My job is giving advice to cruisers. Hey, I’m the expert, right?  Now it’s confession time: I’ve learned everything I know first-hand, by making really dumb mistakes.

For example, packing for a cruise.  For 15 years I traveled roughly three months of the year and this makes me an expert on packing, right?  Wrong!  While it’s true I do take my own advice in some areas (pack dressy clothes in dry cleaner’s bag, lay flat in suitcase, you’ll never have a wrinkle, etc), I do confess to a big problem in limiting the number of items I take.  In other words, I over-pack.

While I do know better, when I haul out a suitcase for a one-week trip, I have to fill it to overflowing.  My rationale:  “hey, you never know.”  The only advantage to this is arriving home with clean clothing — but no wrinkles! — still on the hangar. 

Then I hit rock bottom.  While checking my bag at British Airways at the end of a ten-day Europe cruise, the ticket agent said “you’re over the weight limit and must take some of the items out.”  This was pre-Euro Europe and I’d done a bit of shopping. So, on my hands and knees I pulled out a bunch of clothes until my bag was light enough to pass muster.  You have no idea the embarrassment I suffered walking through Heathrow airport, my arms full of clothing. 

After that I started to followed my own advice.  I even have packing lists of items I need for a cruise of any duration. Yes, I still have pangs when I see a few inches of empty space in the suitcase — “oh, a few more dresses wouldn’t hurt….you never know” — but I haven’t overpacked in years.  However, I still won’t go anywhere without a framed photo of my dog and iPod speakers.

How do you rate yourself as a packer?  Any tips you’d like to pass on?

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