dry ice

[Robbin]

Hi everyone hope the holidays were good for everyone.
My husband works at a place we can get dry ice for free, I was going to bring meat with us but now we are staying in St.Thomas or 2 days before the villa is available for us on SJ. Does anyone have any sugestions on what we should do? I see also that many people mail stuff before they leave, how do they do that? (not Fridg Stuff)
Thanks Robin

[tjwgrr]

If you're staying at a resort that has its own restaurant on STT, they may be willing to store your frozen stuff in their freezer while your there.

Wouldn't hurt to ask.

[RickG]

If I was on STT for two days before hitting the villa I would just do a bit of grocery shopping on the way to STJ. I do bring a soft sided cooler as a carryon for the cold items enroute to STJ.

Cheers, RickG

[Lulu76]

I'm not sure you can check dry ice, but I have not yet become a cooler person, so I'm not sure.

I would either stay somewhere on STT with a fridge (you can get a good deal on condos on VRBO.com) for the two days or just bring a soft-sided cooler with me and hit Cost-U-Less on my way to the ferry.

[Teresa_Rae]

I have checked dry ice many times without any problems. There are limits on how much you can have though. Sometimes the airline weighs it, sometimes they ask how much it weighs and take your word for it.

I’ve never carried it on, but United allows it:

Dry ice
United will accept packages containing up to 5.5 pounds (2.5 kg) of dry ice as carry-on baggage or checked baggage. The packaging used must allow the release of carbon dioxide gas, must be clearly marked as containing dry ice, and must show the net weight and identify the perishable item being preserved by the dry ice.

Each customer is restricted to a maximum of 5.5 pounds (2.5 kg) of dry ice. Each container can not have more than the maximum allowed per customer. Multiple customers cannot pool their portion together, even within the same traveling party. Dry ice in quantities greater than 5.5 pounds (2.5 kg) must be shipped as cargo.

http://www.united.com/page/article/0,1360,1035,00.html

You’ll have to check your airline for their dry ice weight allotment...I think American allows about a pound less than United for example.

As for your time on STT, an airline once temporarily lost my cooler en route to STT and when I got it back two days later everything was still frozen very solid (less than zero). It was a hard-sided cooler of frozen meat and had dry ice…I had probably wrapped a towel around everything inside too. So you might be ok, but if you open the cooler even once to make sure everything is still frozen, it might be enough that you’d get some thawing.