View Full Version : dinner service
Every year we have been to Orlando I have had my eye on a beautiful dinner service, my question is do the experts know how I could get all this home? thought about taking it on the plane but feel sure it would get damaged, I did ask the lady in the shop about shipping it but they don`t ship overseas.Any tips on packing it safely or anything would be greatly appreciated
Funshine
14-09-2003, 14:34
I would advise leaving in the box, put extra packing around it if you can and check it in separately as FRAGILE. The airline will stick FRAGILE labels on it for you and keep it to one side and ensure its handled with care.
Alternatively, if the box isn't too large take on as hand luggage - airlines do have restrictions on hadn luggage size, however, it should be okay if its a scheduled flight but not too sure if charter. You can always call the airline to check.
Before now, I've taken china items over to Florida wrapped in bubble wrap and slotted in between other (soft, ie T-shirts, sweaters, etc) items in our case and they've always survived without a scratch, despite going as normal luggage.
Depending on how large the dinner service is you could try that if there are a lot of you and you all have a suitcase? Make sure though that you pack each item separately in bubble wrap as, if you wrap all the similar items together, ie plates, there's nothing in between to stop them cracking one another.
We brought home a set of 6 coke glasses on one of our trips
we packed them in the centre of the sutcase in the box and surrounded them with towels and then clothes they survived all the way home until unpacking and then my brother dropped one of them wneh he took it out of the box huh only got 2 left now bringing them home is not the problem[V]
Sarah
Kissyme,
I have also bought a dinner service and matching jars home from the US. This was years ago, and from Boston, but we had no problems at all taking them as hand luggage, and they were big boxes.
However, there are so many stores now that will ship them for you, and then even if they get broken they will be replaced, which I guess is just as good as them being insured and it only costs a few dollars more.
If they are something that you really want, then I would suggest you pay that extra bit more for them to be shipped to your UK address and not have to worry about breakages.
I guess the shipping though will cost you $50+ !!!!
Matt
Many thanks for all your replies will look into the shipping thing again. only 33 days until I will be able to ask:D:D
Kym,
Have you thought about the toughened plastic suitcases - we used ours for the first time in March and wrapped our delicates (my wife has a things for china disney figurines et al) in the centre of the case with soft things like fleece tops (wished had these when we got back to Heathrow!!) and nothing was damaged and she now proudly has them on display in our lounge - they do help you drift off into the warm relaxing spirit that is Florida every once in a while!!
orlandobabe
15-09-2003, 22:00
I think inside suitcases might be a better option. Mum took her hat in a hatbox for our daughter's wedding-it got out ok-but the box was ruined on the way home-even though marked fragile!