Luggage tip!

[Shanti]

Just came off the Disney Fantasy Saturday. On Friday night as I was putting our luggage out our stateroom door for pickup, I noticed a lot of luggage had "scarves" or some kind of ribbon on the handles. Every cruise I notice this and say I will mark my luggage with some kind of identification to make pick up easier in port. But rushed for time I chose not to.

Picking up luggage at port, my main suitcase is no where to be found. With some cast members, we searched everywhere but it was gone.

Noticed in the same area as my luggage was an identical suitcase but it was not ours. Cast member said more than likely the other guest picked up my luggage by mistake.

Lots of tears leaving as all my clothes and souveniers were in the suitcase but the only thing they would do is have me fill out a lost and found report.

On the drive home (we live in NJ) I received a call from a Disney Cast member at Orlando International Airport saying my luggage was there! A guest did pick up the wrong luggage and turned it in to them. Now there was no way to turn the car around as we were too far into our trip. Disney said they will ship the bag back to port Canaveral and they will ship it home. But I had to call port Canaveral and do all the leg work to make arrangements. Which I did by leaving several messages for various cast members. Finally spoke to a live person and they said they will ship it Tuesday once they receive the bag back. (holiday and UPS is closed). Not happy as I still have no confirmation that they actually have the bag and they won't give me a direct number. And my poor teen age daughter has no jeans for school this week (teen age girl =lots and lots of drama about this).

Keeping my fingers crossed this ends up well.

So my new tip is to mark your luggage with some kind of fabric on the handle. Even the scarves from pirate night will do! There are a lot of identical suitcases all stacked together and mistakes happen.

So sorry this happened to you and thanks for the heads-up! This is why I travel with a purple suitcase- it's easily identifiable, & hard for someone else to mistake it for theirs, or steal it. I'm only buying colorful and/or patterned luggage from now on for this reason.

 

[briarwolf]

A couple years back we bought two pieces of hard sided luggage. My wife's is Mickey Mouse red and mine is Harley Orange. You can't miss them, and no one has mistaken them for their bags yet!
I do agree with an earlier poster though, even though I am 99% sure they are mine, we still check the tag.

 

[Dug720]

Just as a note... For CC members, it's not a bad idea to take something to throw one of the handles of your gift bag as they all look the same!

After our first cruise, we took the Country Inn & Suites shuttle back to get our car along with another family. We were talking and learned that the family was going to WDW and was staying at the Grand Floridian. Well, we got to...I think my sister's friend's apartment and discovered that the CC backpack (it wasn't the hideous beach bags at the time) wasn't there - he had packed his toiletries pack and a few other things in it. Dad called Country Inn & Suites to see if it had been left there, but nothing had been turned in. He then called DCL to report it - and because we were pretty sure that it had left AP with us after breakfast, he mentioned that we had shared a shuttle with a family heading to the Grand Floridian. DCL got my dad in touch with the GF just in case, and suer enough a few days later, Dad got a call to verify the address for FedExing the backpack to him. It had been turned in at the GF! If we'd thought to have some ribbon or a pompom or something to tie onto it, that whole escapade might not have happened.

I can just imagine the beach at CC with a ton of identical bags...

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

I just got some of those bluetooth tiles to throw in our suitcases to attempt to track them. Although the range isn't great it could tell you if they are within a certain radius. You csn set an alarm of seperation on your phone when you reach 200 feet away from them. But ribbons is good we have Disney font on ours. The tiles are probably only useful to know once you have the bags in case somebody takes one away. We had that happen under our noses at the belt once.

 

[clten]

First time cruiser and I have too many obvious questions - but I'll keep with the luggage theme. Do you have to leave the luggage in the hall overnight before you get off the ship?

You don't HAVE to, but if you don't then you are expected to be in the self-disembark group which is the first off, and you must be able to handle your own luggage as there is no one to assist you.

Dug720 is correct in that you don't have to leave your luggage outside your room the night before and if you choose to do that, you will be handling your own luggage on disembarkation day.

However, just because you didn't leave luggage out the night before does not mean you need to leave the ship with the early self-disembarkation group (first group off). You can leave the ship at your leisure. If you are going to the MDR for breakfast, you should take your luggage with you. If you are grabbing food from Cabanas, you should be mindful that you should have everything out of your stateroom by 8am.

 

[Shanti]

Just because you didn't leave luggage out the night before does not mean you need to leave the ship with the early self-disembarkation group (first group off). You can leave the ship at your leisure. If you are going to the MDR for breakfast, you should take your luggage with you. If you are grabbing food from Cabanas, you should be mindful that you should have everything out of your stateroom by 8am.

Yes, last year we carried off our own luggage, having taken it to 2nd seating breakfast with us. Kind of a pain (much preferred doing onboard airline check-in this year), but definitely doable.

