longer trips (over 14 days) - laundry

[Banditswife]

We did the unlimited for a B2B in Nov/Dec-14 days total.  We loved the service, everything came back nicely folded or hung on hangers enclosed in a fabric garment bag.  Well worth the cost IMO, but we only sent it out about 4-5 x over the course of 14 days.  I am just wondering if the by the bag option includes the fabric garment bag, or do they just fold everything?

[vicd1969]

I normally get the laundry by the bag or unlimited, but I've never gone on a cruise longer than 14 days. During my recent expedition cruise to Antarctica, the cruise line didn't offer laundry by the bag so this $7 clothesline was very, very useful. I probably am not allowed to provide a link but search your giant online retailer for "Retractable Portable Clothesline for Travel，Clothing line with 12 Clothes Clips, for Indoor Laundry Drying line, Outdoor Camping Accessories" item with the colorful clips. Most Hal ships do have a clothesline by the shower stall, but you'll have to bring your own clothes pins/clips.

[CNSJ]

One good thing about the Unlimited Laundry package is that if you have a thord or fourth person in stateroom, you still pay same charge.  This was a big cost saver when our daughter recently joined us on a cruise.

[badtwin]

Going on a 7 day carribean cruise on Nieuw Statendam in 

 2 weeks. Will $20/30 bag be offered and if so, what days of cruise?  Trying to go with just carryon,. and willing to do some in sink,  but wondered what to expect.

[RuthC]

47 minutes ago, badtwin said:

Going on a 7 day carribean cruise on Nieuw Statendam in 

 2 weeks. Will $20/30 bag be offered and if so, what days of cruise?  Trying to go with just carryon,. and willing to do some in sink,  but wondered what to expect.

In the Caribbean it should be $20/bag, and is available every day until the day before the last day. 

[oakridger]

5 hours ago, Banditswife said:

I am just wondering if the by the bag option includes the fabric garment bag, or do they just fold everything?

 

The bag option allows your choice of folded or on hangers with a garment bag.  If you choose hangers, your underwear and socks will still be folded!! 😁

 

~Nancy

[Haljo1935]

Unfortunately the per bag price and per day price do vary. As recently as May 2022 Alaska, Oct 2022 Canada and Dec 2022 Mexican Riviera, I paid $20/bag (Alaska) and $49 unlimited (Canada & Mexican Riviera). Leave in 2 days B2B Caribbean and have prepaid unlimited at $49. All of these were under 22 days that shows on the price list posted earlier.

You can specify fold or hang - we do a combination depending on the items and they always get it right. We have asked for certain items to not be dried and those came back fine.

If you roll the items and stuff well, you can fit an amazing amount of laundry in a single bag, making the $20/$30 bags a bargain.

Having clean dry clothes in rainy Alaska and sweaty free clothes in humid Jamaica, plus a lighter suitcase at baggage check is money well spent. IMHO.

I send everything out 2 days before end of cruise so I have no laundry to do when I arrive home - love taking clothes from suitcase to closet.

The laundry team does a great job, they take a lot of pride in their work and leave a personal note with each delivery. I highly recommend remembering them when you distribute your end of cruise tipping supplements. 🙂

 

[0106]

This is what I was able to fit in one bag.1 tshirt

2 jeans

3 yoga pants

2 shorts

2 long sleeve shirts

2 short sleeve shirts

[crusin'k]

17 hours ago, vicd1969 said:

I normally get the laundry by the bag or unlimited, but I've never gone on a cruise longer than 14 days. During my recent expedition cruise to Antarctica, the cruise line didn't offer laundry by the bag so this $7 clothesline was very, very useful. I probably am not allowed to provide a link but search your giant online retailer for "Retractable Portable Clothesline for Travel，Clothing line with 12 Clothes Clips, for Indoor Laundry Drying line, Outdoor Camping Accessories" item with the colorful clips. Most Hal ships do have a clothesline by the shower stall, but you'll have to bring your own clothes pins/clips.

Thank you.  Found it!

[lavictoria]

I love the unlimited laundry on a longer cruise for the ability to pack lighter.

Even better... I arrive home tired and spoiled from being on board and am not faced with 6 loads of laundry in addition to having to re-fill the fridge, plan dinners and remember how to clean house! 🤣

[Calypso54]

How do you prepay for laundry? I looked on Hal's site and could not find anything.

[Crew News]

1 minute ago, Calypso54 said:

How do you prepay for laundry? I looked on Hal's site and could not find anything.

