Cruise Destination: Nassau, Bahamas Port

I think Nassau is probably the most popular cruise stop since it is just so close to Florida. It's very easy to get to and has beautiful water. It used to be one of my favorite spots, but unfortunately is just seems to be getting more and more dangerous. When we stopped there in 2022, our cruise was delayed leaving because a couple had been mugged and the ship was working with the local authorities to help the couple out. It's just sad that there's so many people who go there, which has apparently turned it into a target for criminals. I don't think it's quite so bad that you should avoid getting off the ship at this port; it's generally safe if you stay near the port, so that's what we try to do. 

There's a lot you can do in Nassau, so I wanted to create a place listing what we've done at each stop here over the years. I'll update this as we come back here again and again. 

Blue Lagoon VIP Adults-Only Excursion

We booked this excursion through Carnival, and I thought it was pretty good. It's a private beach that comes with lunch and unlimited Bahama Mamas. It's on a small private island that has other excursions, show you take a tender with everyone else who has an excursion at Blue Lagoon, and then once you're there you are divided into which part of the lagoon you have access to. The tender was great, there was plenty of seating and you didn't feel cramped. They did have a concession bar where you could buy snacks, water, sodas, and beer. We thought this would be included in the price of our ticket, but it wasn't. The prices weren't necessarily cheap, but they were cheaper than on the ship. 

The lagoon itself if very clean and well-maintained. It has a walkway for you to tour the area, and there's some shopping and plenty of bathrooms. The adults-only part of the lagoon was roped off, had plenty of chairs (though not all of them were covered), had a bar, and had staff coming around to take food and drink orders. We were a little disappointed that the only free alcohol was the Bahama Mamas, and you had to pay for anything else at the bar. I was pregnant, but Ryansaid they were a little too sweet started to give him a headache after a few drinks. They did have non-alcoholic punch and water that I thought was pretty good. The cups they use are tiny 8-ounce plastic cups that had no lid, so I would definitely recommend bringing your own insulated tumbler with a lid. 

The food was actually really good and there was a good amount of options. I really liked the chicken wings and rice, and Ryan went back for seconds. They only offered lunch, so if you wanted more food you would have either needed to bring your own or to buy it on a different part of the lagoon.

There was a pier you walked down to the beach which did a good job of separating the adults-only side with the family-friendly side. The adults only side was just the beach and water, with 3 few anchored floating rafts for everyone to share. We had each brought our own snorkel gear to use here, but there was hardly any fish to look at, so we didn't end up snorkeling and I wouldn't recommend you expect to get to do that. Instead, I would've brought my whale tail float to sit on in the water or an inflatable pool floats to relax on. Like I said, there was just the 3 rafts for the entire excursion, so we spent most of our time in the water just standing around waiting for something to become available. 

They did do a good job of kicking any kids out of the area, so there was no screaming or splashing on our area. However, our wristbands did give us access to the family-friendly side of Blue Lagoon which has big inflatables that you could play around on. 

Overall, I thought this was a pretty good excursion. If they would have included a larger variety of alcohol, heck even just some cheap local beer, I think it would've been really great. This is a park-it-in-the-sand excursion, so it might not be for you if you're wanting to be more active for your stop. Also, the shopping was pretty minimal and seemed to mostly just be for things you forgot (hat/sunscreen/sunglasses/coverup), so if shopping is all you want to do, this excursion might leave you disappointed. 

Cruise Destination: Cozumel, Mexico Port

If you go on a Western Caribbean cruise, there's a really good chance that you'll stop in Cozumel regardless of what cruise line you're on. It's probably the most popular Cruising port west of the Bahamas. Your ship will dock right at the port and you can walk down the pier, through the duty-free shop, and be free to go and do whatever you want, and come back to the ship whenever you want. 

It's a great port because there's lots of tourist-friendly restaurants like Senor Frogs and Margaritaville, but there's also authentic Mexican restaurants as well. There's really no language barrier and they even accept American dollars and usually credit cards as well, so you don't have to bring any foreign currency with you. It has an established shopping center that is well thought-out and feels similar to shopping back home. Most importantly, it feels safe! The people in the shops aren't overly pushy or sketchy. 

There's a lot you can do in Cozumel, so I wanted to create a place listing what we've done at each stop here over the years. I'll update this as we come back here again and again. 

Carnival Dock

International Cruise Terminal Cozumel

For our 2023 Carnival cruise, Cozumel was our last stop of the trip so we decided to have a chill day and just walk around the cruise terminal. Ryan grabbed us some drinks and we just walked around and shopped. Ryan was begging to get our daughter a sombrero because he has an obnoxiously giant one from a prior cruise, so I told him if he could find a baby-sized one then he could get it. Really, I thought it was a fool's errand, but of course the very next store had one! 

We also stopped into Cariloha and ordered some sheets. What's nice is that they ship your purchases to your home for free, so you don't have to worry about packing what you bought when you go home. This is exactly why I always throw a foldable backpack into my beach bag on port days, so that we have a way to carry all our port purchases back onto the ship.

Our daughter fell asleep in her stroller while we were shopping, so we stopped and had a long lunch at Fat Tuesdays while she had her nap. We ended up deciding that this was enough for one day, so we didn't go to the beach on this stop. But, if we come here again we'll probably just take a taxi to Paradise Beach on our own. 

Royal Caribbean Dock

Nachi Cocom

The Royal Caribbean dock is actually 2 miles away from the Carnival dock. So although you can see the other ships, the shops are a long walk away. For our 2024 Royal Caribbean cruise, we couldn't find an excursion through Royal that was toddler-friendly, but we knew we didn't just want to walk around the port again, so we booked Nachi Cocom on our own. We paid $69 per adult and $0 for our toddler to again get all-inclusive food and drinks. The reason we chose Nachi Cocom over other Cozumel options like Paradise Beach or Mr. Sanchos was that they limit the amount of guests per day. Having a toddler, it was really important to me that she felt she could run and play without getting trampled by a huge crowd. It also didn't have any big water inflatables that attract big kids who can run around and run over my daughter.

Navigating the Cozumel port to get to Nachi Cocum was an easier experience than navigating the Costa Maya port to get to Maya Chan. We again brought our Doona trike and this time remembered the trike backpack, but my husband thinks our daughter could have made the walk.We just followed the signs that pointed towards the taxi pickup. The one sus part was at the end there was a sign pointing to go to the right to get to the taxis, and then right behind that was a store with a sign pointing to the left down a hallway to get to the taxis. We thought this was a scam and went right, but actually you do go take a right until you get to the store and then take a left and go down the hallway to the taxis. What I appreciated about the taxi pickup was that they had a board with prices to the major tourist areas with a flat rate per 4 people. Whereas in Cancun all the taxis are white with a green stripe, here all the taxis were white with a red stripe, so you could feel comfortable knowing you're getting into a legit taxi. The trip was only about 20 minutes to get to the beach. 

Once you get there, they have you take a welcome photo and then later they offered us to buy it for $12. It was a cute photo, and I'm glad we bought it because with the chaos of a toddler we completely forgot to buy photos from our ship until after we got home, so this was our only professional photo of the trip. They then will take you to complete your payment and then give you paper wristbands and let you know who your waiter will be and then your taken to your beach chairs. There's actually a QR code that you need to scan to connect to Wi-Fi that we missed and had to go back, because the waiter we asked for the Wi-Fi code either didn't know it or wouldn't give it to us, so don't forget to scan the code before you leave. The Wi-Fi worked much better at the pool than at the beach. We were seated by the beach bar which made me nervous at first for nap times, but thankfully they didn't have the music too loud. 

