Coolbox recommendations?

[LittleFriendSusan]

Has anyone got one of those Coleman Extreme coolboxes? Do they really keep ice frozen for 5 days?

We've got an old 12V coolbox but the seal has gone on it and my iceblocks had thawed within a day - it's pretty much useless now and no better than the little coolbag we have for days out, so I'm thinking we need to replace it.

Are the Coleman ones worth the money? Any others you'd recommend?

Ta

We have the Igloo Maxcold. It is brilliant. We took it away from Fri to Sun night and the milk was still ice cold when we got home. I have no doubt it would last the advertised 5 days. We cooked a chicken on the Sat night and I took the left overs home in the cooler box and had them on the Mon I was that confident about it. Was as cold as my fridge still on the Sun. Hope this helps.

That's great, thanks VP

Which size do you have? I'm thinking 60-70qt should be about right? No idea what size our electric one is, but it's tall rather than wide and not very practical...

Would mainly want it for milk / butter / cheese / sandwich stuff & probably a couple of days worth of meat etc too.

Do you get special ice packs to put in it or just any old standard ones? How many do you need? So many questions, sorry!!

Thanks

Ours is the 30l I think???....The smallest they do and it is plenty big enough for us. Don't forget the wine needs to go in there and the bottles stand up in the Max cold but not the Coleman we were looking at. Deciding factor for me .

I just put in all the square ice blocks I had, about 5 or six I think. I think I will get one of those sheet type blocks that could cover the top though. The seal seemed to be rubbish but it worked so I can't argue.

Wine definitely a deciding factor here too - didn't realise the Colemans weren't so tall!

Maybe we could get away with a smaller one too then - hard to tell just looking at online pics!

Where did you get yours from?

We've got one of the larger Coleman extreme boxes (with wheels). It certainly keeps things colder than the old camping gaz box, but don't expect a standard cold-block to stay frozen for 5 days! We went away in june (when it was hot) with frozen milk which took a couple of days to thaw out. We look to replace a full size block every 24-36 hrs in warm weather and that manages to keep the food (and wine) cold enough.

I think the 5 day ice thing is done by packing the box solid with ice and then seeing how long any lasts for. Keeping the box out of the tent but under permenant shade might help too!

Thanks for that MP - I was a bit dubious of the 5-day claims TBH!

How many blocks do you put in your box? Was hoping to avoid having to replace every day or so but I guess it might be unavoidable!

I love my coleman extreme! I have the big one on wheels - 70 litres I think) We tend to use a couple of bags of the cubed ice (£1 ish each in tesco) rather than blocks - as I can never fit enough of them to fill it in my freezer, just go & get them & tip them in last job before we leave! & it does keep things lovely & cold for the length of our trip (usually 4-5 nights) we just keep it outside, out of the sun - if there is any that is!
One word of warning - learned from experience - is that if you do use ice cubes like we do, you need to have well sealed tupperware type boxes to put things like burgers (in cardboard boxes) into, or they will fall in the icy water & go soggy.
Once you have sussed this though - you can't go wrong & I think they're well worth the money

HTH x

Thanks FF - I was going to ask what you did with cheese, etc, then I read the rest of your post!! I have a cupboard full of tupperware tubs (do they breed in there??) so that's not a problem - would just need to remember to pack them!!

We tend to go for either a long weekend or 7 nights, but we have done 2 weeks + in the past - hence wanting a decent cooler!

I think I need to price them all up and see how they fare...

Frozen things thaw like they would in a fridge I suppose.
My box was on ebay for about £45. So far we have only been away for a max of 4 days so works well for us.

Meant to say my blocks didn't stay solidly frozen in the box but they did stay cold enough to chill everything efficiently.
Another reason we went for the Maxcold was a review on UKCampsite that said they were similar but walls were thinner on the Maxcold meaning more room inside in relation to the overall measurements. Hope that makes sense...