in short yes they are,but you do have to keep the opening to a min.plus only put pre chilled,or frozen stuff in,and if poss pre cool the box before use.
they are better than the run of the mill cool boxes but as above you have to be very carful how much you open it
we bought a coleman 70qt xtreme cooler from walmart for the grand sum of £26.00 about half what you would get it for in the UK
I filled it with camping goodies shrink wrapped it and checked it as hold baggage for the flight home
I have used it for many long weekends and on tuesday morning it still has ice in it, what i do is pack it well with freezer blocks and then i put two bags of shop bought ice in it and mid weekend i add two more packs of ice
I use the ice in the magners that we all drink so that is why we have that in the box and it hlps to keep the box cold
we have a Coleman 36QT Xtreme coolbox and couldn't be happier with it...we pre-chill it for 24 hours before use and make sure we have plenty of ice blocks handy to keep things cool for the duration of our holiday...as others have already stated you need to keep the opening of it to a minimum, so instead of keeping cans and bottles of drink in ours we keep our drinks cool in a plastic trug of cold water, covered by a damp tea towel...
I agree with what's been already said. We've just sold our 70qt one only because we also have an Igloo Maxcold that has wheels. We're in Glasgow and I did advertise it on here but it went through gumtree in the end.
imo they are both as good as each other though I know some people prefer the Igloo ones. I couldn't find any difference in performance myself.
If you know anyone with a Costco card you'll get one or the other in there for a much better price than elsewhere.
We use frozen bottles of water the night before to get it nice and cold before filling for a trip. then add new freezer blocks at the bottom and 2 or 3 1 litre frozen bottles of water inbetween the food. I'm not sure if it helps but I also take a sheet of that packing polystyrene sheeting stuff to fill any gap at the top as it empties.
------------- Christine
2014
April -
BunRoy Fort William 3 sleeps
April / May
Invercaimbe Arisaig 4 sleeps
Bleatarn Brampton tbc July
Brilliant. Thanks everyone. Sounds like the sort of thing that I'm looking for.
And yup I've got a Costco card so I'll have a look when I'm up next week. Thanks for the tip off on that one.
As others have said the trick is to ensure you pre cool the box before you put stuff in it.
We take it to France in 30c heat. We find out there we have to put a fresh bag of ice in every day or so to keep it down to very cold level. The other trick is to ensure that it doesn't get warm in there at all or else you are battling against a losing battle to get it cold again. We keep a layer of icy water in the bottom which is very good fro cooling drinks too.
Well one trip to Costco later and I'm now the proud owner of an Igloo Maxicold 58l with wheels. Worked out at only £44 inc vat so I thought it would be rude not to buy it at such a wonderful price.
Amazing family weekend with old steam engines, classic car displays, market stalls, and full catering and bar. And camping on site - Save £25 by booking in advance.
Topic: Coleman xtreme coolboxes
