Hello, Cailyn,
I know, I know. We're supposed to be on vacation and not worrying about doing laundry or other chores. It's true that Disney Cruise Line vacations are a wonderful respite from cooking, cleaning, and other day-to-day tasks. But, if you're like my family, you might prefer longer Disney cruise itineraries. And you might also prefer not to take more luggage than you absolutely need. (Or maybe you prefer to save your luggage space for more souvenirs to bring home!)
So, if you're like my family and me, you may find that you are going to need to do at least a little bit of laundry during your vacation. On my family's last vacation, we spent four nights at Aulani, A Disney Resort & Spa in Ko Olina, Hawai'i, followed immediately by a 10-night cruise from Honolulu, Hawai'i to Vancouver, British Columbia aboard the Disney Wonder. Needless to say, such a long adventure meant the soiled clothes were bound to pile up. So, yes, I ended up doing laundry once at Aulani and a whopping three times on the Wonder. Sure, we could have filled the laundry bag in our stateroom and left it with the stateroom host for the ship's crew to wash, dry, and fold our laundry for us. But my preference is to both save a little money and to do our own laundry. So I ended up visiting the deck 2 laundrette a handful of times, mostly on our sea days.
The onboard self-serve laundry facilities on the Disney Cruise Line do have vending machines that sell powdered laundry detergent and fabric softener sheets. But, again, we like to save a little money. (That way, we get to enjoy cruising more often!) So we always pack our own laundry detergent and fabric softener sheets. The washing machines on the ships work best with so-called high-efficiency (HE) detergent. You may take powdered detergent if you'd like. But, honestly, we find it less convenient and a bit too messy for our preference. In the past, we've packed several dissolvable detergent pods, which have always worked quite nicely for us. Though, I was always just a bit nervous packing the pods, fearing they might accidentally pop and cause a mess in our luggage. (I always double-bagged them, just in case.) But I'll share with you what I thought was a game-changer. My wife discovered pre-measured, dissolvable detergent strips/sheets. Not only did they perform fabulously, but they also saved us even more space in our luggage and didn't make us worried about a mess in our luggage. You may pack whatever form of detergent you'd like. But those sheets will be coming with us on all of our future Disney cruises.
I hope that helps, Cailyn. And I hope you still have plenty of time to enjoy a magical cruise. I'm confident it's going to be great!
Bon voyage, Cailyn!
~Tony