Disney Cruise Line Guest Letter About Stateroom Decorations and Over-the-door Hanging Organizers

Disney Cruise Line Guests will be greeted with the following letter in their staterooms:

Dear Guests,

We are glad that you have joined us aboard the Disney (Choose Ship)!

As you may be aware, it is important to us to keep our facilities looking their best for all our guests.  As part of our commitment to this area of focus, we ask that you do not affix anything to your stateroom door utilizing tape or any adhesive, including removable gel adhesives.  We have found that these adhesives damage the finish on our stateroom doors; therefore we ask that you limit door decoration to those of the magnetic variety.

Concurrently, we ask that guests not use over-the-door hanging organizers as they have been found to scratch and/or disfigure stateroom doors and trim.

Guests found with damaged doors are assessed a $100 damage fee per incident to cover the cost of repairs.

Your attention to this matter will greatly assist us in keeping our shipboard environment looking ship-shape.  Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact Guest Services, Deck 3 Mid-ship.

If interested, magnetic door decorations are available for purchase in our merchandise area.  For your convenience, magnetic strips are also available at Guest Services.

We appreciate your cooperation and hope you have an enjoyable sailing.

Sincerely,

What is the Williams Family “take away” from this letter?  We knew and understood the no adhesive rule for decorating stateroom doors—click here to read more—and had been following that rule since we started decorating our stateroom door.  Yet, still saw guests taping items on their doors or door frames.  The letter is a less confrontational way to remind guests of the rules rather than sending a stateroom steward to remind a guest. 

Having magnet strips available at Guest Services is a nice touch, though it doesn’t say if there is a charge for those strips or not.  If someone sails and obtains magnetic strips from Guest Services, please let me know if there is a fee.  I may want to take advantage of this particular service.

Offering guests the opportunity to purchase magnetic door decorations is also another great idea on Disney’s part.  I haven’t seen the selection but am various curious.  And now the dilemma. . . do we make our own door decorations and bring them with us or wait and purchase on board?

What strikes me as the most unique part of the letter is prohibiting the use of “over-the-door hanging organizers” which can be found as a traveling tip in almost any cruising guidebook to maximize storage space and help organize guest belongings.  We have used an over-the-door hanging shoe organizer for one trip to store toiletries on the top and shoes on the bottom.  Guests needing this type of system will now need to get creative and find a way to hang it in the closet.  Better yet, find a hanging organizer for use in a closet.  While those exist, they are more “shelf” like and would be okay, but the movement of ships and need to store smaller items other than just shoes may open the market for a hanging system ideal for a closet but with more pockets than shelves. 

I appreciate Disney Cruise Line being upfront and proactive by informing guests of the expectations.  I also appreciate how they offer guests an alternative such as being able to purchase door decorations or obtain magnet strips.  As always, Disney Cruise Line is finding ways to enhance the cruising experience which is one of the many reasons we keep coming back.

Have you cruised with Disney recently?  If so, did you receive this letter in your stateroom?

An Organized Resort Room Saves Valuable Time While On Vacation

With this much luggage and stuff, it is important that we keep our Walt Disney Resort room tidy and organized.  Since we want to be at the parks before rope drop, lack of organization in our resort room could cost us valuable time, and sometimes money.

The “everything has a place and everything in its place” motto is helpful in organizing a resort room.  The challenges are making the decisions about what place for items will be best—think about how you decide where things go in a kitchen when you move into a house or apartment—and then communicating those places to the rest of your traveling party so everyone knows.

Let’s start with shoes.  I don’t know about you, but our family—well, two out of the three—spend lots of time looking for shoes.  Mostly because they come off anywhere in the house and the boy’s could come off one at a time and in various locations.  In a resort room, shoes could end up under beds, etc.  So, we designate one space on the floor—usually between the dresser/hutch that holds the TV and the table—as the holder of the shoes.  It is just steps from the door.  Having everyone’s shoes easily accessible in the morning makes our trip out of the door more efficient.

Pajamas.  When returning to the resort after a long day of touring, the last thing I want to do is try to find things.  When we travel, we wear pajamas multiple nights, rather than a new set each night like we do at home.  So, pajamas get stored in the nightstand drawer.  They go off and get put in the drawer, so everyone can find them the next night.  Other items that get stored there include journals and books.

Needed items for park touring end up taking the table space in our resort room.  The power strip with all the chargers gets plugged in and placed on the table, so it is easy to grab the camera battery and charged cell phones from this location.  The park bag gets emptied each evening, with paperwork placed in one of the dresser/hutch drawers.  (I end up scooping all the receipts, park maps, etc, up and putting them in a Disney sack to make the trip home.)  Lanyards with Key to The World Cards are placed on top of the dresser/hutch for easy access.  Since the park touring bag is emptied each night when we return from the parks, it is easy to reload in the morning with needed items—ponchos, umbrellas, sunscreen, snacks, etc.

Food items.  We typically travel with some sort of easy breakfast items to eat in our resort room—small boxes of cereal, fruit bars, granola bars, pop tarts, juice boxes, and bottles of Mountain Dew for the husband.  In our room, the area on top of the mini-fridge becomes a mini kitchen.  Drinks go in the fridge and all snack/food items are stored on top.  This keeps everything together and easy to find.  I usually unpack all of these items upon our arrival at the resort so the next morning goes smoothly.  Having these items visible also helps in making decisions as to what to eat early in the morning.

Toiletries.  For whatever reason, we now travel with fewer items in this category than we used to.  We rely on the resort shampoos, soaps, and lotions.  The supply gets replenished daily and we bring extras home.  Toothbrushes and toothpaste get stored in a glass on the sink counter or, if available, the small shelf above the sink.  Vitamins, glasses and contacts equipment, deodorant, and hair products are stored visible and within reach on the “closet” shelf next to the sink.

Dirty clothes/laundry.  A pop-up mesh hamper with handles fits great in the zipper pocket on the inside lid of a suitcase.  We have two—a white one and a black one.  Depending on the length of our trip, we take one or two.  This pop-up hamper is set up near the sink area and all dirty clothes are placed in the hamper.  The hamper is then packed inside a suitcase—still containing the dirty clothes, for the trip home.  Yes, it fits!  When we get home, unzip the suitcase and carry the hamper along with the dirty laundry to the washer.  We have also used the two hampers to separate “lights” and “darks” on longer trips. (The handles come in handy if you want to do laundry while at your resort--click here to read more.)

Clean clothes stay in suitcases that are place strategically in the room.  I usually set up the ironing board and place at least one suitcase on top.  There are benches that hold the rest.  We typically have one suitcase for each of us.  Clothes for the day get laid out in the morning before I take a shower.  This way, the husband and the boy can start to get ready when I’m in the bathroom—they both shower at night.

I have also found that since I do the packing, I was the only person who knew where things were in the various bags and suitcases.  So now, I take the husband on a “tour” of our luggage before a trip.  This way, he and I both know where things are in the various bags and suitcases.  This reduces the number of questions like “where’s the camera” or “where are the snacks” while traveling to our destination and once we get to our destination.  I still haven’t “cured” him of asking the “did you pack the . . .” or “did you bring the . . .” questions once we get going in the car—but the “tour” of the luggage has helped!

Making your resort room space useable and efficient saves valuable time both at night and in the morning.  Being organized and sharing the organizational system with those in your traveling party saves searches for needed items and means less digging through various bags and suitcases.  You know what they say. . . time = money, and that is especially true for a Walt Disney World vacation.