There is no price difference in prepaid and onboard pricing.

[colbe]

1 hour ago, Calypso54 said:

How do you prepay for laundry? I looked on Hal's site and could not find anything.

Log into your HAL account for your cruise. Click on 'Cruise Activities', then on 'Packages'. Scroll to 'Unlimited Laundry'. This however is the same price that you will pay if you sign up after you board.

[cruisemom42]

I know I've read over and over that HAL laundry does a good job, but I am very particular about my clothes. Even at home I hand wash a lot of them (or gentle cycle, no dry); and I also dry clean a number of them.

 

Does anyone notice any wear and tear of garments washed by HAL -- e.g., rubbed seams, chipped buttons on blouses, etc.?  Any shrinking or fading?

 

On a long cruise (28 days), what do you do with dressier/more fragile items?  Dry clean?  How is that service?

[Sea42]

51 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

I know I've read over and over that HAL laundry does a good job, but I am very particular about my clothes. Even at home I hand wash a lot of them (or gentle cycle, no dry); and I also dry clean a number of them.

 

Does anyone notice any wear and tear of garments washed by HAL -- e.g., rubbed seams, chipped buttons on blouses, etc.?  Any shrinking or fading?

 

On a long cruise (28 days), what do you do with dressier/more fragile items?  Dry clean?  How is that service?

I've only been on a few HAL cruises but used the laundry service each time. I was very pleased with the condition of the clothes when returned and had none returned with any type of damage.

However, my travel clothes never include anything that needs special handling. No dry clean, gentle wash etc. We mostly do land travel so easy wash and wear clothes just makes more sense for us.

[TiogaCruiser]

On 1/14/2023 at 3:52 PM, RuthC said:

Items sent to be washed are pressed, but pressing only is a separate charge.
You can send the items and pay per item for pressing, or purchase a package. Seems like you don't need the package. 

My other suggestions are to hang your items in a steamy bathroom, such as after a shower, and let the wrinkles hang out. Another thing would be to hang them, and spray with Downy Wrinkle Release. 

A note on Wrinkle Release: twice I’ve had unopened bottles leak all over. Only once was air travel involved. The other was a train trip along the coast (with no altitude change.) I highly recommend wrapping well in plastic bags.

 

1 hour ago, cruisemom42 said:

I know I've read over and over that HAL laundry does a good job, but I am very particular about my clothes. Even at home I hand wash a lot of them (or gentle cycle, no dry); and I also dry clean a number of them.

 

Does anyone notice any wear and tear of garments washed by HAL -- e.g., rubbed seams, chipped buttons on blouses, etc.?  Any shrinking or fading?

 

On a long cruise (28 days), what do you do with dressier/more fragile items?  Dry clean?  How is that service?

The theatre/costume community uses a spritz of plain vodka and letting a garment hang out. Many of those garments were made for no washing or “dry” cleaning.

[cruisemom42]

18 minutes ago, TiogaCruiser said:

A note on Wrinkle Release: twice I’ve had unopened bottles leak all over. Only once was air travel involved. The other was a train trip along the coast (with no altitude change.) I highly recommend wrapping well in plastic bags.

 

The theatre/costume community uses a spritz of plain vodka and letting a garment hang out. Many of those garments were made for no washing or “dry” cleaning.

 

I can foresee this info leading to some fun at boarding:

 

HAL Staff:  Ms. Cruisemom42, we seem to have found a bottle of vodka in your suitcase. You are not allowed to bring liquor onto the ship for consumption.

 

CM42:  Oh but sir, it's not for consumption, it is for cleaning my clothes!  A cleaning product!  Surely you can't deprive me of the right to clean my clothes....!"

 

 

 

[Gunther1]

Re the comment on vodka: I'm in a large chorus and we use this trick all the time ( it gets very hot and smelly when you have 200 guys in tuxes jammed together).  The cheaper the vodka the better...it's all good. 
 

Think car wash: we exit the stage and hold our arms up (like going through airport security).  Two volunteers give a quick spritz  and we are good to go. 

[triiip42]

We just returned on Saturday from a 21 day Caribbean on Rotterdam...Our experience (YMMV) with the unlimited laundry was:

-pre-cruise price of $147($7 per day), we decided to wait till onboard to get it so as to use OBC for this. We did the On board unlimited, price was $147($7 per day)...... (per Bag price was $20 per bag)..

-This allowed us to pack less and just do laundry more frequently due to warm climate and alot of walking. To our surprise, we did about 13 or14 loads(full bags) of laundry for the $147...

