We’re Disney fans, we’re DVC owners, we come to Orlando for at least four weeks at a time every summer from England, we need a lot of luggage right? Yes. Absolutely right! So our chosen airline has no problem with this and we can bring as much luggage as we like right? Erm, not quite. Flying from the UK has changed quite a bit in the last fifteen years or so. Gone are the days when you can bring two 32kg cases onboard, per person, plus cabin baggage. Honestly, we never needed quite that much of an allowance, but the standard is now around one bag each, weighing no more than 20kg.
Quite a reduction right?
We’ve never really had a problem with 20kg each, there’s four of us that come over, and we never needed more than three bags between us (usually two coming out, and an extra one going home). However, transatlantic tickets from the UK are really starting to change. It used to be that you got your flight, your seat reservation, your meal and your baggage all included. There are still many companies that still do that, but the airline we use (Norwegian) have started taking more of an a la carte approach. So that we can come to Orlando for as long as possible, we try to save a few pounds on the flight by not reserving seats, not paying for a meal onboard, and not paying for baggage.
It can be done, but the thing that has made this possible is an owner’s locker. Now, I understand we’re in quite a unique situation, coming from England for as long as we do, but I do think the use of an owner’s locker is something a lot of people could really benefit from.
We tend to book studios (to really stretch those points as far as we possibly can), and since we’re coming for a long time, we really don’t want to eat out too much (to make those pennies stretch as far as they can). As such (and because I have a husband who actually likes to cook), we wanted to take some cooking equipment. With just a microwave and a toaster this can be rather limiting, so we researched things that we could use in a microwave. It’s amazing how much you can cook in there! We found omelette maters, bacon grills, baked potato holders, all sorts! These things were all brought over from the UK. When we got to Orlando we bought proper plates, silverware, bowls etc, so we didn’t have to use the plastic ones that were provided. We had every intention of getting an owner’s locker to store all these things in. We’d seen an offer on the owner’s locker website, so snapped it up! I’m not sure if the offer is still running, so I wouldn’t like to quote it. However, a quick internet search will bring it all up for you.
We also like to move resorts quite a lot, so when we moved, we packed all our kitchen equipment into the locker. We really were amazed by how much it held! We could comfortably have fit our very tall eight year old in there if we’d wanted to! We then discovered an offer to add a second locker, so we thought, why not? This would mean we could store all of our holiday clothes in there too, therefore reducing on packing, and limiting the need to pay to bring a suitcase. Those of you who know anything about England knows it is not entirely the same climate as Florida, so the clothes we wear there are very different. Also, I don’t tend to wear sparkly Mickey tank tops there either! So we purchased some of those bags where you vacuum the air out, and packed all of our holiday clothes into the second locker. Perfect! It also meant that I would just do the laundry on the last day, pack it into the bags, into the locker, and not think about it again until we returned. It also meant very little unpacking when we returned home, and no laundry! Always a bonus when you’re on a post holiday come down!
On our trip this year we decided to add a third locker!
In this one we just put lots of bits and pieces. We have some board games in there, cleaning products, shampoo etc. It was totally worth it as it meant the one case we brought with us this year was filled with Halloween party candy and very little else!
Next year we’re being very brave. We feel as though we’ve got to the stage with our lockers where we only need to bring carry on bags with us. Everything else really is there waiting for us. All we have to do is fill in a simple form on the website, and our lockers will be delivered directly to our resort. When we check out, we get bell services to collect them, and they’re taken from there. In fact, we found out that it was an ex bell services employee that started the company, and many ex bell services people now work for them. They have an excellent relationship with Disney too, which is very handy!
It’s honestly so easy!
Again, I don’t want to quote prices in case things change, but their website and Facebook pages are fantastic and they’ll answer any questions you might have. You may think I work for the company after writing this, but I honestly don’t! They’re just that good! Their customer service is outstanding, they’re flexible, the lockers are gigantic and I couldn’t recommend them more.
You know what?
I thought of something I don’t like! The storage boxes are purple, which is my favourite colour, but the DVC special ones are blue…….ah well, can’t have it all haha!