 

[jeepnjudy]

Thank you! As it is only DH and I - and we've been told to pack lightly - we may do this.

We do this all the time and LOVE it! No digging through piles of luggage to find ours and you can leave your luggage in your stateroom until I think 8AM while you eat breakfast and then go back and retrieve it to get off the ship! This is sooooo much easier IMHO! Others will disagree and that's okay but this works nicely for our family!

 

[lae]

A sharpie or some paint is even better than ribbons or a scarf as it can't fall off or be removed. You can also make suitcases not from the same set look like they are. Just draw, doodle or trace a pattern on your bags. Works like a charm.

 

[Rabb it]

Gosh what a total pain! Thank you for the tip!

 

[phinz]

Who else would have socks on their luggage?

Dobby?

 

[phinz]

First time cruiser and I have too many obvious questions - but I'll keep with the luggage theme. Do you have to leave the luggage in the hall overnight before you get off the ship?

It's not out there overnight. It's there until about 10:30-11 at the latest, unless you put it out there after the specified time. Your stateroom host or any assistants will usually grab your bags within minutes of them being put outside your room.

 

[ludari]

This is definitely not a way you want to end a vacation but I hope your bag makes it home okay. Personally I have always cruised/traveled with just a small carry-on bag which I have done for month long land/sea trips. It took some practice but I'm glad I don't have to check a bag when I fly or drop off luggage the night before my cruise ends. Yeah, I'm stuck doing laundry more often but to me that's minor inconvenience. Again, I hope your bag and contents arrives home okay.

 

[hanscarlet]

I had a scare myself and ended up finding these fun bright flip flops on a wedding sight, used as bridal shower favors, so was able to get about 6 of them for all of our luggage for about $3/piece.... also great idea for FE gifts too (left Mickey tag was my FE gift to my group)

 

[rab1022]

We found some great customized luggage wraps on Etsy - search Disney Luggage Wrap and you'll see a bunch of different options. Made finding our luggage easy!

 

[ImprovGal]

Make sure even your carryon bags are tagged distinctively. After one of the Alaska cruises, I hopped into a shuttle van to return to the airport. While we were waiting to fill with more passengers, I saw that a passenger boarding was loading a bag that matched my carryon onto the van. When we got to the airport, they got off at a terminal before I did and it wasn't until I got to my terminal that I discovered their bag was still sitting on the shuttle and they had mine. Fortunately, I had caught that they were staying at an airport area hotel and was able to intercept them while waiting for the hotel shuttle.

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

It's not out there overnight. It's there until about 10:30-11 at the latest, unless you put it out there after the specified time. Your stateroom host or any assistants will usually grab your books within minutes of them being put outside your room.

Thanks for pointing this out. I thought all the bags would sit in the hallway for an hour or two until everyone had theirs out. This is NOT how they do it. Starting earlier, maybe 9PM?, they start making the rounds and picking up bags. Then they will keep coming back and collecting bags until the deadline.

For one thing, this means you don't have to worry about your bags being unattended long. For another, it means don't put a bag into the hall until you are SURE you are done with it (nothing else to go in it, nothing needed from it.) Because 5 minutes after you put it in the hall, it might be gone. This ALMOST happened to us.

 

[dreadpiraterose]

So sorry this happened to you and thanks for the heads-up! This is why I travel with a purple suitcase- it's easily identifiable, & hard for someone else to mistake it for theirs, or steal it. I'm only buying colorful and/or patterned luggage from now on for this reason.

Same here, purple luggage. That said, people are catching on! My good old purple ones used to be the only pops of color but not anymore. I see a real rainbow these days. Black dominates, but more and more and going with different colors. I've started back using the ribbon method as a result.

 

[Maggie'sMom]

Same here, purple luggage. That said, people are catching on! My good old purple ones used to be the only pops of color but not anymore. I see a real rainbow these days. Black dominates, but more and more and going with different colors. I've started back using the ribbon method as a result.

I've noticed that as well. I purchased purple and green luggage with the hopes they would stick out. It worked for a little while, but I've noticed in the past couple years luggage is becoming more and more colorful and mine isn't as unique as it once was.

 

[jdb in AZ]

DH and I flew home last night and he had trouble recognizing our black luggage as it came off the airport carousel. No dear, that has a different shape/texture. Yes, dear, this one has our name on it. It was late. We were very tired, and both have crummy colds generously bestowed by our grand kids. When we got home I ordered some brightly colored luggage tags to help with our next trip.

I also noticed the guy next to us at the carousel getting confused with his green luggage.

 

[minorthr]

We had something similar happen. My wife grabbed a bag coming back from disney at our home airport. We got home she opened it and it was not ours. I then had to drive two hours back to the airport with the bag and drop it off and pick up the correct one. Now I have luggage tags that flash and ribbons on the bags.