What I Packed for Our Disney Cruise

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We just got back from a 3-night Disney Cruise sailing on the Wish. I did a lot of research leading up to the trip and also spoke to my friends that have been on a Disney cruise to get all of the tips that I could for packing. As a family of 5, I was worried about the room size and space to be able to unpack but we ended up having plenty of space for our items.

In this post, I go through my process for packing, some of the key items I packed for us (and those I wish I had), and outfit inspiration through some of our pictures.  

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. That means if you click on a link and make a purchase I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

My Process for Packing

I have 3 boys that are ages 7, 6, and 3. And when I pack us up for a trip, I have three main steps:

  1. Lay the clothes out: I like to lay everything out first and line it up in order of what day they or I will be wearing it. Visually being able to see it helps me a lot. Sometimes a pair of shorts I need for one of my kids might be in the wash, so quickly being able to see that it is missing helps to make sure I don’t forget it. This is what it looked like once I had everything laid out for the kids for our cruise.

2. Pack into packing cubes: Once everything is planned out, I pack everything into packing cubes. Each kid has their own color, so I easily know which cubes are for which of my kids. I recently bought the Go Skoot packing cubes, so this was my first time using them and I loved them. Not only do they have the cutest color options so I can pick a unique color for each of my 3 kids, but they come with labels so I can label each of the cubes. And the labels slide right out so they can change with each trip you take.

For the cruise, I used the general “clothes” one where you can write in the name of your child and I used “swim”. While I know exactly what I packed and what cube everything is in, these labels are very helpful for someone other than me who might need to find something. For example, my husband and kids went to my mother-in-law’s for a night before I later joined and I used a piece of painters tape to write the name of each kid on the outside of my old packing cubes. Now, I can just slide the label in.

In addition to the colors, I love the waterproof material of the packing cubes and that they come as a set of 4. With the set, there is the bag, one large cube, and two smaller cubes. I put the 3 packing cubes inside of the bag when I store the cubes to keep everything together. And then I used the bag to put all of our wet clothes in when we came back. With a cruise, we had to put our luggage out by 10pm the night before and we were at Castaway Cay that day so not everything was dry yet. I stuffed all the wet stuff in those bags and when I got home the next day, nothing outside of those bags got wet. After putting everything into the wash, I flipped the bags inside out to dry and within a little bit, they were completely dry. I was so thankful I had those.

For myself, I use these packing cubes. Now that I have the cute colored ones from Go Skoot for the boys, I really want a pretty color for me! But these ones work really well.

3. Put into a large suitcase: My preference for suitcases is to use one large suitcase that all the boys packing cubes can fit into. And then I use a second large suitcase for mine and my husband’s items. We have a hard sided suitcase today that works great. And both suitcases fit perfectly under the bed in our cabin. My goal when traveling, especially flying, is to have as few suitcases as possible. But it does mean I check them and with the cruise, I checked them at embarkation and for debarkation, I put them out the night before.

Essential Items I Packed

Overall Items:

  • Packing cubes for the kids and packing cubes for me
  • Large suitcase – We used two
  • This travel case for my cosmetics and toiletries – There was a hook in the bathroom that I was able to hang this up on and it worked great
  • Strong hooks – the walls in the cabin are magnetic so I hung these up and used them to hang up different things like hats, goggles, etc.
  • Magic Bands and chargers – You don’t need a magic band, you can use the key to the world card that you receive. But if you do bring a magic band, make sure to bring the chargers because we had to charge them each night
  • Travel set of shampoo and lotion
  • Toiletry bag to use for medicine – I always bring a medicine bag with me any time we stay somewhere that includes a thermometer, Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl (liquid and stick for bites), Neosporin, band-aids, and any other medicine that may be specific to your kids (we always have ear drops on hand). My cosmetic bag is about 5-6 years old but I linked a similar one. I’ve included a picture below as well so you can get an idea what it looks like. 
  • Magnets for our door – Check out Etsy, there are a ton of options. These are the ones I bought and they were so cute!
  • Fish extender if you want to do pixie dusting – I linked one from Amazon but Etsy has a lot of options if you want to personalize
  • Instax Mini Camera and film – Not an essential but I love ours and so do the boys. They now ask to take their own pictures. 

Items For the Kids:

Items I Packed for Me:

  • Minnie Mouse pirate ears
  • Go Skoot Bag that I carried on to the ship but also used by the pool and on Castaway Cay. The material is perfect because it can get wet. When I came home from the cruise, I hosed it off completely and it dried quickly. 
  • Set of small bags that can be used for anything – I used these for a bunch of different reasons that came in handy on the cruise. One was for our passports and important documents
  • Resort set from Nuuds – I have this set in 3 different colors. I wore the white one on embarkation day and the coral one to dinner one night
  • Multiple pairs of shoes – I call this out because one pair of my shoes broke on the ship! I was so thankful I had other pairs

What I Didn’t Pack and Wished I Had

  • Sand toys – I bring sand toys to hotels all the time so as soon as we walked on to Castaway Cay and I saw the sand toys for sale, I was kicking myself that I forgot ours. We ended up buying a set that surprisingly wasn’t terribly priced. We paid $15 for a whole set.
  • Socks – I know to some people this may seem like a normal item. But we are Floridians who are traveling to the Bahamas. There was not one part of me that thought socks would be necessary. But the Wish has the Hero Zone which has a giant Incredibles themed inflatable obstacle course. You are required to wear socks on it. The gift shop does sell socks, but the shops didn’t open until 6 that day and by then, the obstacle course was taken down, and it was just the basketball court. So, I ended up with overpriced socks that were never able to be used on the obstacle course. Learn from me.
  • Flippers – We brought the snorkeling masks for the older two boys but I wish I had brought their flippers as well. They loved snorkeling and went on two long snorkeling trips in the water with their dad.

Outfit Inspiration

Sometimes it helps to get inspiration for your outfits by looking at what other people do. So below are some of our pictures from the cruise with links to our outfits if they are available.

Embarkation Outfits: 

Pirate Night Outfits: 

  • Older two boys outfits: Pirate costume
  • My Minnie ears: Pirate ears
  • My Dress: It is a black athletic dress from Target that is no longer available. But here are two other cute options that are still affordable: Old Navy and Abercrombie (I love this one!)
  • Bandanas: These are the ones that they hand out on pirate night
  • My husband’s shirt: This is a Jacksonville Jaguars button up from Tommy Bahama. They no longer have his exact one but here is a similar one: Tommy Bahama shirt

Castaway Cay Outfits: