I have never NOT used an ice machine when staying in a hotel.
When I travel I bring a cooler, for cheese, lunch meat, fruit, and so on. I always use the ice machine, to refill what melts.
They’re used often enough that I make sure the room I’m given is no where near the ice machine, to avoid the racket.
I’ve never used the ice machine. Hotel rooms come with refrigerators and the bar has drinks.
I once checked out of a hotel 3 hours after I checked in because rowdy people at a wedding kept going into the ice machine which was directly across from my door and making a racket. (The front desk was shocked, but I told them it was impossible to sleep because of the noise).
On the other hand, I almost always use the iron and board.
I use them to get ice to refill the cooler before heading to the next location on our travels. And when I’m at a hotel that doesn’t have a fridge, that ice is my fridge. Fill a bucket. Add warm things. They get cool.
Can someone explain the lack of hotel ice machines in hotels in Europe?
That’s the opposite of what they are made for!