What was the only con of our Nachi Cocom experience was that the beach area they brought us to initially had a big umbrella covering 4 beach chairs and a table, but as we were setting our stuff down, they took away the 2 beach chairs, leaving only 2 beach chairs for the 3 of us. I know that our daughter was free, but she still deserved to have her own chair and I wasn't a fan of this. At first I was just thinking they were rationing the chairs so that later-arriving guests could have a seat, but the chairs just sat out in the middle of the sun unoccupied for the rest of the day. The table they left us with was small, so I was very happy that I brought my baby Bogg Bag with my little tray insert to have an extra table so not everything had to go in the sand. 

The beach was also large and didn't seem to have a lot of sea grass, but I do recommend water sandals because there are a lot of shells. I'm glad we brought a little mesh bag for our daughter to collect shells in. There was no beach toys or floats offered, so make sure you bring your won. They have showers at the bathrooms to the right of the beach bar to wash off ocean water, and they have a food wash station near the pool to wash off sand. 

Nachi Cocom isn't a resort, but it does have a resort-sized pool. It was huge with a very large shallow ledge for adults to sit and talk or toddlers to play, an adults-only hot tub, and a swim-up bar. This was were my toddler wanted to spend the majority of the day, and we were just fine with that. 

Around the pool was a bunch of outdoor dining tables, so we had lunch by the pool. There was a good variety of options, and I really liked the food. The mixed drinks weren't the strongest, so we just stuck with beer to save on the empty calories. I never saw water sitting out like at Maya Chan, so I was glad we brought several bottled waters with us off the ship.

Regular menu

Kids menu

When it was time to go, they ordered a taxi for us and it was there about 5 minutes later. Overall, I think this would be a great sit and read a good book with a drink in your hand excursion. They specifically have signs saying they don't allow "spring break" behavior. Like Maya Chan, it seemed to be the perfect place for early elementary kids and younger to just hang out and enjoy the beach or the pool. We'd definitely come here again, but next time I do want to talk to them about having 1 beach chair per person rather than 1 beach chair per paying adult. 

10 Things to NOT Pack for A Cruise

It can be really easy to overpack for your first cruise because you don't know exactly what you'll be doing and what you'll need. There's a lot of generic "cruise packing" lists going around, and I wanted to share my thoughts on some of these as someone who has been cruising since jr. high and is planning her 9th cruise:

Related: Cruise packing favorites

Laundry soap

You'll see a lot of packing lists recommending you bring a small thing of travel laundry soap for your cruise so you can do a load of laundry in your sink. I'm convinced that anyone who includes this on a packing list has never actually used it. Cruise bathrooms are small and the sinks are not deep at all, so I don't think you'd be able to actually wash your clothes and get all the soap out. Instead, bring a Tide To Go pen to spot-treat stains. You also likely won't even need to wash your clothes on your trip, unless it's longer than a week cruise.  If you really need to do a load of laundry, the ship will usually have a wash and fold service for about $30.

Clothes line

Another thing I see recommended a lot is a clothes line to air dry swimsuits and wet clothes in your room. While this is a great idea, and even I air-dry my clothes on a clothes line on cruises, you don't need to bring your own. The shower in your bathroom will have what looks like a little bell, but is a retractable clothes line. 

The only time I would recommend you spend your hard-earned dollars and take up precious packing space in a suitcase by buying and bringing your own clothes line is if you have a balcony cabin and only 1 swimsuit. If you only have 1 swimsuit, then the wind and sun from being outside will dry your only swimsuit fast enough for you to wear each day. But, if you bring at least 2 swimsuits, yours will dry in plenty of time on the shower clothes line. Personally, I prefer to bring a swimsuit per day on my cruise, because it's my main "outfit" each day. 

Hidden document or money holders

Unless you're traveling to Europe, you just won't need an under the clothes document holder or a money belt. First of all, these are actually really impractical to use. My dad took a money belt on our first cruise, and it seemed like his money would go everywhere when he'd try to pay for something. I've also seen people struggle to get their passports out from their under-the-shirt document holder, and it's not a pretty sight watching them fish that out from under their shirt, half flashing everyone as they do.

I don't get off the ship with my passport because I personally feel that at each stop I'll have a larger risk of losing my passport somewhere at the port than missing the ship or having some other emergency where I'm stuck at the port without a passport. I do have a scanned copy of our passports saved in a Goggle drive that I've made available offline, just in case. 

