We all know how stressful disembarkation day can be, especially if you’re like me and want to carry your own bags off the ship. All cruise lines offer passengers two options for disembarking. Self or express disembarkation, or standard disembarkation.
If you’re capable of carrying all your luggage off the ship without assistance, you can take advantage of self or express disembarkation. This allows you to be one of the first passengers off the ship, usually as early as an hour after the ship docks.
If you prefer to not have to wrangle suitcases in the elevator, downstairs, thru the jetbridge, or if you just brought too many bags, standard disembarkation is for you. This is where you place all your luggage outside your stateroom the night before you disembark. Luggage is collected, taken off the ship, and placed in marked areas inside the terminal where you can locate yours once you’re off the ship.
I like to be off the ship early and on the road back home as early in the day as possible, so I always choose the self-disembarkation option. However, I hate having to lug two bags all over the ship in the morning, so I do a little something to help out with that.
Since I’m not concerned about wrinkling my dirty clothes, I take advantage of every inch of space to consolidate everything into just one suitcase. I always travel with a large suitcase and a smaller one that can fit inside the bigger one.
When packing up, I take small items such as socks, underwear, and t-shirts and stuff them inside my shoes. Yes, it’s strange but hey with this method every inch of space counts!
I then (very) tightly pack all the remaining clothes into the smaller suitcase and place it inside the bigger one. The shoes are then used to fill the space between the two bags and any remaining clothing goes on top before giving it a zip-up!
Now I only have one bag to wheel off. Albeit, a very heavy bag! However, it makes getting in and out of elevators and down terminal escalators a lot easier. I did a quick video, which you can watch below, to see this crazy method of mine.