If you read my first post on packing for a family cruise vacation, you’ll know that overpacking isn’t worth it. Now, we can talk about how to avoid overpacking. It all starts with planning.
Here’s a few things to consider as you start the planning process:
- What is your schedule?
- What kind of excursions, if any, are you doing?
- Will you work out?
- Will you want to dress up for dinner? Or do you prefer dining at the buffet where you can wear pretty much anything?
- Do you plan on doing laundry?
- How much swimming and/or sunbathing will you do?
- Do your kids need certain toys, blankets, or other items like diapers, sippy cups, bibs, etc.?
All of these things and more will go into what you plan on packing. The next step for me is to write out our schedule and what types of outfits we need.
Here’s my sample schedule with outfit types:
- Day 1:Embarkation: casual but cute, swimsuits and cover ups girls wore matching seersucker sundresses and I wore a navy dress (with pockets). Boys wore shorts and nice polo or button up short-sleeve shirts
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- Non-formal dinner: dresses for girls and nice shirts and slacks for the boys with dinner jackets
- I carried these items in our family carryon. You can see more about that in part one of this series.
- Day 2:Day at sea: casual but cute, swimsuits and coverups, workout clothes for a morning run
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- Formal Dinner: semi-formal/cocktail
- Day 3:Cozumel- beach excursion: swimsuits and cover ups, workout clothes for a morning run, casual but cute clothes for after returning to the ship before dinner
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- Non-formal dinner: dresses for girls and nice shirts and slacks for the boys with dinner jackets
- Day 4:Progresso- beach and shopping: swimsuits and coverups, workout clothes for a morning run, casual but cute clothes for after returning to the ship before dinner
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- Non-formal dinner: dresses for girls and nice shirts and slacks for the boys with dinner jackets
- Day 5:Day at sea: casual but cute, swimsuits and cover ups, workout clothes for a morning run
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- Non-formal dinner: dresses for girls and nice shirts and slacks for the boys with dinner jackets
- Day 6:Debarkation and road trip home: Casual and comfy
From here, I knew how many of each type of outfit I needed to pack.
A few additional notes:
- For the kids, I didn’t have them wear outfits or clothing besides swimsuits, pjs, or jackets more than once. I know they’re pretty likely to get things dirty. There were a few items I planned on wearing more than once.
- I packed one extra outfit for each kid and three extra pairs of underwear for the bigs.
- I didn’t plan on doing laundry for the kids. I washed some of my workout clothes.
- Be sure to check what I packed into carry-on packs vs. into the regular suitcases in the first post.
My next process was:
- I went to the little girls (twin 2.5 year olds) closet first to choose their outfits because I like them to match while I still can.
- I then coordinated Anna’s (big sister- 7 years old) outfits for dinner to match and during the day if we were doing something together. For example, Day 1 at Sea- we all wore our Oh Ship, Family Trip shirts my Aunt Sarah made and the girls wore pink skorts with the shirts.
- After choosing Anna and the little’s dinner outfits, I tried to coordinate or at least plan for Will’s outfits not to clash with the girls.
- I packed the bigs’ outfits in gallon-sized ziplock pags with a notecard that labeled which type day they would wear it and for what. This included the accessories they needed: ties, belt, matching socks for Will, etc. I did the same thing for the littles but only used one for both girls together. I’ll be writing another blog on how this worked for us to coordinate everyone. This part really, really helped us to be organized and coordinated….especially since the bigs stayed in my parents’ room and the littles’ with us.
- I packed two swimsuits for each kid so they always had a dry one. will also had a few additonal swimsuit shirts because he wore them on days at sea too.
- I packed two pairs of panties and underwear for the kids so that they could have one for the morning and afternoon.
As much as I do like for the entire family, Garen and I included, to coordinate/match for nice dinners and such, we only made this happen on Formal night when we all rocked navy, white, and gold. Unfortunately we somehow managed to not get a single family photo. I’m not sure how that’s even possible considering there are photographers every 10-20 feet asking you to take photos. Maybe it was that they were intimidated by the running twin two year olds….
I digress….
I started packing my stuff next. I started with my dinner clothes because I knew that I could wear some of these dresses during the day either casually or as cover-ups. I’m a nerd that takens pictures of my outfits so I remember what all can go with what so it’s easier for me to mix and match more pieces. Below are a few examples of how i try to keep in the same color scheme. 
Here’s what I took and wore for the five day cruise:
- Day 1:Embarkation: Navy dress with pink, navy, and white scarf, tan sandals
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- Non-formal Dinner: Black sleeveless dress, red flowery shrug/kimono, red sandals. These were packed in my carry-on, along with my red swimsuit. The black or navy dress could’ve been used as a cover-up should I have chosen to go swimming as well.
- Day 2:Work out: Black shorts, Duluth tank top (both of which could’ve been worn casually around the ship or with other outfits), running shoes,
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- Day at Sea: White capris, navy Oh Ship, Family Trip shirt, and red sandals. Navy cardigan for when it was cold inside the ship, which I ended up not needing. Grey shorts later on when I sat in something with my white pants.
- Formal Dinner: Navy and gold dress, gold shoes, navy cardigan.
- Day 3:Work out: Grey shorts, duluth tank top (grey shorts were worn the day before and both could’ve been worn casually if I needed to), running shoes.
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- Cozumel beach excursion: Black swimsuit, purple/pink maxi dress (dress could be worn either casually or with a black cardigan and jewlery for dinner), tan sandals
- Non-formal Dinner: Peach sundress and floral multi-color scarf with black wedge sandals and a black cardigan/jacket (I had planned to wear this dress as a cover-up with my black swimsuit, if necessary, as well. It also goes well with the scarf I wore the first day and the navy cardigan with tan shoes)
- Day 4:Skipped workout: womp, womp
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- Progresso beach exursion and shopping: Red sundress, red swimsuit, red flowery shrug/kimono, red sandals. (red dress could be worn at dinner as well). After getting the girls back onto the boat for nap, I changed into my third workout outfit of red shorts and blue Duluth tank top, running shoes for comfort.
- Non-formal Dinner: Black dress (worn the first night), black and metalic scarf, black wedge sandals with one of my black cardigans.
- Day 5:Skipped workout
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- Day at Sea: Red flowery shirt and black shorts with a black cardigan for when it got chilly. Later wore black pants and red flats to a show with the same black cardigan. During naptime, I wore one of my recycled workout outfits.
- Non-formal Dinner: Black dress with red flowers and red flats, as well as one of the black cardigans for in case I was chilly.
- Day 6:Debarkation and roadtrip home: Black dress, red sandals, and red/white scarf (yes, it was the third wear for that dress but it was so comfy, had pockets, wasn’t visibly dirty, and didn’t smell bad.
Amazingly, I only had two items (besides my extra underwear) that didn’t get worn- an extra work-out shirt (since I skipped two work-outs) and one extra casual black and white shirt that could’ve been worn with either pair or black shorts or my black pants. I call that success
It was really so great not to have an over-abundance of extra un-worn clothes at the end of the trip. What’s better is knowing that the clothes I had with me all coordinated with at least one or more other items so I could’ve made many, many more outfits if I wanted/needed to.
If I had one thing to change, I would probably have worn my pair of black sandals on Day 1 instead of the tan ones. I feel like they might’ve been more versatile since I tend to be more likely to wear more black color-schemes than browns/tans. Again, if that’s the only thing I’d change, I think that’s a success.
There you have it- how I packed clothes for our family of 6 (besides Garen) to make sure we didn’t overpack. Check out my first blogs about why not to overpack on a family cruise vacation.
Chicken Minus Head 