Nostalgia Coca-Cola Snow Cone Machine – Retro Table-Top Snow Cone Maker with Stainless Steel Blades – Slushie Machine Includes 2 Reusable Plastic Cups & Ice Scoop, Makes 20 Icy Treats - White & Red

When my son first said he wanted sno cones at 5th birthday party, I thought, "Oh, great!" We have a little hand crank toy/machine that actually works fairly well for what it is, but it takes so long to even make one cone! So, I looked into renting a machine. I could have rented an industrial-sized sno cone maker (the kind you see at fairs) locally for $40, but I'd have had to pick it up and return it during business hours and still get all my own supplies, including syrups from them in gallon quantities. But, I was thinking, I'd do it anyway because it was my son's only birthday request aside from a green lantern cake. But, then I got on Amazon and found that we could own this well-reviewed machine for less than the cost to rent it! So, I bought it. It worked wonders! We served at least 20 large sno cones in the same number of minutes...that includes the time it took each kid to decide on which flavor(s) they wanted. It exceeded my expectations. We used bagged ice and we let the ice melt for a bit to become translucent as suggested. And, in fact, found that pulling ice from the cooler where we'd stored drinks worked exceptionally well. I think when we make them at home next we'll pull ice out of the freezer (ice cube trays) and put a little water over it before using. The machine isn't soundless, but I also didn't think it was too loud. Operation is easy - you only have to turn the plastic cover - kind of like some blenders I've seen that won't operate without the cover on, so it turns it into a safety feature at the same time. Also, the bucket holds a fair amount of ice. The whole white top comes off so it's easy to remove excess water/ice when you're ready to clean up. The little scoop that comes with worked out fine, but I ended up using my hands a lot to pile and shape the sno cones. I didn't really want to store another gadget, but I'd rather have this taking up place than the hand-crank machine that I have to throw all my weight into. This stays, the other one goes!

This thing is great. I bought it while I was in college just for fun, I had a little extra money. I was skeptical at first because it was pretty cheap, I only thought it would last a little bit, but this thing is a TANK. I use it almost every day, it’s super super easy to use, the ice is very consistent and it’s just a cute look! One thing that shocked me is how airtight the cage is. I’ll forget to clean it sometimes and all the ice will melt, but it will never drip out. You take the top part off and throw a towel in it and it’s clean. Super easy. Ive taken it to a few friends grad parties and made snow cones and it just powers through with no problems. You can make about 4-5 snow cones in one go. They recommend not using it for more than 5 minutes consistently but I haven’t hade any issues with that. One issue I continue to run into is the ice won’t push down onto the blades. The first few times it was pretty annoying but I figured out if you just push down on the chamber it works perfectly. But overall the value for the money is amazing. I would’ve guessed it was about $200. Only problem is the ice not pushing down by itself and the fact that it’s a little smaller.

This was definitely worth the money! Bought it for my grand daughter's birthday party. It was easy to use and made the ice perfect for the sno cones. We used Kool-Aid to make the different syrups and it was a big hit with the kids. She's used it several times since and it still works good.

--------------------------------------------------------------- I'm not happy that this arrived on my doorstep in the box that it came in. It's a big box that says Snow Cone Maker, with a shipping label on it. Normally amazon orders are all shipped, packaged in boxes that are brown and you are unable to tell what is inside. With this package, this simply wasn't the case. It would have been a simple enough task for anyone interested in a new snow cone maker to walk up onto my porch and simply take it, something they might not do if they do not know what it is. Just imagine this is jewelry, or anything else that, what if this was a nintendo switch or something? Just saying. Amazon orders should always be shipped in packaging that does not reveal the contents of what is inside as an extra security measure. I just wanted to alert others who may order this and receive it the same way as I did. Now that I got that out of the way, The Review. ------------------------------------------------------ UPDATED 6/6 So I had been thinking about getting something like this for some time now and I have to say, I am so glad that I did. It does exactly what it says that it does, it makes snow by absolutely shredding any ice cube you put into the thing. My ice cube maker makes small, medium, and large ice cubes and this thing devoured them like a starving kid. It produces far more than I assumed it would, as a I was easily able to make a few snow cones from 10 or 15 ice cubes. Now it's loud, and if that's a turn off there might be alternatives but it didn't bother me so much. It sounds like a snowblower. I will say that the mechanism for locking the snow cone maker from off/on to on/off is not the greatest. To me it seems far easier to lock it in the on position than to then turn it off as I had difficulty turning the mechanism once it was locked in placed. It requires quite a lot of pressure, and I think if you have difficulty with things like this, tendinitis, or carpel tunnel, or not a lot of strength in your hands this may not be the snow cone maker for you. For me, I would have enjoyed having just a pure on/off button or switch and a far easier method for locking the top in place, perhaps a latch. It's noisy, it's hard to turn on/off but its inexpensive and grinds really well. It also looks cute for the kids, and if there is one plus to this snow cone maker's terrible on/off locking mechanism, kids could load this and help you make them because it cannot be accidentally turned on, it's unlikely to injure someone because of its design. I originally gave it three stars for the packaging snafu, but bumped it to four stars because its a great little snow cone maker. I just could not get myself to five stars because I cannot let the fact that it arrived just as is without any outer box, and I had to deduct something for that.

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Love it. Makes snow very fast. With 1 ice cube tray you can make about 5 snowcones. Great for kids partys. Well worth it. Easy maintenance.

Genial.

Works great, shreds the ice perfectly. Great size not too big not too small.

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