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What size luggage do you bring?


itmustbeso
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Clearly my husband and I pack on the heavy side. I didn't realize this until now. Between the two of us, we've filled a nesting set of three hardside spinner luggage, plus we have a smaller bag each, for a 1 week cruise. We drive to the port. I bought cute orange luggage to match my orange car. Probably not the best criteria.

Edited by sockmonkeygirl
Added length of cruise
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Clearly my husband and I pack on the heavy side. I didn't realize this until now. Between the two of us, we've filled a nesting set of three hardside spinner luggage, plus we have a smaller bag each, for a 1 week cruise. We drive to the port. I bought cute orange luggage to match my orange car. Probably not the best criteria.

 

There's nothing wrong with that, if you're OK with it (i.e. either you're willing to carry it yourself or hire someone to do so). Some people think there's virtue in traveling light, but it's not better (or worse) -- just a different choice. When I drive to jobs out of town I take far more (and am more comfortable) than when I fly out of town for work.

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We've had every size of luggage and duffels and for us a Heys 24" hard side spinner is the best of the lot. It's expandable and when fully packed and expanded it weighs very close to 50lbs. My DW always tend to overpack the 28" spinner on the return trips and we have to do the shuffle at the airport.

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Take the size of luggage that you can physically handle. We just disembarked from a 14 day cruise. We noticed a number of people with multiple cases that simply could not handle their own luggage. They had too many cases and were herding them like cattle. Or their case was so large and so heavy (for them) that it was a physical challenge.

 

Assume that the wheel(s) are broken or that you have yo physically carry your bag. Then decide what size is best for you and how much you should pack.

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We usually take 2 large suitcases and 2 personal items on our usual 9 - 11 day cruises when not flying to a port. (Need for our own snorkel equipment, etc)

 

Recently did a Windsurf cruise out of St. Martin which required connecting flights and customs so we only took two carry-on suitcases that met airline regulations and 2 personal items and took ship's laundry package. That worked out okay as far as clothing needs, but we missed having our own snorkeling stuff and disliked pushing the carryon's around with us. We also didn't have room for inexpensive souvenirs.

 

Would not do carry-on's again except for short weekend trips and definitely will try to avoid connecting flights.

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What each one of us does is sort of irrelevant and each cruise can be very different. Here are some factors:

 

How many climate/temp changes will you have to deal with? For ex, if you are going from Miami to a Baltic cruise, you have to have two seasons of clothing.

 

Where are you going? Cool weather cruises to Canada, Alaska, Northern Europe require heavier and more items for layering.

 

What are your physical limitations? Smaller luggage for those who can't tote their own. You can always pay someone to help, but there are often times that you need to carry things yourself or you have to wait a long time for help.

 

When are you going to do laundry? If you can afford to cruise, you can afford the laundry fee onboard.

 

Learn to select some clothing just for cruising. This makes planning so much easier and packing lighter.

 

How many connections do you have to make while flying? In 2014, we had a few connections in Europe and each time we had to retrieve our luggage, go to a different terminal and check in our luggage again. This taught us to do research as it was the first time we experienced this as we thought that booking the whole flight together wouldn't require us to do this.

 

Like the others said, learn to pack light and be discerning.

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I am NOT a frequent traveller and being a nurse, tend to pack for every contingency.

 

For nearly all trips, I use my 30" American Tourister spinner. About 8 years old and no breaks. I bought a scale and always have to remove something to get it down to allowed weight. (I've never used packing cubes and can't imagine how they help, but they must be some good to someone or so many people wouldn't use them.)

 

Upcoming trips:

 

DEN-IAH for nephew's wedding. It's just for 2 days so DH and I are going to try to share my suitcase. Should be interesting. Don't plan to bring a carryon, just a personal item for each of us.

 

DEN-SEA for an Alaska cruise. Can't wait! I'll take my big spinner and my carryon-sized laptop bag, which I can also cram meds and a change of clothes into. DH will take his Texas-sized duffle (which he is never overweight on, I hate him) and of course we will both have personal items.

 

That works for us. YMMV.

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We take two 26" expandable soft-siders, and each of us has a backpack that stays with us during travel so we know we'll have our meds (plus a change of undies if delays occur). Princess has self-service laundry facilities on each cabin-deck so it's easy to fling in a load when needed - particularly on day-1 if we've spent a few days traveling/playing tourist before the cruise. On our Celebrity Cruise we used the laundry service which was more expensive than self-service, but we didn't need to watch the clock to move a load from the washer to dryer so not a big deal. I realized I usually packed too much and often came home with something I never wore or only wore once. Now we lay our clothing out a few days before travel to get a better visual on how much we want to pack and start removing "impulse" or non-essentials from the pile. We also bought a digital luggage travel scale so we can weigh each suitcase, which is also helpful before you head out the door.

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So, my boyfriend and I just got back from my first cruise! He ended up needing a lot more space than I did. The majority of what I brought was in my 22" carry-on that I purchased, though there were some "overflow" items that I absolutely could not fit such as my snorkel mask and an extra pair of jeans, which I packed into his luggage. (After the cruise, I would say pair #2 was unnecessary because I only ever wore jeans on cooler nights.) His clothes just took up a lot more space than mine did, as I'm a women's small and he's a men's large, and because he sweats a lot he wanted to bring more clothes than I did.

 

What we ended up with was my 22" carry-on, my large laptop-bag-sized-purse, his backpack, then he had a couple of pieces of checked luggage in addition to that, including one ginormous 30" or so suitcase. I may just plan to do laundry next time so that we don't have to lug that thing around.

