Flying to your cruise with carry-on bags vs. shipping luggage: Which is better?

Checking your cruise baggage with an airline is usually a scary proposition, particularly whenever you think about potential climate delays or missed connections that may separate you out of your baggage. The farther you must fly, the scarier it turns into.

However what are your choices? The apparent alternative for many cruisers who fly to their embarkation port is flying with solely carry-on baggage. Straightforward sufficient for a brief cruise within the Bahamas or Caribbean the place garments are skimpier and cruises comparatively quick. However what a couple of cooler local weather cruise or an extended crusing?

I just lately confronted an ideal storm of potential checked baggage points for flights to a transatlantic cruise on a Carnival Cruise Line ship — unpredictable fall climate, a home connection involving an airline change, adopted by a pair of European flights with a good connection in an unfamiliar airport. That schedule left this firmly entrenched bag checker contemplating carry-on solely on a protracted cruise for the primary time.

When my aunt determined to hitch my husband and me on the cruise, the problem rose to a brand new stage. We would be managing our baggage and helping her, which might be overwhelming.

Upon reflection, we determined that delivery baggage to the cruise appeared like a much better alternative for her. She would nonetheless want a carry-on bag for our two nights precruise in Rome, however she may ship a 50-pound bag on to the cruise ship and have all the pieces she wanted ready for her after we arrived.

Now we had the right alternative to check these two baggage choices head-to-head. Which plan was simpler? Which one value much less? What had been the pitfalls of every possibility? Learn on for our outcomes as you determine how mild to pack and the way finest to get your baggage to your cruise ship with out incident.

Carry-on-only cruising: Prices and inconveniences

The very first thing to contemplate when flying with carry-on baggage is the utmost dimensions and weight of baggage allowed on the airplane with you. Whereas few home carriers have weight restrictions on carry-on baggage or private objects, regional, low-cost and non-U.S. carriers can have weight allowances on each.

The usual carry-on measurement for home flights inside the U.S. is 22 x 14 x 9 inches. Private objects (purses, tote baggage, backpacks, briefcases and different small objects stowed beneath the seat in entrance of you) are sometimes capped round 18 x 14 x 8 inches.

Overseas carriers are far pickier about what you carry on board the plane. Anticipate related carry-on baggage dimensions of 21.5 x 15 x 9.5 inches. Most private merchandise sizes may be as small as 15.5 x 11 x 4 inches — which is compact for a backpack. Weight limits range by air service and even by seating class; our carry-on suitcases wanted to have a most weight of 26 kilos and our backpacks couldn’t weight greater than 4.4 kilos.

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All these restrictions despatched me procuring. My husband had a hard-side spinner that met our particular airline restrictions, however I didn’t. The backpack and various tote baggage I usually use as private objects had been all too giant. The digital camera backpack my husband usually makes use of was too small to be a helpful private merchandise on a visit when each inch of area was wanted for objects extra necessary than digital camera lenses. I’d additionally want extra packing cubes, so I may compress my belongings and pack probably the most garments into such small areas.

After three Amazon exchanges, I lastly discovered a backpack that met the airline measurement restrictions and my private necessities: a trolley strap, a water-bottle facet pocket, a front-opening foremost compartment, a padded laptop computer compartment and a number of other small exterior pockets. (Beware that the net listings aren’t all the time correct concerning bag dimensions.)

I spent $79 whole for 2 backpacks. The very best characteristic throughout precise use was a vented bottom-opening zipper compartment meant for sneakers, which was perfect for stashing our quart baggage containing TSA-approved liquid merchandise. That easy accessibility was invaluable throughout our quick sprint by the Warsaw airport safety line on our tight connection.

For a carry-on spinner, I had a robust want to have a entrance fold-out compartment for electronics. I additionally wished an enlargement zipper, which could not be used on our flights to Europe, however would come in useful for squeezing within the two bottles of wine we had been allowed to carry on board our cruise. As soon as again within the U.S., our flights dwelling on Southwest had no weight restrictions and bigger measurement restrictions of 24 x 16 x10 inches, so the enlargement zipper meant we may carry again a couple of small souvenirs and one bottle of wine.

You’ll be able to spend quite a bit on carry-on baggage, however I opted for an $89 knockoff on Amazon that had fabulous options that made it much more helpful on the journey than I had anticipated. For instance, the entrance electronics panel gives entry to the within contents of the suitcase, primarily making it a front-opening piece of baggage when there isn’t any area for the standard open-book format of most hard-shell spinners. That proved to be important in our tiny resort room in Rome’s historic metropolis middle.

For compression packing cubes, I opted for a six-piece set from COR Surf that gave us most area financial savings for under $23. I squeezed a raincoat and a jacket into every of the 2 medium baggage, 5 males’s shirts into one giant bag and eight of my shirts into one other.

For years, we have been fortunately cruising with our cosmetics, hair provides and first-aid provides packed in half of an affordable hanging shoe bag we connect to the stateroom wall with magnets. It was too giant for our carry-on baggage, so I changed it with two medium-sized journey toiletry baggage with 4 compartments that unfold and grasp from a hook. Once more, Amazon to the rescue for $12 every.

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Touring with carry-ons solely, I additionally couldn’t carry full-size toiletries. Our native drugstore sells quite a lot of empty small bottles and jars for carrying liquids like hair merchandise, lotions and gels. I spent $7 on an assortment of these.

The overall I spent on new objects wanted to make flying to our cruise with solely carry-on baggage work was $203, however it could be straightforward to spend twice that. I do not really feel like I skimped on high quality, and all objects I purchased ought to have a helpful life in my cruise packing arsenal going ahead. If you have already got this stuff, your out-of-pocket value might be far much less.