Instead, I recommend a waterproof travel wallet. These zip up to keep money/cards from falling out and to keep it waterproof. It's perfect because all you need at port is your ID, your ship card, a credit card, and some cash for tipping/bartering/buying things from merchants on the beach, so you can leave everything else in a regular wallet in your stateroom safe. If your wallet gets lost/stolen, then you didn't just lose all the cash you brought for the trip and all of your credit cards. Or, if you need a safe place to store your passports or other large items, you can get a crossbody bag that keeps your stuff right on you so it can't get lost/stolen, but is much easier to access.

A ton of shoes

If you're just going to the Caribbean, then you actually only need 3 kinds of shoes: closed-toed shoes (like sneakers) for on-board activities like basketball and the ropes course, and for shore excursions like parasailing and horseback riding; sandals/water shoes for the beach, and heels or dress shoes for dinner. That's it! 

One of my favorite packing tips for cruises are Pasion Footwear shoes! You might have seen them on Shark Tank, but they are sandals that can convert to heels, and the heels are interchangeable. So, I just wear them as sandals around the ship during the day, and then I have the 3" espadrille heels for most dinner nights,  and 4" rhinestone heels for formal night. 

Black tie formal wear

Formal night is a lot less "formal" than you'd expect if your only experience with a cruise is Titanic. You don't need to rent a tux or bring a ballgown for formal night. On our first cruise, I wore a prom dress and felt way overdressed. Most people wear suits and cocktail dresses for formal night. 

Printed out deck plans

There is no need to print out and laminate the deck plans before your cruise. At each elevator there will be a display of the ship showing what is on that particular deck, plus a list of what is on each floor. The deck numbers in the elevator will also have the main stops listed out by each deck. And, your cruise will have an app that will have detailed deck plans, so there's no need to carry printed plans around with you.

Binoculars

The only cruise that you might need this is Alaska. Every other cruise, these probably won't be used.

Camera

Unless you're really into photography, it's just easier to stick with your phone. Remember, some days you'll be getting off the ship at 7am and not returning until 3pm, so you'll be stuck carrying it around (and watching to make sure it's not lost or stolen) all day. Plus with a camera you'll need to bring extra cords to charge it and other accessories that will eat up space on the tiny desk you have in your room. 

Any iPhone 7 or newer is waterproof, and basically any Android will be waterproof too, so you can take your phone with you anywhere and get really good pictures. If you're worried about holding onto your phone when you're in a swimsuit and don't have pockets, or if you want to swim around in the ocean, you can put your phone in a waterproof phone pouch and just wear it. 

Same goes for a digital clock or night light, even if you're in an interior cabin. Instead, I would bring a good smart watch. Not only will this also will this have the time and a built-in flashlight, but you can use it all day long. I add our daily activities and itinerary to my calendar, and then my watch lets me know what's up next and where. It's also really helpful if you're traveling through time zones on your cruise. Ship time is always the time zone of where you embarked for your cruise on day 1, but your phone will likely switch over to local time when you get there. There's always someone on each cruise that gets in a bind because they don't realize that the time on their phone is different than ship time. With a smart watch, you can have 2 clocks on one watch face, one for local time and one for ship time, and it will keep you on time all day.

Guidebooks

Maybe if you're going to Europe and you don't have an excursion or tour planned, this might come in handy. Other than that, I don't think you would need this. Many of the ports are not in the main city in the country, so a lot of the recommendations might not be geographically feasible for this trip.

Physical books

Not only are books heavy for you to carry and keep up with all day, but cruises are often wet. Kids splash in the pool, it inevitably rains intermittently, the deck is often wet from being recently cleaned, the waves will spray water towards the beach, drinks get spilled... you get it. There's just too many chances for your book to get ruined. I only bring a waterproof Kindle with me and it's great because it's lightweight to carry and I don't have to worry about it getting wet. I just make sure to pre-download 2-3 books before my trip so I don't have to worry about trying to connect my Kindle to the ship wi-fi and waiting forever for the book to download. 

