By Danna Inglee + Christina DesAuguste

About Danna: Mom of triplets (plus one!), cancer survivor, and encouragement expert. Danna is sincere, compassionate, and thoughtful. She is especially passionate about helping seniors, and others, organize their paperwork and affairs so that they are prepared in case of emergency or passing. She’s based in Parker and serves as far south as Colorado Springs.

Christina is the founder and CEO of The Organizing Company. She’s been organizing professionally since 2013. She has a background working with kids and teenagers, as well as in retail.

Things are calming down (maybe?) with the Coronavirus and limited cruise and vacation opportunities are popping back up. If you’re planning (or just daydreaming about) a getaway, make sure you check out Part One on this topic, which focuses more on what to pack. In Part Two we’re going to focus more on how to organize your stuff once you’re there.

When you arrive at the ship, all of your luggage will be tagged with your room number and name, and then be taken from you. You will be directed to explore the ship, get a drink, join the fun, but you will be without your luggage (and your carryon luggage if it has wheels) for several hours until they get everything delivered to the appropriate rooms. Because of that, you’ll want to have a smaller bag with your medications, important papers, passports, maybe a swimsuit or change of clothing in it, anything you may need over the next 2-3 hours before they get your luggage delivered to your room.

Just because you are on a huge, beautiful ship does NOT mean that your room is huge as well. If you are in an inside room, you will see that it is smaller than a hotel room, with no window and no natural light. When you turn the light off in the room, it will be pitch black, just like it is at night. So, for an inside room, you are going to want to have one (or two) plug in night lights so you can see to walk to the bathroom if needed at night. If you are in a balcony room, a Jr. suite, or a full suite, you will have much more room to walk around, and at least 1 window or a sliding door, so it’s much easier to get natural light. We were in a Jr. suite with a balcony – which means that we had a queen bed, 1 couch with a full-sized pull out bed, and a balcony. The closet and cabinet spaces were the same as the smaller rooms. In the full suites, you may have more room in your closet, but not all ships will add closet space, so it’s not a guarantee.

Here are your options for organizing your clothes in the room:

· You will have a very small closet (maybe 5ft. of space) to hang your clothes. One single long hang bar. About 8-10 hangers, some with pant bars, some without.

· There will also be a small built-in floor to ceiling cabinet that has 4 shelves and a safe. It’s approximately 12 inches wide, so by shelves I mean cubbies.

· On either side of your bed there should be a small nightstand with either 1 or 2 drawers in it.

That’s pretty much it.

Here’s your “plan of attack”:

· If you have to share those few hangers, try to hang the outfits (so, top and bottoms together) you will be wearing LATER in the week on the hangers first. Then, hang the clothes that you will be wearing EARLIER in the week OVER the other clothes, thereby using the same hangers for 2 days of clothing. If you need to rewear outfits (laundry services are available), after you wear the outfit on the top, take the bottom outfit off, put the worn one back on the hanger first, and then put the unworn outfit on top. Yes, this takes planning ahead and deciding which clothes will be worn on which days. However, if you change your mind on Wednesday as to which outfit you will wear, it’s not difficult to just switch the outfits around . . . So, that’s what you can do for those hanging items. Bring a large white trash bag for each person to put their dirty clothes in if you aren’t going to do laundry on the ship. This will keep your suitcase a little cleaner on the way home. You can even store it in your suitcase for the remainder of the trip.

· For the clothing that can be folded; jeans, shorts, t-shirts, workout clothes, etc., those will need to go onto the shelves (or cubbies). This is where knowing origami comes in handy. But if you don’t know it, you can use the same decision-making skills you used with your hanging clothes. Items that you will be wearing first can go on top of the folded stack, those will you will wear last will be on the bottom of the stack. Once you wear an item, simply lift up the stack from the bottom and slide the used one in. If you have a travel partner with you, you could designate which shelves are theirs and which are yours.

When folding your clothing to fit into the cubbies, here are some suggestions to make the most of the space:

-Try rolling your t-shirts and then stacking the rolls. You could also roll your PJs, men’s underwear, socks, even your jeans if needed.

-Or, if you need to keep your shirts folded so they won’t get as wrinkled, you could try folding them to be the EXACT size of the bottom of the cubby. This will make them as thin as possible and allow you to use the space in the most efficient manner as possible.

· Now, for those few small drawers. They are best saved for your very small items, such as undies, socks, lingerie, and hosiery. Men can probably put all of their underwear and socks in 1 drawer. If you are taking several workout outfits, you may want to use the drawers instead of the cubbies as workout clothing tends to be “slick” and doesn’t want to stay folded very well.

For toiletries: I recommend packing in a hanging toiletry bag that you can grab from and replace items easily while it hangs from the back of the door, etc in the bathroom. But if there’s enough counter space, it’s always nice to set things out where they’re easier to use.

Bonus tip from Christina:

Have a go-bag. I spent my honeymoon (one year ago on May 25th!) on the island of Moorea in French Polynesia. If you know Tahiti or Bora Bora, it’s an island nestled in between those. Here’s a little taste of it.

It was a week of laying on the beach/by the pool, going on water and land excursions, and exploring the tiny “town center”. I had a go-bag that made it easy to get ready for whatever adventure (or poolside nap) awaited us. This applies to both beach vacations and cruise vacations.

You can pack a bag ( it can be a beach bag, a daypack backpack, or for some days: a wet bag for jet ski/boat trips) with some essentials so you don’t have to go back to your room every time you need something during the day. Your wallet can stay in the safe most of the time, but you can pack your usual purse essentials: phone (and waterproof pouch), ear buds, sunglasses, chapstick/lipstick, Germ X/Wet Ones, tissue, feminine products just in case, Ibuprofen, and any emergency meds you should keep on hand (ie migraine blockers, inhaler, etc). I also pack a water bottle and sunscreen (face and body) in my go-bag. For days on the cruise/at the resort, you might even throw in a swimsuit, cover up, and sunhat to make a quick change between events. For excursion days on land I still bring the water bottle and sunscreen, and remember to grab my wallet. Depending on where you are, you may want to pack bug spray in your excursion go-bag as well.

It’s nice to keep the small toiletry/personal items in a smaller pouch(es) so you can change it from bag to bag easily. You’ll probably want to take a day pack or purse on a land excursion instead of a beach bag or wet bag. So you can just grab the pouch(es), move them to the new bag, and be on your way. You may want to keep electronics in a separate waterproof bag/pouch, which will also keep your waterproof phone pouch corralled when not in use. I use this system with my everyday purse and work bag in regular life too. It makes it so easy to switch purses/laptop bags and stay organized.

That’s it! Hopefully this can serve as a checklist of sorts for you to prepare for your cruise or beach vacation so you can spend your time relaxing instead of stressing over misplaced or forgotten items.

Happy Organizing + Vacationing!

Danna, Christina, + The Organizing Company Team