closet and collects all of the dirty laundry so that it is not spread all over the floor–Compact to pack too…

Clothes Peg Clip Pins

I mostly use these to hang up my shower cap on one of the towel racks inside the shower, but, they could also come in handy to hang things up on their provided clothing line (that is located in the shower–you can pull it out from a receptacle on the shower wall and attach it to the other end of the shower–I’ll show you a picture below:

Here is that clothesline:

I always take my own hairdryer,  yes, Princess does provide a hairdryer in every room, but, for my hair which is fine but rather thick, well, it just doesn’t do the job in a timely fashion.  

Here is the hair dryer Princess provides on all ships I’ve been on so far:

(I do hear that on the Royal and Regal, there is a hair dryer in the drawer at the desk, I’ll let y’all know when we get back from our cruise how that puppy works)

Tide Pods and Downy Dryer Sheets:

Yes, I normally will do laundry onboard, yes, even on a 8-day cruise, so I throw a few pods and some dryer sheets into a zip-lock bag because they don’t take up much room or add much weight and I’d rather our clothes smell like I like them to smell rather than how they smell using the products that you can get on the ship…

Here are the laundry rooms on board the Star Princess’ Dolphin deck, most of the laundry facilities on board are pretty much the same and are on several of the Stateroom decks (check your ship’s deck plans to find specific locations for laundry facilities).  On the Coral’s Dolphin Deck the washers and dryers were stacked, on the Star they weren’t.   You use your cruise card to purchase tokens, one color of token that will start the washer and dryer and if you choose to purchase their products, another color token can be used in the vending machines–See pictures below:

Magnet Clips

The walls in the Staterooms are metal–I usually will hang up the day’s Patter or my Card Lanyard, etc…

A Flashlight

Just in case we lose electricity, one never knows you know…

Scissors

Travel Illuminated Clock

I like to be able to see what time it is if I happen to wake up in the middle of the night…

Sewing Kit

Zip-Lock Bags

We purchased these coffee, and in my case, tea thermos cups on board our last couple of cruises.  Chris is so sweet, every morning, he takes these cups and goes and gets me hot tea and himself a cup of coffee from the Horizon Court’s self serve counter.

Now, I know y’all are going to chuckle at me with this next item, but, I usually will take a small bottle of dawn with us so that I can wash up those cups each day–Yeah, my anal retentiveness rearing its ugly head…;) 

And believe it or not all of that stuff (minus the cups and the hair dryer) fit inside this Vera Bradley Grand Cosmetic Bag and will fit into my one large suitcase (hopefully, the jury is still out on whether or not I can fit everything into one large suitcase; if necessary I will add one Vera Bradley Weekender Bag).

BTW–As an extra precaution, I will put any bottle that could potentially leak into ziplock bags before placing them in my Vera Bags.  Even though the Vera’s are lined and I doubt if leaks would escape, I don’t want to take the chance. 🙂

Now to finish up this post, there are two other things that I always take with us…

 Small first-aid kit

And

A grab bag with different OTC medications, these things can cost you a pretty penny if you go to buy them at the Sundries shop on board, so I just take a smattering of things, pain relievers, cold meds, anti-nausea meds (we’ve never been sea-sick, but, this girl likes to be prepared) That Vera Bradley bag is a Large Cosmetic Case:

Well, that does it, I feel pretty good that I’ve been able to downsize the amount of items that I’m planning to take with us on our 8-day Canada and New England cruise.

I’m trying to wrap my mind around what other smaller more succinct posts to create, I do know that I will be doing these specific posts moving through the next several days/week:

• What’s In My Carry-On
• Tech’y’ Stuff
• Packing Tips & Tricks

Beyond that, well, we’ll see what I come up with…haha. 🙂

Until next time, y’all take good care!! ❤

~Arlynn ❤