With the airline weight restrictions, it was unimaginable to pack 18 days’ value of clothes in two carry-on suitcases and two backpacks. We needed to pare down our wardrobe to solely the necessities and plan to do laundry on board.

I am a fairly small particular person, put on measurement 8 sneakers and have been touring with a compartment-style wardrobe of coordinating colours since earlier than there was a classy identify for that. Even nonetheless, getting the fundamentals pared down was a problem.

It didn’t assist that climate on a transatlantic cruise may be fairly variable, which pressured me to pack layers I would not have wanted on a warm-weather cruise. Issues I missed had been a sweatshirt for cold days at sea, yet one more pair of informal pants (I took three, two of which transformed to shorts) and a couple of hat.

Not less than our Carnival ship had a self-serve launderette. The machines had been full-size with a value of $3.50 per wash or dry. A field of laundry detergent giant sufficient for 2 masses was one other $2. (Subsequent time we’ll carry laundry detergent sheets.)

Self-serve laundry as soon as throughout a cruise is not an enormous deal, however needing to do laundry twice took away a bit of the holiday rest, particularly when the road to make use of the laundry services was lengthy and filled with cranky cruisers.

Many ships do not need this self-serve possibility, providing send-out laundry service solely with prices starting from per-piece pricing of $3 to $7 to discounted bulk by-the-bag costs or by-the-day packages. Our whole value for laundry was $16 for 2 masses, however on the same cruise with out self-service services or discounted packages, you possibly can probably spend a whole lot in laundry charges.

Airline weight restrictions additionally pressured us to go away behind a couple of nonclothing objects we then had to purchase alongside the best way. These included further hair spray and toothpaste, a room deodorizer and a corkscrew for our cabin. We simply discovered a corkscrew for 4.30 euros ($4.54) and a gel room deodorizer for two.20 euros ($2.35) in a market solely two blocks from our resort in Rome. The shop additionally had a good choice of wine, so we snagged a few bottles to tackle board, every within the six-euro vary, significantly lower than a cruise ship bottle.

We had sufficient toothpaste and hair spray to final a couple of days, so we waited to go looking for toiletries till Cartagena, Spain. Discovering a grocery store there required a little bit of a stroll, however we purchased toothpaste and hairspray (5.76 euros and three.49 euros, respectively, or $6.10 and $3.70), together with some Oreo-flavored Coke Zero. As a lot as I take pleasure in port procuring, the necessity to spend time searching for necessities like hair spray was a particular inconvenience when cities like Rome and Cartagena had so many superb methods to spend our restricted time.

Baggage delivery: Prices and inconveniences

We used a complimentary voucher from Ship and Play for my aunt’s baggage to check the service for this story. The price to ship a full-size 50-pound suitcase one-way from her dwelling in Texas to our cruise ship in Civitavecchia, Italy, was quoted as $244.99 for the cargo, plus a price of $74.97. She added $2,000 in insurance coverage for $22.99, making the full $342.95.

As a result of delivery on to a cruise ship requires the tackle of the ship’s courier within the departure port, the delivery order needed to be accomplished with a Ship and Play agent on the telephone. That went easily, with the agent offering all vital directions, each verbally and by way of a follow-up e-mail. The delivery label, customs varieties and stick-on pocket for the label had been despatched by way of mail.

A FedEx monitoring quantity was offered, however my aunt opted to position a monitoring machine within the bag as nicely, including $24 to her value, for a complete of $366.95. When you’re a member of Clear, you will get 50% off your first cargo with companion firm Ship and Play.

Transport baggage internationally is pricier than it could be to a home embarkation port. A fast test of assorted cross-country costs to U.S. cruise ports confirmed base delivery charges (earlier than the charges and insurance coverage) of $74.99 on Ship and Play and costs beginning at $99 on competing shipper Baggage Ahead.

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The primary inconvenience in delivery baggage is planning for the cargo. It isn’t a last-minute possibility. It’s important to permit sufficient time to obtain the delivery label and packet out of your most well-liked shipper, to rearrange for the pickup (or drop-off) and for the bags to journey to its vacation spot.

When your cruise departure port is worldwide, the bags ship date should additionally permit sufficient time for the bag to clear customs as soon as it reaches the nation of departure. Ship and Play calculated all these variables after which gave my aunt choices for her pickup date, which had been a full two weeks earlier than the cruise. Her quoted value included choosing the day FedEx would choose up the bags, however not a narrower time-frame on that day. Deciding on a two-hour window was accessible for an additional cost. She may even have opted to drop off the bags at a licensed shipper at no cost.

My aunt mentioned packing her foremost baggage two weeks earlier than her cruise was a bit difficult. That is too far out to foretell the climate, so she needed to put together for all prospects with layers and a rain poncho (that she by no means used).

She additionally opted to ship her giant bag on to our ship as an alternative of to our precruise resort. That meant she nonetheless needed to take a carry-on and a tote bag for clothes and issues she wanted for the times we spent in Rome earlier than the cruise. She mentioned she had a tough time deciding which objects to pack in every bag and located herself overthinking the method.

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If she had chosen to ship the bag to our resort in Rome, she may have skipped the carry-on, however we might have had the inconvenience of coping with the big bag at our small resort and on our journey to the ship.

In the end, my aunt’s bag arrived in her cabin on the ship round 4 p.m. with out her having to wrangle it into and out of a number of automobiles throughout the journey. After she packed her bag and handed it off to FedEx at her entrance door, she did not should carry a finger till it got here time to unpack it on board — which added a contact of luxurious to her mainstream cruise.