Doing laundry on the Emerald Princess

You already know why we choose to do much (but not all) of our laundry ourselves. While we happily send any items that are pseudo-dry cleaned, the only laundry item we send is G's tux shirt.  I accumulate laundry in a large, heavy duty Princess shopping bag that hangs in the closet from two hangers.

This holds an entire cruise's worth of my laundry, plus a few pieces of  G's laundry that he doesn't hand wash himself (I try to avoid hand washing at all cost). It's also easy to carry this bag down to the laundromat located just aft of midship on the Riviera Deck (there's also one on all other passenger decks). And it can be easily tossed and replaced. 

I generally do laundry either late in the evening of the final night (my favorite time) or early on turnaround day. There's never been anyone else in the laundromat in the evening, but there sometimes is the next morning. 

While there is a change machine in the laundromat...

...it's out of order often enough that we buy rolls of quarters from the Passenger Services Desk. Just be sure to check them over before you take any home with you; the two rolls G got yesterday contained same-sized coins from the UK, Canada, the Eastern Caribbean and a Princess slot machine token. These all worked fine in a washer, but, of course, I wouldn't want to take them home by mistake. 

Washers and dryers each take 8 quarters ($2). If I'm just washing delicates, I never have an issue with the dryer, but for bigger loads with T-shirts and shorts, things aren't always 100% dry when the cycle finishes (that's when the stretchy twisted travel clothesline comes in handy). 

There's also detergent, fabric bleach and softener sheets for sale from a machine for $1.25 each.  I've never used these, and so can't comment on their effectiveness. 

And four ironing boards, irons and hanging rods. I've also never used these, and can't comment on their effectiveness. ;-)

Here's a view of the entire laundry room, which is accessible from both the port and starboard corridors:

You can see one laundry sink on the right side; there's another on the other end of the laundromat. 

When someone asks me why we choose to cruise mostly on Princess, I always mention this as one of the reasons. No other cruise line we cruise on has passenger laundromats, except for on the older Holland America ships. And they're great laundry rooms, too, especially if you remember the Embassy Suites, where the washer was shoved in next to an ice machine. Coupled with our travel clothesline with suction cups on each side, and our two inflatable hangers for hanging drip dry shirts (we've had both of these since 2000)...

...we can cruise for 10 days or 110. Or more...

They are all good things.