You’ve spent weeks planning the perfect cruise wardrobe. You’ve got the tropical floral prints for sea days, the elegant linen trousers for excursions in port, and that one “showstopper” outfit for Formal Night. You pack them with care, perhaps using tissue paper or packing cubes, hoping for the best.
Then, you arrive in your stateroom. You open your suitcase only to find that your formal wear looks less like “red carpet” and more like “crumpled paper.”
In a hotel on land, this is a thirty-second fix. You grab the iron from the closet, and you’re good to go. But on a cruise ship? That’s where things get complicated.
The Great Cruise Conundrum
If you are new to cruising, you might be shocked to learn that clothes irons and steamers are strictly prohibited. They are near the top of every cruise line’s “banned items” list, right alongside candles and hot plates.
Because fire is the greatest secondary danger at sea, cruise lines take a zero-tolerance policy toward heat-producing appliances. If you try to sneak a travel steamer in your luggage, there is a very high probability it will be confiscated at the pier and held in “naughty luggage” jail until the end of the voyage.
Your (Limited) Options
So, what is a wrinkled traveler to do? Usually, you have three choices, and none of them are ideal:
- Professional Pressing: You can send your clothes out to the ship’s laundry service. It’s effective, but it’s expensive, and it usually takes 24 to 48 hours to get your items back.
- The “Shower Steam” Method: The age-old trick of hanging clothes in the bathroom while you take a hot shower. It uses a lot of water and, let’s be honest, rarely works on heavy cotton or deep creases.
- The Self-Service Hunt: A few lines (like Carnival, Princess, or Disney) offer self-service laundry rooms with irons. However, many major lines, including MSC, do not. Even if your ship has one, do you really want to spend your vacation waiting in line for a communal ironing board?
The Travel Agent’s Secret Weapon
This brings us to a better way. When you spend as much time on the water as Katrina from 360Cruising, you learn how to work within the rules rather than against them.
As a professional travel agent and a prolific cruiser, Katrina has seen every packing mishap imaginable. She recently shared a “why didn’t I think of that?” hack that utilizes a tool already sitting in your cabin vanity. It doesn’t require a trip to the laundry room, and it won’t get you in trouble with the Chief Fire Officer.
The secret? The Hairdryer Iron.
How to Do It
The logic is simple: while you can’t bring an iron, every cabin provides a hairdryer. By combining a little moisture with the concentrated heat of the dryer nozzle, you can mimic the effects of a professional press.
The Method:
- Dampen: Lightly flick water onto the wrinkled area (or use a spray bottle if you’re a pro packer).
- Heat: Set the cabin hairdryer to its highest heat setting.
- Press: Instead of just blowing air at the garment, use the nozzle of the hairdryer to “glide” over the fabric, pressing it down against a flat surface (like the vanity desk) just as you would with an actual iron.
It’s fast, it’s free, and it keeps your outfits looking crisp for dinner.
Watch Katrina from 360Cruising demonstrate the full technique in her video below:
