Despite best intentions, planning and sometimes a chance to save a lot money on a hotel room, I end up in a hotel room without a refrigerator. If I don’t need to access items, I will check with the front desk to see if I can keep my well marked items in a hotel fridge or freezer. I can also fill the bathtub or sink with ice as a makeshift cooler, but these days both are in use enough, it’s not practical.
My other quick fix is turning the air conditioning unit into a refrigerator. I place items that will last longer cool, like fruit, vegetables and hard cheeses on top of the unit. Items that should be much cooler, like milk, go in the ice bucket surrounded by ice before being put on the AC unit. Soft cheeses and opened drinks go on top of the ice. I cover everything with a bath towel and turn the temperature WAY down on the AC.
Homemade hotel room refrigerator.
While food service professionals and health inspectors will cry that this cannot get temperatures low enough for food to be “safe,” I figure if half the ice is unmelted after a night’s sleep, it’s doing a good enough job. (Then again, I follow the 30 second rule for food on the floor too.)
‘Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.’
-Paul Theroux
Nice post!
Sounds like a good plan to me. The food will probably stay cooler than some of those hotel minibars anyway.