Packing tips?

When my boys were small I used to make an outfit package putting the shorts, underwear and socks in a pile and wrapping it with the shirt. They were able to grab the pile and have everything in one spot.

Good idea. That's exactly what I was looking for. They are older but I can't be looking for clothes for 5 kids when we need to be at rope drop...LOL!!:mickey:

We used the same type of idea, but put a complete outfit for each day in a gallon size baggie. I labeled each baggie with the kiddo's name. You could also put days of the week, so there is no decision making necessary at all. (And we saved our labeled baggies, just keep them in a suitcase when we're home, have reused many times.)

Another intercot tip I used on our first trip - get an over-the-door shoe organizer for the bathroom and keep all your toiletries in it at the resort.

Good luck!

When my kids were young I did the Ziploc bag thing too. I would make sure everything they needed for each day was in a bag and I labeled each bag by day. All they had to do was find the bag and dress.

As they got a bit older I would take about 30 minutes on arrival night to hang their clothes in the closet area. I would bring hangers from home that had clips on them. I would clip the shorts/pants, hang the shirt on top, put the socks in the pants pocket, and hang their under clothes around the neck of the hanger. As their clothes got bigger I found it got too wrinkled in the Ziploc bags.

Now that they are teens they can handle getting dressed in time on their own.

My strategy is similar to the others offered. When they were young, I put an entire outfit in a ziploc bag. Now that they're all older, I pack a little differently. I roll their clothes (top and bottom) together. I put their socks in a gallon ziploc bag and their undies/bras in another one. I sit on the bag to zip it (to remove the air). It stays flat until we open it at the resort. I don't generally take clothes for the kids that need to be hung. If we're traveling for more than a couple of days, I pack a collapsable clothes hamper. Otherwise we use plastic trash bags to collect our dirty clothes.

I have a small carry-on suitcase that houses our toiletries. It stays forever packed because we travel a lot. Because of this, I rarely forget any toiletries at home. Toothbrushes, in their own cases, are all in one bag. Shampoo and soap are in another. Toothpaste in a third and first-aid in a fourth. Then I have various bags with misc items (deodorant, hair bands, lotions, etc.). I also keep a multi-outlet extension cord in this suitcase. So many hotels don't offer enough outlets for today's digital age.

In the room, most kids use drawers and unpack almost immediately. I personally prefer to live out of the suitcase. I appreciate that Disney keeps the sinks outside the commode area. I generally take our toothbrushes/toothpaste and keep them in the ice bucket, at the sink. I like the idea of using a shoe organizer over the bathroom door for storage but I haven't used that tip yet.

The outfit in a bag is a great idea! I have another suggestion for you: Packing Cubes! The mesh packing cubes make it so easy to keep things separated and organized and are easy to pack and unpack. I usually just pull the cubes out of the suitcase and put them into the dresser drawers. You could keep each child's clothing separated and keep the baggage to a minimum using the packing cubes. ...just a thought.
Enjoy your trip!
:tink:
Julie

Another neat idea I saw on Pinterest is using a hanging sweater organizer in the closet area. Disney rooms don't have a ton of drawer space. The hanging organizers hang from the closet rod and have 4 or 5 "cubbies" that can be used in place of drawers.

I also have a method that makes packing to go home super easy. I am an "unpacker". When we arrive on vacation anywhere I take the time to unpack everything. I can't stand to live out of a suitcase. We stow away the luggage as best we can, leaving one suitcase out for use. Every night I take our dirty clothes and pack it back into the suitcase. Once it's full we zip it up, stow it away, and take out another empty suitcase. This way when it's time to go home everything is already packed up and ready to go.

We don't use the Ziploc bag idea but I do try to pack all outfits together. Space permitting (if the hotel room has enough drawer space- POR Alligator Bayou rooms were a little short on drawer space last trip) I move as much out of the suitcases as I can when we arrive. Then as the clothes get dirty, they all go back into the suitcase. It not only makes packing at the end of the trip much easier, but when we get home we usually have one or two suitcases that only have dirty clothes inside and one suitcase with whatever we didn't wear. All the dirty clothes can be taken straight to the laundry hamper and the clean clothes can be put away.