Anyone ever do laundry off ship?

[FritzG]

We never do laundry in ports; we never do laundry on the ship in their machines; we always send it out with our steward. The cost is only another part of the fare, to us. I do laundry at home and that's quite enough for me.

 

My concern is that I have very sensitive skin and must use fragrance free detergent. I'm afraid that if I send my laundry out the detergent they use will irritate my skin. I'm not fond of doing laundry on my cruise, but it beats itching for the whole cruise.

[cruisestitch]

Assuming you are flying to the cruise, weigh the cost of checking a second bag versus sending laundry out to be washed. It might just be cheaper to bring extra clean clothes if you need them washed a certain way. For me, a second suitcase brings a $35 fee at the airline, or I can pay about that in laundry costs on the ship. YMMV.

[Lsimon]

Look at it this way: You've paid a lot for that cruise - I'd guess that by the time one adds up the cruise fare, gratuities, airfare and other costs the bare minimum is $200/day for a couple and probably a lot more than that. So if you give up a relaxing vacation day to go do laundry then you're wasting that $200+ you spent as well as the cost of taxi and the laundromat costs. Compare that to spending $50 or so for on board laundry, or $70 or so for the round trip airfare of an extra piece of luggage, and it just doesn't make sense to waste a day of your vacation.

 

My concern is that I have very sensitive skin and must use fragrance free detergent. I'm afraid that if I send my laundry out the detergent they use will irritate my skin. I'm not fond of doing laundry on my cruise, but it beats itching for the whole cruise.

The ship's laundry service is pretty good. If this is your only consideration you might try contacting the cruiseline, maybe even through their special needs department, and asking about this. Maybe start a thread in this forum to see if others with similar sensitivity have had experience with the ship's laundry.