It’s no secret that our family goes to Disney a lot. It is also no secret that the value rooms at a Disney hotel can be cramped for a family of four. (I always recommend my clients stay at a moderate.) But for our last family trip, my kids wanted to stay at Art of Animation in a Little Mermaid room. Personally, Ariel is not my favorite Disney princess, but my kids L-O-V-E her. (#teambelle) So, I booked a 7-night, 8-day stay at Art of Animation last summer.
Our last family trip had been pre-closure, and we stayed at Port Orleans Riverside. Those rooms are larger, but we also had a pack n play on that trip, so it made the room seem cramped. Keeping this in mind, I began to think and research ways to make our space neater and more organized for our extended stay.
Now, to have a neat and orderly room, one might think that you need a ton of extra stuff. Cue the trips to the Dollar Store to buy all the bins! Ok, I kid, but in all seriousness, I only brought three extra items, and it made our stay more enjoyable. Here is a list of the three items I brought with us:
- A pop-up laundry basket
- A shoe basket
- An over-the-door or rack shoe hanger.
Now, here is how I used them:
To put stuff in. No, seriously. Those shoe hangers have TONS of little pockets to organize things in. And, did you know that all of the resorts have laundry facilities? For this reason, I only pack five outfits per person. We always schedule a resort day. We use this day to sleep late, hang out by the pool and do laundry. Most of the laundry facilities are near a pool. You can hang out by the pool while your clothes are being laundered. I used the pop-up hamper for laundry. The hamper not only kept our room picked up, but it made taking the laundry to and from the laundry facilities super easy! (Yes, they do have a service where they will wash your clothes for you. But that costs a lot of money.) Washing our clothes didn’t cost more than $10, a small price to pay for packing light.
Like most people, we have a designated area for our shoes at home. I decided to bring one shoe basket from home on this last trip. Instead of having shoes flying around the room, or tripping over them, or making our attempt to rope-drop virtually impossible because we can’t find my son’s one missing shoe (I know parents can relate!). I decided that everyone would take off their shoes at the door and put them in the shoe basket. It was very familiar for the kids to do this, and it made it very convenient to find our shoes.
Lastly, if you have ever been in a hotel with your family of four for any length of time, you are aware that stuff gets lost, and counters get cluttered. On this trip, as I mentioned above, I bought inexpensive over-the-rack shoe hangers for all the little odds and ends. I had one that held all of our toiletries items, hairbrushes, ponytail holders, vitamins, chargers for our electronics, and magic bands. In the other one, I organized our food. Yes, we brought food, well, had it delivered through a grocery delivery service. (There are several you can use. They will provide it to bell services, and you can get it when bell services call you. Pre-closure they would deliver it to your room.) Having our “loose” items secure in a designated space not only made for a cleaner room but a happier mom. And, we all know unless “Momma’s Happy, Ain’t Nobody Happy.”
How do you organize your hotel room on a trip?
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