Honeymoon in Punta Cana for Free

Ryan and I got our honeymoon in the Dominican Republic for (basically) free, and it was actually really easy and required no crazy sweepstakes giveaways to enter. I knew that I wanted to have a really luxurious trip for our honeymoon, but I had just graduated law school and we weren't exactly in a financial spot to contribute towards both a wedding and a honeymoon, so credit card points and miles was our best option. We knew we wanted to take advantage of credit card points for a free trip, so as soon as we got engaged, we became hyper-focused on credit card points and miles. 

A few years before we were engaged, I had signed up for the Capital One Venture card, and was getting miles with every purchase because it was the only credit card I'd use. What I liked about the Venture card is that you get 2x points on every purchase, and you don't have to keep track of certain categories to get the most of your points. I also added Ryan as an authorized user to my Venture card so he could put a lot of his purchases onto the card to help us build up points faster. We were able to use my Venture points to book a week-long stay at an all-inclusive 5-star resort in a swim-up suite. 

Related: All about Luxury Ambar at Bahia Principe in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

Once we got engaged, I signed up for the Chase United Explorer card to get miles to cover our flights. Although the Chase United card doesn't give you as much miles per purchase, the miles were a good value for us. I referred Ryan for his own Chase United card and got each of us a 10,000-mile referral bonus, on top of the sign-up bonuses that we hit by putting all of our wedding purchases onto our Chase United cards. We flew business class on a direct flight from Houston to Punta Cana, using my miles for the flight there and his miles for the flight back. We also got a free checked back each for our trip and two United Club passes to use on our flight.

Both cards also give you a statement credit to get Global Entry or TSA PreCheck! I already had TSA PreCheck through my job, but we got Ryan signed up through my Venture card statement credit. What's nice is that TSA PreCheck lasts for 5 years, so we're still using it now! 

Traveling for free using credit card points and miles is now something that Ryan and I love to do! We're actually going on our anniversary trip for free by using the Chase Sapphire card points to book our hotel and our Southwest card miles to book our flights. 

7 Mistakes I Made Cruising with my Baby

One thing that Ryan and I like to do after each trip recently is to reflect back on areas of improvement for the trip. For our cruise, we didn't have a ton, but I wanted to share what we learned cruising with an 8 month old. 

Related: Thoughts on cruising with an 8-month old and Review of the cruise we took our 8 month old on

Timing dinner

I mentioned this in my cruise review, but to catch you up to speed we did the "my time" dining on our cruise. The benefit of this is that if your baby isn't hungry at exactly 5:30 or 7:45, you can still enjoy the main dining courses and just head there whenever you want. Unfortunately, we cut it close on our timing just about every night. On our cruise, it seemed that once the doors opened at 5:30, you were seated immediately (so we'd have to rush to quickly get ready to make our reservation), but the wait times quickly were pushed back to about an hour. In hindsight, we should have made this more of a priority to put in a table reservation early in the evening. We also should have just given up and headed for the buffet once the wait got over 30 minutes, because for this trip the line didn't move faster than the wait time shown.

Disposable bibs

All of the online travel packing lists recommended disposable baby bibs for eating. It makes perfect sense because you're not trying to re-use dirty bibs throughout the trip, and that's less dirty laundry you have to bring home. This didn't work out for us because my daughter was in the arm-flailing stage, so she accidentally discovered how easily these can rip. Once she figured that out, the bibs never stayed on. 

Now, I just travel with a standard wipeable bib and a wet bag to put dirty bibs in. It's more work, but at least it keeps her clothes clean. For now, I just keep the spare disposable bibs in our baby travel bag as a backup. 

Packing the wrong placemats

We brought disposable place mats to go along with our disposable bibs. And we brought a suction cup toy holder. Both worked perfectly fine, but in hindsight I wish I would have just brought 1 item that did both. We loved our mini busy baby mat for our baby because it was somewhere clean we could put her food (that has raised sides to keep juices from dripping off the table and makes it easier for little hands to pick up food) and it has straps that can hold 2 toys (or a toy and a drink) onto the table. 

