Updated January 15, 2024.
We have a 3-week vacation to London that will include a Disney Cruise booked for this summer. I am attempting to keep our packing light, by travelling with just carry-on luggage. Since we are travelling light we are only bringing packing essentials for our trip, and yes we are still participating in the Fish Extender gift exchange. These are our six Disney Cruise Line packing essentials.
Pop-up Laundry Basket
Our first essential packing item is a pop-up laundry basket—it is so helpful for keeping your stateroom neat. While Disney staterooms are a decent size they are not huge. We keep a pop-up laundry basket in the closet and it is easy to carry down to the laundry room. I know some of you are thinking there is no way I am doing laundry on vacation. Normally I would agree with you, but I am also not willing to carry 3 weeks worth of clothes. In fact, I am unsure if any of us have enough clothes to go 3 weeks without doing laundry—lol.
Night Light
Next on our list of essential packing items is a night light. When the curtains are closed a DCL stateroom is dark, you realize how dark when you attempt to use the bathroom in the middle of the night without waking everyone else up. The lights for the bathroom are located outside, in the hall, making it difficult to turn them on without flooding the rest of the room in some light. A battery-operated tea light or button light solves that problem. You can turn it on before you go to sleep in the bathroom and it will give you enough light for those late-night trips to the loo.
Toilet Odour Eliminator
Keeping with the bathroom theme, with the close quarters in the room I would recommend using one of the new lines of toilet odour eliminators. They do a better job of keeping things fresh than an air freshener. There are several different products available and they come in a small enough size to bring in your carry-on.
Wrinkle Release
Our next packing essential is wrinkle release. It will help save you from the line-up before dinner to iron your clothes in the laundry room. Lightly spray your clothes while you are unpacking, hang in the closet, and they will be ready for formal night. Don’t worry though there are irons available in the laundry rooms or you can send your items out to be pressed.
International USB Hub
There are a limited number of outlets in the Disney Cruise cabins, so finding space to charge all of your devices can be challenging. A USB adapter gives you the extra ports to charge your devices. Using an international adapter allows you to use either the North American or European outlets.
Autograph Book
Our final packing essential is an autograph book. The number and variety of characters available to meet on cruises seem to have decreased over the years, but there are still lots of opportunities to meet your favourite characters. An autograph book for character signatures is a great keepsake of your trip.
I usually design an autograph book for my daughter using photographs from previous vacations and autograph cards. I have it printed with Picaboo or Shutterfly. You can use your favourite photo-book printer.
Here are a couple of other autograph keepsake ideas I have seen. Have the character sign 4×6 cards and you can put them in a photo album with the pictures taken at the character meet. Some people bring photo mattes, pillowcases, or wooden anchors to have signed. They are all great souvenirs from your cruise.
What are your Disney Cruise Line packing essentials?
Those are our six Disney Cruise Line packing essentials
Keep checking back to hear how our vacation planning is going. We have bought new carry-on luggage and packing cubes. I am hoping that will make my light packing plan become a reality.
Interested to see how our 3-weeks of travelling went? You can read about our trip. I have posted about our planning, travelling to London, our first day in London, visiting the Borough Market, visiting the British Museum and Tour for Muggles, and the Tower of London. As well as stateroom tours of our secret porthole rooms 6006 and 5520.
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