Should You Be Worried About The Quality Of Your Hotel's Ice? Here's What You Need To Know

Not every hotel has a pool or a gym, but there's one thing you can always expect to find: an ice machine. Ice can be useful when chilling a glass of wine, keeping ice cream cold in your freezer-less hotel room, or refilling your cooler for your summer road trip. However, it can be difficult to judge just how safe hotel ice is.

You may have heard stories of restaurant ice making people sick or ice machines with mold inside, so it's easy to wonder if hotel ice is any better. Explore reached out exclusively to Steve Schmahl, an appliance virtual expert at Frontdoor, to find out if those blocks of frozen water could derail your vacation. The short answer: Hotel ice is generally safe to use, as long as your accommodation is following the rules. "FDA regulations require ice to be stored and handled like food, and that requires ice machines to be regularly cleaned," Schmahl explains. This usually means between two and four cleanings per year, a frequency that may be checked during routine government health inspections.

According to Schmahl, most hotels also use a water filter to ensure the ice is safe to consume. "The type of filtration system would vary by location based on local water quality," he notes. Your hotel may use sediment filters (a dirt-trapping filter and the most common type), phosphate filters, reverse osmosis systems, or another type of water filtration. If you're staying in a place where you can't drink the tap water for health reasons, confirm that the hotel uses a filter that removes any dangerous impurities.

To avoid getting sick, Steve Schmahl suggests taking a look at your hotel's ice before dropping it in your drink or placing it on your food. "Discoloration or cloudy ice, or particles in the ice, would be an indicator that there is an issue with the ice-making process or filter system and should not be consumed." In other words, if something seems off, play it safe and skip the ice machine.

The appliance expert also warns that ice buckets can be dirty, which makes sense, given that they're one of the top things you should avoid touching at a hotel. "Never dump ice directly into the bucket. Instead, use the provided bag, and if there isn't one, you can get one at the front desk," says Schmahl. Another sanitation red flag is if your hotel's machine comes with a scooper, making the ice vulnerable to contamination. Avoid using open bin-style ice machines and stick to ones that dump the ice directly into your lined bucket.