Leaving in 21 days!! Questions!!

Yes, minivans are available here. Not sure about the DVD players; ours did not come with one. In fact, we weren't sure what features it came with until we took delivery. All we knew was "fully loaded," LOL. IMHO, if I had a clear le on a new mini van, I would ship it. Had our cars been new, we would have done so.

When we did the surface and e-box shipping inventory lists, we would list them as 45 hand tools or whatever, or 50 stainless steel kitchen cutlery and come up with whatever we thought was a reasonable value. Same for toys and books: 50 children's toys, 200 books, like that. The only thing we split out for toys were bikes and scooters, etc., which required more detail, such as make/model/serial number, and also we split out the stuffed animals, since we weren't sure whether they might get taken at customs, based on the packing instruction we were given for KSA (they didn't even get looked at).

It seemed like a lot of detail for what ended up being a dubious process in the end, but I understand why they need some sort of inventory method and means of valuation of your contents. It seemed rather subjective to me, however.

Oatmeal is readily available and affordable here, and typically it's the kind you cook on the stove. You can find the instant packets, too, but flavors are limited and vary by store and shipment. Like most grocery items here, if you see an exact product you like, stock up on it when you see it, because it may or may not be there the next time you shop. Right now, dry cat food is hard to find, go figure.

Congratulations on your progress!

Thanks so much everyone!

We used the brown and clear Scotch box packing tape, rolls and rolls of it. Didn't try duct tape, but if that works better, that's a good tip. If you can find fiberglass reinforced tape, that's good, too. Yeah, cutting the dish barrel boxes down is an arduous and unpleasant task. We used a sy yard stick and box cutter to cut and score new fold lines. Hard on the hands and forearms if you're doing a bunch at one sitting.

We reinforced the bottom of the box with tape from the inside, as well as the outside. It made a big difference. We also tried to pack something large and flat at the bottom, like a towel. We didn't like how the handle openings leave access for little things to fall out, or for someone to touch the stuff inside, so we taped little flaps of heavy paper inside to create a little barrier. Good for privacy.

We brought extra tape in our carry-ons, which was good because one time we had to take some stuff out at the airport and shift it around to make weight limit. Weighing the boxes at home is tricky. Hard to see the scale results when the box is on it.