Drink coolers

[rajphoto]

Hey all. Leaving in a few days - wanted to get the skinny on coolers. We are bringing an eight-month-old and I hear that the in room cooler isn't the best...has anyone brought a cooler? We thought of packing a soft-side in a suitcase...

Plus, we want to bring adult beverages...

Any help would be appreciated.

Raj

Wonder - May 7

 

[myboysmom]

Our experience was the in room mini-fridges worked just fine- and I made my husband take our softsided cooler in a suitcase along! Oh well, we used it to pack up some of the things we bought. It kept our beer, wine and water just perfect. Additionally, I did make sure our steward knew we wanted ice in the morning and at turn down. That made it great if someone wanted something a little colder, but we mainly used it to ice down a beer while we were unpacking the first day.

 

[HappyLawyer]

not sure but i think you can ask for a fridge for your milk if you have an infant, you may want to call and check this out.

 

[eeyoregon]

We just returned from the 7 night Western and here are my thoughts. If your beverages are already nice and cold, the cooling box will do fine to maintain them but it will NOT cool them if they are at room temp when put in.

We took a rolling soft sided cooler. Filled it with Diet Coke, Dr Pepper and bottled water for in room use and for shore excursions, especially in Mexico. Our room attendent gave us an "ice card" that you could indicate what time of day you wanted ice delivered. She kept our ice bucket and cooler filled throughout the trip. I checked the cooler as baggage so that I wouldn't have to roll it around until our stateroom was available.

We also did 2 days at the parks post-cruise and I noticed a zillion rolling coolers in the parks.

Hope this helps.

 

[myboysmom]

Sorry, posted twice!

 

[myboysmom]

eeyoregon, I don't believe that is the case with all of the "cooling boxes". We put warm beer and wine into ours. It chilled them just fine. Now, I can't recall if it was in a few hours, or overnight- it easily could have been overnight things were very busy our first night on the cruise. I know that when we first got into our cabin we requested ice from our steward and a couple of wine glasses. I put a beer on ice for my DH, and ice in a wine glass for me. After the first night our beer and wine was always the right temp right out of the cooling box.

Water also went in warm. We would replace a bottle when we took one out. Never had a problem with it being cold either.

Perhaps it is how the box is loaded and how full it is. We have a mini-fridge in our family room at home and always keep it full. We have found if it is full it does a much better job keeping things cold than if it is partially full. This is how we handled the cooling box as well. It was kept full at all times.