-We requested two more laundry bags and papers from our room stewards on day one. We usually sent in two bags each time. Some with different requests but everything in each bag was to be done by that request so as to minimize confusion...

-We sent in some bags with no special requests as to temperature or drying....

-We sent in some bags with requests for regular wash but low or medium heat for drying....

-We sent in some bags with request for gentle or delicate cold wash and either low heat dry or air dry...

- We sent in some clothes that had a blue ink mark on a white shirt and some that had food/juice spill on it. We specifically wrote which clothes had these issues so they would know which ones...

- We never checked the boxes on the papers as to folding or hanging or pressing...

-We wrote our special requests on the space at the top of the paper...

-We took a picture of each laundry paper that we sent in....

 

Returned clothes: -Every item was either folded or on hangers appropriately...

-All stains or marks completely removed....

-Clothes had been pressed....

-All our special requests had been met as best as we could tell from the great condition of our clothes...

-Gentle washed and air dried clothes took an extra half day to return. But we had anticipated and planned for them to have it longer, ...

-most loads were returned the next day. We had planned for it to take about 2 days..

 

We were/are extremely pleased with the results and this gives us confidence with taking less clothes along and just planning for the laundry timing.

Each returned load had a note with the laundry persons name on it. We ensured that we put in good comments on the navigator "connect with us" comment feature for each person multiple times..

We missed this one but next trip will look into how to tip those people a little extra...

 

Long-winded but that about wraps this up from this cruise. Now we have to get over the fact that our laundry at home is not going to do itself. Oh well...🤪

 

 

[FlaMariner]

23 minutes ago, triiip42 said:

We missed this one but next trip will look into how to tip those people a little extra...

 

in the past, we've tossed a few dollars in the bag.....We love the laundry service.  We pack with a carry on bag and a backpack and we are good to go for any amount of time.  

 

And if you have to pay for checked bags, the business case turns positive quickly. And if you'd rather take the train in Europe and travel pre-or-post cruise, the business case turns positive quickly!

 

And we turn 4* next cruise and it becomes FREE....that's when the business case really looks good!

 

 

[BetsyS.]

I agree that laundry service does an excellent job. Since we got personal notes

from people who took care of our clothes, I put cash in an envelope the next 

time went sent laundry out. I put person's name on envelope and said thank you.

[TiogaCruiser]

I’ve been thinking on this one. Last cruise was 10 days and we sent out twice. At some point, saving up the laundry for a bag means there still needs to be a bit more packed, which somewhat negates some of the benefits of doing laundry so one can pack light.
It took 2 days to get ours back, and we were getting a bit nervous.

[I like vacation]

17 hours ago, Crew News said:

There is no price difference in prepaid and onboard pricing.

 

Hate to disagree but that was not the case on our very recent cruise on the Oosterdam.  We just returned home 4 days ago and the prepaid price was $7/ day vs the onboard price of $9/day.  See post #16 and #19.

[rochelle_s]

On 1/10/2023 at 9:35 PM, VermeulT said:

Can anyone give me a rough guess on laundry prices for a 28 day cruise (I'll be doing Alaska Jun 2024)?

 

And if you have the info also - Thermo Suite pass?

 

 

Trying to get an idea on overall trip cost and my budget.

With 28 days in Alaska I am assuming you are doing  b2b’s.  If that is the case there is not her option to consider. If you are doing repeats of certain ports you can also plan for a laundry day. For example in Juneau there is at least one coin laundry less than a 20 minute walk away from where the ships usually dock ( I used the Public Library as a starting point).  You can get a couple of loads done relatively quickly  and still have time to do your own thing. A rolling carry on or fold up back back will come in very handy.

 

Just a thought that can save you some money.

 

Rochelle

 

[StLouisCruisers]

8 minutes ago, rochelle_s said:

With 28 days in Alaska I am assuming you are doing  b2b’s.  If that is the case there is not her option to consider. If you are doing repeats of certain ports you can also plan for a laundry day. For example in Juneau there is at least one coin laundry less than a 20 minute walk away from where the ships usually dock ( I used the Public Library as a starting point).  You can get a couple of loads done relatively quickly  and still have time to do your own thing. A rolling carry on or fold up back back will come in very handy.

 

Just a thought that can save you some money.

 

Rochelle

 

There is a 28 day Alaska cruise that was released recently for June 2024 and many have booked it already due to being so unique.  So I would say the poster is on one single cruise.