Coleman Xtreme - tips

[MummyPigsFatTummy]

DH and I have just bought a Coleman Xtreme coolbox for trips (all of them really) where we have no EHU and our electric coolbox is currently just acting as a fancy storage box.

It claims to keep ice cold for 5 days which sounds brilliant. If you have one, have you found this to be true and what have you found the best way of keeping everything else cold - ice packs/ice in a bag/tight packing/loose packing etc.?

Also will one ice pack last a weekend or will we have to use the campsite freezer every day or so, assuming there is one?

Thanks :-)

[Piffpaffpoff]

This is what I do.

• I have lots of freezer packs. I also freeze lots of little bottles of water that I then take out for the DCs to drink as and when required.
  

• I chill the cool box overnight before we go - generally i fill an old milk carton with water, freeze that then pop it in overnight.
  

• Everything going in the box has to be chilled, even cans of coke. I try and take a couple of frozen things (spag bol, chilli) as they help with the overall coldness.
  

• Once it's packed, I cover the food with a towel before shutting the lid. Or two towels if necessary. You want no free space I think.
  

• I put freezer packs into the campsite freezer ASAP so I will have newly frozen ones to go in the box when needed.
  

I have made mine last from Fri -Tues, which was pretty good going I thought.

[MummyPigsFatTummy]

Brilliant, thanks Piffpaffpoff. Great ideas, particularly freezing bottles of water. We have a load in now so I will get those in the freezer ASAP for the weekend. We are going away to a festival so freezing ice packs wobn't realy be an option, so I will just put in as many frozen meals/drinks etc as I can.

Thanks again