We didn't get the mini busy baby mat until after our cruise, but it would have made several meals a lot easier. I still have leftover disposable place mats that I keep in our baby travel bag as a backup.

Not dressing her for the port

In Belize, we had to tender to and from the port to the ship. We dressed our daughter in her swimsuit for the trip over there, but changed her into dry clothes for the trip back. The problem with this was that on the way back, water kept spraying into the boat and her outfit was completely soaked and her legs got cold. If we have another tender port again, I'll make sure to pack an extra swimwear for the trip back so that she's better dressed. The reason I didn't want to just keep her in her swimsuit all day was because sometimes you can develop a rash from wearing a damp swimsuit if it doesn't dry fast enough.

On the flipside, we dressed her in her swimsuit for Cozumel, and then ended up just going to the shops and restaurants only on that stop. Since she didn't get in the water, she didn't need to be in her swimsuit all day and could have been in something breezier. Next time, if I know we won't be going to the water, I'll dress her in her bamboo rompers and then just pack the swimsuit as a just in case. 

One lesson we've learned is to dress them in their regular diaper until you get to the beach! Swim diapers don't hold pee, so if they pee in their swim diaper while you're getting off the ship then it will leak right through. But, make sure you remember to them into their swim diaper when you get there, or their regular diaper will fill up with water instantly.

Not planning all excursions out

We only booked an excursion for 1 of our 3 ports, and I regret that. For Belize, it led to me being absolutely paranoid wandering around like a lost tourist, making us obvious targets to rob. For Cozumel, it was just overconfidence in ourselves because we had been to the port previously. Both times we figured that we could just wing it, and to a certain extent we did. 

But, standing around with no plan trying to make it up on the spot is much more difficult when you have a baby and a baby schedule to accommodate. Make-it-up-as -you-go is a perfectly good plan, just if you're traveling childless. Next time, we'll make sure we have our day planned at each stop so that we can make the most out of the little time we have at each port.

Underutilizing the baby center

While we did remember that the baby center has scheduled "play dates" for our second sea day, we completely forgot about it for the first sea day. We were really bummed about this, because they did something different each sea day, so we missed out on whatever activities they had going on that first day. It's easy to forget to go by the baby center since you can't drop your kid off, but there's lots of toys and a safe place for them to climb around over there. 

Bringing our pack-n-play

Carnival provides metal mini cribs, and I just didn't like that idea, so I brought our big Graco pack-n-play. This was the 1 item that almost broke my husband as we were taking our luggage from the parking garage across the street to the cruise terminal, and almost broke me when we were trying to set it up in our room. This thing is heavy and not easy to carry around! We also always kept our pack-n-play assembled in our living room, so we weren't super familiar with how to set it up and our internet plan didn't include Google or streaming so I couldn't look up a how-to video to get it set up. 

While I don't regret brining our own baby bed onboard, I do regret which brand we brought. After our trip, I got the Guava Lotus travel crib, and we really like it. While the Graco is 37 pounds, this is only 14 pounds! The straps on the bag are made so that you can wear the bag like a backpack. And the setup seemed much more intuitive on this crib. We got the set that came with the quilted mattress topper, and it is so soft! The side also unzips so your baby can easily go in and out of it to play in. 

However, it's actually not my favorite travel crib. My mom got the Dream on Me travel crib for her house and it's amazing! It's only 10 pounds and it folds up really tiny. All you do is pop the legs into the crib and it's fully assembled, no weird buttons to push and hold and fold. Because my daughter is now over 1, my mom got a mattress pad insert and it makes this bed very comfortable! The only downside is that the mattress bag is about as big as the travel crib bag, so it's one more bulky thing to carry. The only downside to this travel crib is that your baby will outgrow it much faster than the Guava Lotus, because the lotus is 5 inches longer and 4 inches wider, but the Dream on Me is 1/3 of the price! 

