vacationing with cloth

I thought I would have to resort to sposies for our long weekend vacation. But a little pre-trip phone call to the hotel to ask if they could let me use their laundry room to wash my cloth nappies meant that we could lug along an extra wheelie bag stuffed with dipes (mainly pockets) and doublers/inserts.

The hotel we stayed in was a friendly and quite casual place, so it wasn't a problem for the staff when I rocked up to the housekeeping department with my pail (supplied by the hotel) of dirty nappies asking if I could use their washing machine. The head housekeeper showed me how to operate the machine, and to ensure her continued goodwill I gave her DD to hold while I loaded up the washer. She promptly showed off Leah to her colleagues, exclaiming all the while (in her Chinese dialect), "Isn't she beautiful?"

Later, when I went back to the department to collect the nappies, the housekeeper told me to come by tomorrow if I wanted to wash the nappies again. I held her to that invitation. And as a further example of how nice the staff were, one of them (perhaps the head housekeeper herself) actually brought the washed nappies over to my room and hung them out on the airing rack that was in the porch outside. This was probably because I couldn't get to the laundry room in time as I was feeding Leah. When I was finally able to head out to my surprise I saw the nappies already drying outside.

It thus pays to make enquiries and then be really sweet to the hotel staff --- thankfully they were quite into babies, and DD behaved very well, performing to her admirers.