We needed a new cooler since we got rid of our last one. We were road tripping over to Phoenix from Las Vegas and wanted to take food, drinks, snacks, etc. My husband was trying to talk me into buying a Yeti because his son has one and loves it. They live in Florida and go boating, camping, ATVing all the time so they could justify the cost. Knowing that we will only use it a few times a year, I set out to find a cheaper alternative, but still a very good quality cooler. I did some research and found that Igloo has a much higher end line of coolers than they used to and this one got really good reviews, so I ordered it.
In reading the reviews, I learned that you can pre-condition a cooler by filling it with ice and frozen water bottles overnight and everything will stay cold longer. Neither of us had ever heard of that so we decided to try it with this new cooler. We did, and the next morning, we added our food and other drinks to it and stuck it in the trunk of my car. Phoenix is about a four-hour drive from Vegas and the temps started out at over 100 and got up to 110+ by the time we got there. When we got to the hotel and opened the cooler in our room, everything was as frozen as it was when we left. Maybe not too remarkable but pretty impressive given how hot it was in the trunk of my car. Anyhoo, we unloaded the food into the mini fridge and left the drinks and frozen waters in the cooler. We were making drinks with the mixers in the cooler, so we opened it a lot! Hee hee Everything was super cold the next day and the water bottles were still frozen, but the ice we brought with us had thawed enough so that it was ice cubes mixed with water. By the third day, the day we left, the water bottles were still almost completely frozen with just a little water in each one. We added a little ice from the hotel ice machine and it tends to be slightly watery, but by the time we got about two hours away and stopped for snacks, we opened the cooler and that hotel ice was even more frozen than when we put it in! Okay, now THAT’S pretty remarkable!
Needless to say, this cooler is perfect for how we’ll use it. That was our trial run, but we'll also use it for day trips in our side-by-side since it fits perfectly in the bed. One thing I like is that the drain plug screws on instead of just popping in or out, so it can’t be accidentally drained. Not only that, it looks really cool, AND they have several color combinations of that model so you can order the color combo that suits you best!
Linda A Miller