And 3 things we did right

We overspent and ordered a teddy bear to be delivered to our room on the first day, and it was just so darn cute! I'm happy that we now have this little memento of our daughter's first cruise! This photo alone was worth the money. 

We took a baby monitor that didn't require Wi-Fi, and I'm so glad we did! I got an adjustable arm that comes on a giant clip so I could just clip it onto the door of one of the cabinets and face the camera towards our daughter's bed. We wouldn't leave her in the room alone, but it was nice to sit out on our balcony and be able to see if she was starting to wake up, because it's actually really hard to hear what's going on inside the room when you're on the balcony, so we might not have heard her cry until the whole floor could hear her. 

Since the cruise, we've used this on just about every trip we've taken. While we love our Nanit back home (and the Nanit does come with a travel kit), I don't trust the security or the streaming quality of Wi-Fi when we travel. It's also nice to have a travel-dedicated baby monitor so we don't have to worry about taking down our everyday monitor and packing it for each trip. 

Another balcony-specific thing we did was bring a mini pool! Kids who are still in swim diapers can't swim in the pool, and since our ship didn't have a splash pad, this was the only way that she got to play in the water on sea days. I brought a mini air pump and could easily blow this up and deflate it in a minute each time we used it (we also used it on port days if we got back on the ship early in the day). I used an empty trash can filled with warm shower water to quickly fill it, and threw some cheap foam letters in for my daughter to play with. This was probably her favorite part of the whole ship, and was very easy to bring with us and set up. 

Our last great decision we made was our room. Besides the fact that I obviously recommend a balcony room for cruising with a baby, I recommend you look into the room location as well. Our room was only a floor away from the buffet and was near the stairs. This meant that if our daughter was in our room napping, or was not in a mood to be in a public restaurant, Ryan could just run up to the buffet and grab us something to eat and bring it back to the room and we would have a picnic on our balcony. Our room was also near the pool bar (but no so close that it was loud), so we could easily run and grab a little drinky drink when we were on babysitting duty in the room. 

What's in my Travel Hair Bag

Something that has become very handy for all of our short and longer trips has been keeping all of my hair supplies ready to be packed at a moment's notice. Just like my toiletry bag, I've found that buying travel-specific items that stay packed at all times has really helped make sure that I never forget anything, and also saves time when I go to pack, because this step is already done. 

Related: What's in my travel toiletry bag

Double duty hair tools bag

I found the perfect hair tools travel bag to use for this! It not only holds your hot tools, but it comes wrapped in a heat-protectant mat. You can just unwrap the mat and have a place to put your straightener or curler! It has a lot of storage so it can hold more than just your hair tools in it. 

2-in-1 straightener and curler

I used to travel with both a straightener and a separate curler, and it took up a lot of room in the bag and was very heavy. I was super excited to find a hot tool that can both straighten and curl your hair! I got the grande size because my hair goes below my shoulder blade. I do think it straightens better than it curls, but for the space-saving it gives me, I make it work. 

Heat protectant spray

I keep a good mini heat protectant spray with my straightener. I used to keep this in my toiletry bag, but now that I have a dedicated hair tools bag, it has been so nice to keep all of my hairstyling products together in one place. This has also cleared up a little bit of room in my toiletry bag, so now I can find what I need in both bags faster.

Hair clips

I keep a claw clip in my hair bag to make styling my hair easier. The clip can hold a lot of hair, making it really easy to section out my hair for styling. The clips came in a pack of 2, so I threw the extra one in my toiletry bag to help keep my hair out of my face when I'm washing it. 

I also have a small set of alligator clips so that I can keep my hair out of my face to do my makeup without messing up my hair. 

Hair brush

It's basic, but a hair brush is obviously needed in my hair tools bag. I like having a dedicated travel hair brush so that I don't have to worry about if I leave this one behind in a hotel room.

