There's a lot of discussion about just what to pack in general and and how much
to pack and all that sort of stuff and I'm noticing that there's people there that
were packing like their entire bathroom and like because they're talking about
like different ways to kind of you know increase the storage option as much as
possible because they're having like over the door hangers to store all their
bathroom necessities and they have you know and they'd be stunned at the idea
that we can be on an eight day sail and just have carry-on luggage and like a
supplementary backpack or duffel bag like I have and they just seem sort
of flabbergasted and and to me I conversely am flabbergasted they would
pack so much so I think one of the things to consider like to remember is
that you really don't actually need an outfit per day the undergarments yea you want one
one per day whatnot and that's obviously that makes sense but you know things
like pants you can packed two, three pairs of pants and you're solid pack a few
t-shirts and like it's it's stunning to me how much people over pack like
even myself I packed more than I needed and I packed
a carry-on and a duffel bag granted it's a sizeable duffel bag and I had both
of them full to bursting but that's all I packed and and the carrying your
entire bathroom is super unnecessary like for me I have little travel-size
things of shampoo and conditioner because I have you know fashion colored hair and
so and they carnival doesn't supply conditioner and they have like the two in
one stuff which is just kills my hair so I bring my own shampoo and
conditioner I would recommend bringing a little bit of lotion besides some of the
air here is really dry but it's really it's super not necessary to pack you
know there are some people that are packing yeah like a pair of pants per day, a a t-shirt a t-shirt
or two or three per day because you never know what you're gonna want to wear you
really really don't need to pack to that excessive level especially if you're
flying because you and then you have to if you have connections then you
have to worry about whether or not your check luggage is going to make extensions you have to pay
extra for the checked luggage and all that sort of stuff if you are someone who's
platinum or diamond or whatever obviously you probably are a little bit
more travel savvy and also you have the option of taking advantage of the free
laundry services, use those I mean we've took advantage of that we used
it twice this trip around and it has been working very beneficial for us and so
that really limits your limits your need to pack so much if you want to pay
for that service you can I think it's like $15 per bag per bag
and you can get a decent amount of stuff in that bag too. Just be careful because it rips very easy
it's a paper bag and it's a thin paper bag but but if you do it right you can
actually get a fairly sizable haul in there not like a full load of laundry
but you know if you want to just you know wash a like a t-shirt that you know you really
want to wear you know a day from now you can do that, it is usually about a 24-hour
turnaround time unless you pay for express service so there's that to consider
but like for myself like I we had 2 elegant nights so I packed 2 dresses I could have
gotten away with one I didn't you know two pairs of pants, three pairs of pants which
was probably one pair more than I needed shorts I didn't need at all so that was
a whole bunch of stuff that took up room unnecessarily and like people were
bringing like their entire makeup cabinet with them you really don't need that
yeah really I mean you don't need to wear make up I mean that's a personal thing I mean
I wore it on the elegant nights and so I just I didn't pack I mean I packed a lot
but I didn't pack like my entire makeup my entire makeup collection and I don't
know if you still do that is like when you come back from Vegas and stuff like
that you do on his fight back you do a debrief on all the different because he has
his packing list really good Excel spreadsheet which I really recommend you
do and okay what did I you know and what did I bring what did I not need to
bring what did I forget to bring that sort of stuff and so that by the time you know
he's gone enough times you have exactly what you need and you don't pack
anything in excess you have room for bringing over some souvenirs if you
wanted to do that and then you have TSA agents looking at your suitcase going I
can't believe that the suitcase is that well packed so and I think I think for this
trip the packing advice I have for going to Alaska do not pack a sweater
it's counter-intuitive don't bring a sweater because you can't peel it off
quickly or well don't pack a scarf you won't really need it and don't pack shorts
Do yeah don't pack swimming trunks or shorts or a swimsuit you won't need it but
you know do pack oddly regular t-shirts I I didn't pack very many because I
thought that it would be too cold but it's part of the layering the
quick-release layer and you want to do and for myself if you're someone who's a gym goer
what I would recommend doing is if you're going to pack gym clothes wear gym
clothes that are polyester so that way you can wash them in the sink or in the
shower or whatever and they'll dry off fairly quickly they'll dry off the next
day by the time it's time for you to go for the next gym day
so like that's what I did for myself because I mean if you're wearing anything that's
cotton it's going to take a lot longer to dry you're not gonna have enough time but yeah
it's we pack way too much people and stop that just because it's a pain to kind of
circumnavigate around you guys and you're bringing people you need like
Porter's to bring all your stuff like there was unfortunately each stop on
this cruise an ambulance had to come by and. That was weird. Yeah and each stop a family had to
leave the ship the sailing because a family member of theirs had to go to hospital
and long enough so that they were not gonna be able to reconnect with the ship and there's
one family where there's like three or four or five people that got off and they needed
basically two porters to take all of their luggage with them I was like why do
you have so much stuff like now you'll have to deal with all that stuff that
you have to lug with you I mean yes but it's one of those things that you want to factor
