USVI-On-Line

Augie, thanks for the TR! I'll bring my polar bear 24-pack on our Oct/Nov trip without any liquid ice. Sure wouldn't want the cooler confiscated and lose all that food.

thanks for the update augie! How does the PB cooler need to be packed? Should it be filled up and packed tightly? Never carried a cooler on before.

Also question about flying out of Newark. Anyone have issues there? I saw the post about the dry ice. What kind of ice packs are recommended?

Hi Mar,
No ice or ice packs necessary. Freeze your meats and whatever else (butter, cheeses?) solid. We also wrap ours in a couple of layers of newspaper. Pack the cooler solid...no airspace.
We didn't spend the big bucks on a polar bear...just a $25 backpack cooler. We leave our little town in Western NY state in the afternoon, overnight at a hotel, fly to St. Thomas the next day, and our food is still frozen solid.
Enjoy

My rules/observations on packing a cooler to take to St. John:

Freeze what you'll be taking at least a couple of days ahead of time, at the coldest temperature you can.

Larger cuts of meat stay frozen longer than small ones, and small ones longer than ground up cuts.

Try and eliminate any "dead space" in the cooler, and pack things as closely together as you can.

All that being said, here's how it went down for us this trip;

We took four filet mignons, two largish boneless chicken breasts, two pork tenderloins, four hamburger patties (they came preformed or I would have taken the ground beef in bulk), and a package of cooked, vacu-sealed, and then frozen pulled pork. In addition, we took two blocks of cheese (frozen a day or two ahead) and several bags of frozen "steam in the bag" vegetables. On top of that we put some crackers, nuts, and other snacks that we didn't have room for elsewhere.

I thought the non frozen items, as well as the ones that might tend to thaw quickly, such as the veggies, might cause the meats to thaw more quickly, but if they did, it wasn't evident to us. Even with the TSA inspector in Miami opening the cooler and checking the contents thoroughly, everything that was frozen when we left our house at 6:00AM was still frozen solid twelve hours later when we got to the condo in Coral Bay.