We Came Home With Less Luggage Than We Went With

(Just finished editing photos and found

this one--Who is imitating who?)

Yep, we came home with less luggage than what we went with on our 7th trip to Walt Disney World. I’m not talking about less bags to check, but I am talking about 1 less suitcase—a carry on size suitcase.




You see, we checked 3 suitcases for the flight to Orlando—one per person. Since we used a free upgrade to “Business Class” with our A+ rewards for the flight down, there was no baggage fee. Yeah! So, we only paid to check the bags once--the return flight. We each had a “personal bag”, plus I was toting a carry-on sized rolling suitcase. It had our pins and lanyards, refillable mugs, reindeer and Santa hats for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, a backpack to carry stuff to the parks, raingear, a change of clothes for the boy should there be messes for the flight down, and our jammies for the night in case the luggage delivery to the room was very late.



In one of the checked bags was the husband’s Mountain Dew supply for the trip--one bottle per day that we stored in the refrigerator in our room. (Disney has only Coke products.) Once those were gone, along with the small boxes of cereal, granola bars, fruit snacks, and juice boxes, we had more room in the luggage.



Also, the shorts and sandals I packed for the boy were on their last leg so to speak. They were the ones that he would definitely outgrow by next summer. When he took them off at the end of the day, they didn’t go into the laundry basket and we didn’t bring them back with us. So, we had even more room in the luggage.



When we repacked to go home, the carry-on suitcase went into the larger suitcase and all of our stuff fit into the three bags—including our souvenirs!



One suitcase held the left over clean clothes and toiletry items. Another had the dirty laundry basket. (We take a pop-up laundry basket to put in the room and the basket fit right into the suitcase.) The third bag had the extra carry-on bag, its stuff, and the souvenirs.



While we aren’t yet travel experts, we have learned a thing or two during our many trips. Please share any packing or travel tips that work for you!