in worst case scenario god forbid something happened to you and now you
have to carry five pieces of luggage with you for one person two people like
that's ridiculous don't do that portability is really important I was at the member
party thing and there was someone there who was complaining that they didn't get
enough zone one luggage tags for all ten pieces of their checked luggage from their
cabin. Shut up. Yeah I don't even know like they must have a suite to be able to fit ten
pieces of luggage in their cabin. Shut the front door it's it's it's mind-boggling but
it's like and there's a lot of stuff you can bring that can serve multiple
purposes like I bring my Surface three which serves as my ability to record
this podcast through my microphone which admittedly most people probably won't need to
bring a microphone but my tablet is great because I can bring shows and
movies on it for entertainment I can keep track of things I can put my
packing list or maps or other information onto it I can play games
also I can listen to music download and listen to a podcast all that sort of
stuff and it's one device I don't need to also
bring a laptop I don't also need to not that they use them anymore but bring a PDA
like there's that and also your smartphones there's a lot of those
purposes as well so maybe you just need the phone part of part of the sort of
the electronic packing thing to consider is you only have one plug
in the room so and even if you bring a solar charger it has limited effectiveness it
helps but it just supplements it it's not like a whole other plug that's juiced
all the time so- and you're not suposed to bring a power bar with you, you kind of can
but kind of can't they're a little bit vague on that
yeah consult carnival directly for that don't get it from a third-party source
is my advice is make sure you know before you go but it's just people tend to
bring more than they need for example I brought my 3ds this trip and I haven't
touched it once that was an unnecessary thing so you know even someone who has
this is my 15th cruise I'm still bringing stuff that I don't need admittedly Alaska's a
little bit different,a little new to me yeah you can refine from every trip and
so these people who have things that they hang off the door with bug spray
deodorant and bleach and detergent and all these different sort of things it
seems to go a little bit far and if you know if you're bringing something along
on 10 cruises taking up space that you may need on one that costs you three
dollars if you can hit the hardware store in Skagway then that $3 is not
poorly spent that $3 bought you not having to lug around that weight and
gaining that space on those 14 other trips where you're not going to need it
so yeah there's the I might need it but there is also the fun shops if you're in
desperate need yes it costs more money but again if it's one out of every 10
cruises you use it then that inflated cost you're still kind of coming out
ahead yeah when you factor in all that extra effort and like people who would bring
on their own water bottles I mean you're going to have I mean if you're gold
level you're going to have water bottles provided just fill them up yourself that
just takes up unnecessary space one thing I would recommend you don't do
this but one thing I recommend doing is I pack a zip lock bag like an empty
zip lock bag and I put in my my you know my used undergarments basically
my socks my underwear and all that sort of stuff and that just you know just kind of
keeps it all away and that doesn't get mixed up with my clean clothes and
there are a lot of people that do that I mean if you want to be super super
hygienic like I don't I don't understand the need for packing like a pair of
pants per day I don't maybe for some people maybe it's a
hygienic concern but yeah I just I don't understand that and it just seems to me
like it's a lot of stress that you're putting on yourself and it's a big
burden that you're putting on yourself and it's an added expense
so I just it it seems unnecessary and and same with like you know packing
you know days ahead sometimes weeks ahead again like aren't you going to
need that stuff like how much do you have in your wardrobe that you're not going to
need those clothes especially if you're packing as much as you're packing and we get
you're excited about the cruise we want it to be here faster and so sometimes it
feels like pre-packing gets you there and we feel that we definitely we get
excited about the trip so when that happens instead of packing three months
in advance we recommend you go to our YouTube channel and watch our videos
repeatedly because I find that fills that void very nicely you might see
something you hadn't seen before gives you some ideas you know and so we've got a
myriad of different ways we can hopefully entertain you during those
manic bits of I must pack a season before my trip on Instagram you can see
pictures of our various trips and things that we're up to that is just vacation
impossible one word on Instagram we are on Twitter vacayimpossible just because
the character limit and so you can find us in a bunch of different places we
have a tumblr vacationimpossible.tumblr.com so vacationimpossible.ca is the
website team@vacationimpossible.ca is the email so feel free to
reach out to us if you have any questions for future podcasts or things
that you would like to see one thing that people do with packing is sometimes
they use magnets and so I recently on this trip recorded I bought myself a
magnet and I was testing what surfaces in the cabin it will adhere to so you
can look forward to that video coming out soon to see if maybe a magnetic hook may
or may not make sense to you depending on what you're bringing but when in
doubt leave it out is often a good approach when when you're traveling and if
you're flying added weight means you're using more fuel and all that kind of
stuff so yeah I mean if you're finding yourself asking do I need this or should
I pack this the answer is probably no because if you're asking that question that I
mean there is obviously some doubt they're just like he said just leave it out so yeah just stop
it and subscribe to the podcast on your podcast platform of choice we're on
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appreciate it and thanks for listening until next time see you later