I bought this cooler with the intention in mind of having it forever. I like to spend more money on things that I genuinely believe will hold up to the test of time.
That being said, I have owned this cooler for about a month and it has had ice in it every day, certainly getting its use. What impressed me is the ability to hold up to harsh heat conditions. During a heat wave, with temperatures around 95 degrees every day, this cooler sat baking in the bed of my truck and held ice for about 6 days. In normal conditions, you could absolutely hold ice for longer than 6 days. I was genuinely shocked that it held up to the direct heat that well. The drain plug works very well with the pressure release, that way you don’t have to prop the lid open to drain and let all of the cold air escape.
You can certainly keep food nice and cold in here for a few days as well. I have not tested this cooler in any other environmental setting except the dead of summer, but during fall/spring I would imagine you could hold food for at least a week if you pack it with enough ice. It really is like having a fridge in my truck, just have to change the ice out once a week. It’s definitely worth the money.
I had high hopes for my Blue Cooler (BC) as I bought it for a 7 day annual camping trip where I expected pretty daytime high temperatures for the duration of the trip. I was really psyched because this would've been my first "premium" cooler like Yeti and had high hopes for better performance, especially after watching and reading tons of online video and forum reviews. I planned to use the BC for drinks only, including bottles of hydration drinks and cans of sodas and sparkling water. I pre-chilled the cooler overnight prior to my departure with 21 lbs of cube ice and pre-chilled all drinks in the refrigerator. On the morning of departure (Monday), I discarded the pre-chill ice then loaded drinks and 35 lbs of freshly purchased cube ices on top of the drinks which consisted of about 28 cans of soda, 12 20-ounce bottles of Gatorade and 1 60-ounce bottle of orange juice. I then drove the 200 miles to my campground. Ambient temps at departure were in high 70's F in Seattle and temps at eastern Washington campground reached mid 90's by early afternoon with night time temps in high 60's. I kept the cooler in a small uhaul trailer that I left open, so that it was not in direct sun. During the week, I opened the cooler approximately 6-7 times each day, carefully opening just enough to get my hand into it with minimal disturbance of the chilled internal air or ice, latching and resealing each time. Each access was maybe 5 -8 seconds, lifting the lid just enough to grab whatever container my hand touched first without digging into and stirring the ice load. By Wednesday afternoon, I could see that there was a significant melt of the ice, like maybe 50 percent, and by Friday morning all of the ice was gone, but the water was still pretty cold. By Saturday, the water was mainly cool, but definitely not what I would have considered safe for food storage. Basically, the ice lasted 3-4 days max. On Saturday, I loaded as much of my remaining drinks into an Iceco electric cooler that I brought with the BC. My basic strategy was to store perishable foods in the Iceco and drinks only in the BC. Thankfully, that strategy won the day. In hindsight, I probably should have bought 2 smaller BC coolers for drinks so that the second cooler would not be accessed at all until the second half of the camping trip. Regardless, I had hoped to see the ice last longer, especially after watching tons of Youtube tests and reviews where significant ice lasted in the Blue Coolers for up to 7 days, not 3-4 with daily inspection. Next year, I plan to prechill the cooler at least 24 hours, not 12, and make sure that the drinks are chilled down to low 30's, just above freezing, before loading. I actually considered ditching the foam cooler in favor of another electric cooler, but I'm not sure that I want to rely solely on electric power for cooling needs. If I buy another electric cooler, again for drinks only, I could get by with a smaller volume electric cooler and not hassle with ice at all. It would definitely be lighter to lift, as well.
Nice cooler. Durable, nice latches, drain, etc. but I haven’t touched 3 days of ice retention. I definitely notice the difference with my blue vs cobalt.
Keeps cold as well as any premium cooler I’ve used at a better price. Seems just as if not more well built and the company was excellent to work with.
Filled cooler with water and Gatorade bottles and added 20 lbs of ice. Ice lasted about 48 hrs.