Hair towel

I prefer to air dry my hair, so I don't pack a blow-dryer when I travel. Instead, I pack a microfiber hair towel to dry my hair. It's so much lighter on my head than a hotel towel, and it doesn't fall down. I always make sure to pack one that is not white because one time I had left my white hair towel in the bathroom and housekeeping mistook it for a normal towel and it was gone forever. 

What's in my Travel Toiletry Bag

One of my biggest travel packing hacks is to keep your toiletry bag always packed! It saves you so much time from having to pack and unpack your toiletries after each trip, and it guarantees that you never forget anything. Yes, it is more expensive to have 2 of most things; but, you can just throw 1-2 things off this list into your cart every month and have a fully-stocked toiletry bag for your next trip. Then, all you have to do is remember to buy any refills as you run out.

Oral care

I'd start with buying oral care, because most other basic toiletries are offered by hotels. A cheap way to do this is to ask your dentist for a toothbrush/toothpaste at your next visit. Toothbrush and toothpaste companies are always giving them samples to hand out as freebies! If you have a trip coming up before your next dentist appointment, then you can easily find travel toothbrush kits that comes with a folding toothbrush and toothbrush cover, toothpaste, and mouthwash for less than $10. 

Basic haircare 

Next get a travel hairbrush, hair ties, and bobby pins. These usually aren't offered by hotels, and it's good to keep several stashed in your bag because it's easy to forget to put them back after your trip, so your stash will likely dwindle each trip. I prefer to pack a smaller hairbrush because it takes up less space. I also keep just a cotton hairband in my toiletry bag. This is great for keeping my hair out of my face when I'm washing my face, doing my makeup, or just traveling on a windy day. 

On the other end of the "hair" spectrum, they make mini travel razors that are perfect to keep in your bag! The handle is much smaller so it can fit in your toiletry bag easier, and it comes with a case so your razor blades aren't just exposed out in your bag. I also keep a mini tweezer in my toiletry bag, which I've used more than I expected!

Related: What's in my travel hair care bag

Personal hygiene

Basically all hotels will offer cheap shampoo and body wash, but most don't offer conditioner. Because of this, I pack a travel shampoo, conditioner, and body wash set. I specifically use the Sol de Janeiro brand when on vacation because it smells like vacation in a bottle! My husband loves the smell, and I always get compliments when I wear this. If you're worried about your liquids spilling, you can cover them with silicone leak-protecting covers.

For deodorant, I strongly recommend that you not only get the travel sized to save space, but that you get roll-on deodorant specifically for traveling. Toiletry bags get smashed around in your bag, and time and time again I've had stick deodorants break on me, so I've switched to roll-on to keep that from happening. 

Skin care 

At the very minimum, I keep a makeup removing cloth in my toiletry bag. All you do is add water to remove your makeup, so you don't have to worry about makeup removing wipes drying out or running out. While I can't say that it removes ALL of your makeup, it does a really good job for just requiring water. 

To actually clean my skin, I keep a small travel-sized set of cleanser and moisturizer in my bag. It feels sooo nice after a long day of traveling to wash the travel grime off your face and put on a nice moisturizer. For daytime, I also keep a travel-sized SPF moisturizer to wear every day. Even if you're not planning on being out under the sun all day and don't need to lather on the sunscreen, you're likely to be outside more often when you travel than when you're not at home, so a little SPF will keep you from being pink at the end of the day. I also keep a lip moisturizer always packed.

I've recently added blemish patches into my toiletry bag. Sometimes the stress and poor air quality of travel will make my skin break out, and these are great to throw on before bed so that you're blemish free for the next day.

Miscellaneous 

This isn't exactly a toiletry, but I always keep a silicone "bra" in my toiletry bag, just to make sure it's packed! I usually travel in a sports bra because it is the comfiest option, and really comes in handy when I find myself running between gates to catch a connecting flight. But, I've been stuck in a situation where it was a mostly chill trip so the sports bra was perfect for most days, we had one day where I needed a strapless or thing-strapped top/dress and only had a sports bra. A silicone bra is very easy to pack and works with basically any top.