 

I'd say that with snorkel equipment, and not doing laundry, AND needing to allot more space for formal wear (heels take up more space), it was inevitable that I wouldn't be able to fit everything into my carry-on. It wasn't so bad, though, since we had plenty of room for souvenirs to take back.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Are you always able to do curbside check-in with that much luggage? If not, how do you do it since IIRC you use a rollator. I doubt you can put all of it on the rollator to push.

 

My husband walks slowly with a cane and cannot pull a wheeled suitcase. He even has difficulty pushing a spinner. This has severely limited what we bring on our cruise since like you we also must do pre and post flight hotels and don't cruise for less than 14 days. Since he can't help with suitcases just his carryon backpack and I am carrying his CPAP and my purse as well as my backpack, one suitcase is all I can handle since, unless we are flying Southwest, there is no curbside check in. I must bring it to the counter. Using a spinner helps but I tried pushing two spinners and it was extremely difficult, even with fastening the CPAP to one of them. So on the next cruise we limited our packing to one spinner and the backpack carryons. I'd love to bring a second suitcase. How do you do it?

 

I have two bad knees and at times my back flares up so I occasionally use a cane. When we fly we now send our large luggage ahead to either the ship or the hotel we stay at pre-cruise.(LUGGAGE FORWARD)

 

All we have to worry about at the airports are our roll small roll ons, with our valuables and stuff we don't want to lose..

 

If no hotel pre-cruise the bag or bags go right to the ship and appear at our stateroom door..

With a pre-cruise stay the bags are sent to the hotel and when we leave for the cruise a bell hop gets it to the shuttle or cab and the porters take care of it at the dock.

 

When returning we PRAY that they have Luggage Valet and if not we make sure to have porters do most of the handling.

 

Not the cheapest but keeps me from winding up hobbling around in ports and on the ship.

 

We usually have one 28inch bag loaded right to the 50 pound limit (get a baggage scale)

and send out laundry at least once for our 12-14 day cruise ? hotel vacations..

 

bosco

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Actually, packing cubes organized your suitcase. You can use one for pants, outfits and one for shirts,etc. it was unbelievable how much I packed and did not leave anything out. A backpack was used for other things for easy access. On our cruise to Europe, we will do the same thing. If you stay at a hotel that has laundry facilities, that would help. Local laundry mats are great as well. Just saying. We are an older couple so a carry on is the only way we travel.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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  • 2 months later...

We bought new luggage before our last cruise. We each got a 25" soft side and it seems to be the perfect size. We've downsized our packing a bit. We used to bring 28" and they were just too big, and it was hard to make sure to stay under the 50 lb. limit. Also, DH didn't like having to lift it in and out of the trunk of the car. The 25" was easy to schlep around the airport, I can lift it up stairs myself, and we never worried about going over the weight limit.

Also, we like to do self-assist debarkation, and these bags were a breeze.

We only bring personal items as carry ons, no additional bags. We might end up bringing a third bag when we go on our British Isles cruise in a couple of years, but we'll see.

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I know no one wants to see this, but I traveled London & Paris for 2 weeks. I packed everything in a duffel bag and a stewardess roll on. I NEVER check luggage. End of this month I am sailing on NCL Sky to Cuba. Again, will pack a duffel bag and a backpack.

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I know no one wants to see this, but I traveled London & Paris for 2 weeks. I packed everything in a duffel bag and a stewardess roll on. I NEVER check luggage. End of this month I am sailing on NCL Sky to Cuba. Again, will pack a duffel bag and a backpack.

I think a lot of people like traveling that way, though saying it's a "duffel bag" doesn't mean much. A duffel bag can be anywhere from 12" long to 38" long.

 

 

Personally, I can travel with nothing more than a carry-on knapsack, but I don't like to ;)

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I think a lot of people like traveling that way, though saying it's a "duffel bag" doesn't mean much. A duffel bag can be anywhere from 12" long to 38" long.

 

 

Personally, I can travel with nothing more than a carry-on knapsack, but I don't like to ;)

 

Ha ha ha .... clearly the duffel is the legal size for a carry on for the airlines. Delta stipulates 22" duffel, I carry a 20" duffel. I could travel in just a knapsack, but others wouldn't care for that. There wouldn't be enough clean clothes and not enough time on the cruise to have laundry done ....

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I'm always somewhere in the middle. I want what I want but I don't want to lug around a huge suitcase.

 

So I carry a 21 inch or a 24 inch (depending on length and weather) and one smaller tote-bag style under seat roller bag. This combo serves me well and I can get a whole bunch of clothes in those 2 bags. And why not? Between the 2 it's like have a bag that's nearly 40 inches! Only easier to carry.

 

To me the real key is not what you bring or what you carry it in, but how you pack it. Cubes are great. To those who questioned them it's like this: you roll your clothes up real tight and put them in a cube, you then zip the cube shut and your tightly packed clothes stay tightly packed. Lets you get all those clothes into a smaller bag. You can use Ziploc bags the same way.

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Since we live in Fl it doesn't matter how much we pack. We each have two large suitcases 25 - 26 or so inches and each have a hang up bag. We only use carry-ons for important things like computer, passports, camera etc. We usually pull right up to the curb and drop off all our luggage to the porters, then park the car. At the end of the trip the first thing we do when we leave the ship is wave down another porter and have him take us through customs with our luggage piled on his cart. We have slowly not packed as much as we use to pack as we now have free laundry.

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