Fourteen cruises in, and the thing that changed how I unpack is a set of fabric boxes. I know how that sounds. I am 61, retired from teaching library science to middle schoolers, and I have opinions about organization that my husband Gus finds tiring. But the BAGAIL packing cube set earned its spot on our last three sailings, and not for the reason the product listing gives.
Here is the problem the cubes solve, and it is not wrinkles. An interior cabin gives you a closet the width of a coat, three shallow drawers that stick, and about four feet of floor. On our earlier sailings we packed loose clothes in the suitcase and unpacked onto the little sofa, and that is where everything lived for seven nights, because the drawers could not take it. Unpacking took the better part of an hour and I was cross about it before the safety drill. With the cubes, unpacking into those same drawers takes about ten minutes.
The set that turned three shallow drawers into a dresser
Eight pieces, four cubes apiece for two people, ten minutes to unpack. This is the set we have used on our last three sailings out of Port Canaveral.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →Unpacking takes ten minutes instead of an hour
On our twelfth cruise the cubes went into the suitcase for the first time. I unpacked both bags in about ten minutes. Each cube lifts out whole and goes straight into a drawer, so there is no folding on a bed that has no room for folding. Gus put his own bag away while I did mine, which had never once happened before. On the old system I did all of it while he stood in the corridor holding a suit bag.
Three shallow drawers start acting like a real dresser
An interior cabin is short on drawer space and the drawers are shallow. A cube that measures twelve by eleven by four point seven inches sits in one with a little room to spare, so a drawer holds a week of t-shirts or a week of shorts instead of a jumble. Pull the drawer open and the clothes are standing in rows, not heaped in a pile you have to dig through at seven in the morning.
Gus's clothes stay in Gus's suitcase
Married thirty-eight years and we still cannot agree on how his belt ends up in my bag. Separate cubes fixed it. His clothes go in his cubes, mine go in mine, and one small cube holds the chargers, the sunscreen and the odds and ends. When his suitcase is zipped, his things are in it. That sounds trivial until you are three days into a sailing and he needs a collared shirt for dinner.
Wet swimsuits stop soaking everything around them
One cube is the swim cube. Bathing suits, the rash guard, the wet bag. It sits on the closet shelf and it does not touch anything dry. Two pool days and a beach day in Cozumel means three wet suits cycling through one small container instead of three wet suits draped over the cabin's one chair. The fabric is polyester and the listing calls it water resistant, which is enough to keep a damp suit from soaking the next cube over.
Formal night stops being a folding emergency
There is usually one dress-up night on a four or five night sailing. Gus's collared shirt and my one good dress goes in a flat cube at the top of the suitcase and comes out with the fold still in it. The listing says the fabric protects clothes from wrinkles. I would not go that far, but the shirt arrives in better shape than it did loose in the bag, and that is worth something on the night the photographer sets up in the atrium and everyone is standing in a line.
The last-night pack-up is fifteen minutes, not a siege
Packing to go home used to be the worst hour of the trip. Everything is clean, dirty or damp and it is all mixed together. Now the cubes sort it as we go. Dirty clothes go back in the cube they came out of, damp items go in the swim cube, formal wear goes flat. Zips close, bags close, we go to dinner. On our last sailing out of Port Canaveral we were packed before the show.
You can find things without emptying the bag
The cubes have a see-through panel, so you look down and know what is in each one without opening it. That mattered on embarkation day. Our checked bags turned up at the cabin two hours after we did, and the carry-on tote held one cube with a change of clothes and the medication in it. I knew which cube to reach for in a dark cabin at eleven at night, and I did not wake Gus finding it.
One cube becomes a port-day bag
Take one cube out, put in the sunscreen, the waterproof phone pouches, the wristbands, a hat and the ship card, and carry it. It sits flat inside a beach bag instead of rolling around, and the full set weighs 350 grams so one piece weighs almost nothing on its own. The listing rates the load at ten pounds, which covers a towel and two water bottles for a day at the beach with room spare.
The set splits cleanly across two suitcases
Eight pieces, two people, one medium checked spinner each. Four cubes apiece is right for a seven night sailing, with the small pouch for shoes and one left over. The pieces are rectangular and cut in a family of sizes, so they stack in the suitcase instead of shifting around inside it. Nothing arrives creased because a bag got thrown onto a cart at the terminal.
It doubles as a laundry system
This is the reason I would buy the BAGAIL set again. One cube for clean, one for dirty, one for hand washing meant I did not pack a separate laundry bag and did not spend the last morning sorting. Gus, who forgets things, knew exactly where his used shirts went. It is the same principle as a labeled shelf in a school library. The item has one place to be, so it goes there without being told.
What I'd Skip
The eight set is more than some people need. If you sail with a carry-on only, go smaller. The largest flat piece alone takes a third of a small bag, and on a short sailing I leave two of ours at home. The drawstring closure on the pouch pieces is not my favorite and I use the zippered ones for anything that matters. And be clear about what these do. They organize, they do not shrink. If the problem is a week of clothes in a bag that will not hold a week of clothes, this is not the product that fixes it. The BAGAIL cubes make a small cabin usable. They do not make a small suitcase bigger.
Ten minutes to unpack, ten minutes to pack, and three shallow drawers that finally held a week of clothes for two people.
Ten minutes to unpack is worth the space it takes up
Three sailings, two suitcases, one set. The drawers in an interior cabin finally do their job, and Gus packs his own bag now.
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