Now that my 12 night Med cruise with 1 day pre and 1 day post cruise is over I can say that I didn't do too bad with my packing! 
I took one 26" roller suitcase and one 21.5" roller carry-on. I was a little concerned about my 21.5" carry-on being too large, but it fit right in the luggage tube thing at Newark International for Continental  I wanted that 21.5" with me since this was a trans-atlantic flight and I didn't want to be without any luggage if mine went missing. We were on a non-stop flight to Barcelona from Newark so that helped a little with my luggage lost anxiety 
I tried to pack so that I would be able to function if I only had one of my suitcases with each suitcase. I split my clothes pretty much right down the middle of what went in each suitcase. The toiletry items were a little more difficult because of the TSA requirements, so I bought small 1 ounce travel size things as back-ups for the carry-on and the regular sized items went into the checked bag. One thing I do is to put each larger bottle of shampoo, conditioner, etc. in it's own quart size zipper plastic bag and then put all of them into a gallon size plastic zipper bag before putting them into a toiletry bag. I always worry about something leaking in my checked bag and prior to the TSA regulations my toiletries were always packed in my carry-on. I also packed an empty backpack in the checked bag since I planned to check both suitcases for the flight home and just used my backpack as my carry-on. My thought was that if my luggage went missing I have everything I need at home so I'll get them when they finally track them down. This has happened to me before on 2 different trips that I flew into Philadelphia, but my luggage didn't make it on the flight with me, they delivered it to my home either later that day or the next. Not sure what would have happened from Newark? But my delivery of luggage when returning from Alaska worked out very well since I didn't have to cart it through the airport
One tip for people travelling internationally; if you buy dual voltage appliances you will only need an adapter and NOT a converter! Most camera and phone chargers are dual voltage already. My travel sized hairdryer was already dual voltage and I bought a hair straightner that was also to eliminate the need for a converter. Just look on the appliance itself or cord and if you see a range in the "Input" area of something similar to "100 - 240V~ 50/60Hz" this appliance will only need an adapter (plug). Local pharmacies, in addition to luggage stores, sell both of these items with the adapters (usually a set of 5 or 6) being around $15 - $20 and the converter and adapter combo being $40 or more. Onboard the ship (Brilliance OTS) appliances used US electric voltage, no adapter was needed but I did need my adapter in Barcelona.
Even though I thought I packed light, I still came home with some clothes I never wore  |