First off, you have to have a ticket to get in - there is no standby line. All 30,000 tickets sold out in a few days, and then they extended it for another two weeks in September and they sold out in a matter of minutes.
Tickets are timestamped. You show up around your time and they put you in a group of 10 people. You move through the museum with this same group of 10 people. This was a brilliant idea because it never got crowded and it keeps the flow moving steadily.
The museum is broken into 7 rooms. You stay with your group and move in order. Once you go into one room you can't go back to the previous room. Since I didn't take many pics (just the YouTube video below), here are gifs from the video. :)
Entry Room
In the entry room, they explain what I just told you and they give you a spoon while you're standing under a ice-cream-sundae-fied deer. Then you stop by the front desk and they give you the ice cream of the week. Ours was Blue Marble from Brooklyn with Froot Loops on top.
Balloon Room (aka Cone Room)
Next up is the helium filled sugar balloon room. They are super cool but only last about 10 seconds before they stop floating. So get your boomerang instagram quick or you'll have to ask for multiples like I did.
They're fine giving you multiples. :)
This room also has a ton of ice cream cones on the wall and all the lights look like upside down cones with ice cream scoop lightbulbs. It's designed for instagram.
Scoop Room
Next we meet a museum employee that tells us three facts about ice cream and then he gives you a scoop. You scoop out some fake ice cream and pile it on a giant fake sundae.
Chocolate Chamber
The chocolate chamber is a dark room with cocoa beans on the floor so it smells like chocolate. A weird fountain on the far side makes you wonder if it were an afterthought. It is definitely not instagram-worthy. Four stands around the room offer up as many dove chocolates as you can fit in your pockets. ;)
Sprinkle Pool
Unquestionably, the highlight of the entire place is the Sprinkle Pool. The sprinkles are made of tiny plastic dots, so it's not messy. Although they get in everything - pockets, your shirt, your underwear. I found sprinkles in my house for a week. It was kind of awesome.
The sprinkle pool is also where you realize that the Museum of Ice Cream has a second purpose (the first being to inspire FOMO on Instagram). It's designed to be a date. In fact, if you read ahead, there's a Tinder Room.
Going without your spouse or significant other is awkward at times. But Josh (who's wife had to work) and I (my wife was out of town) owned it (as you'll see in the Tinder Room).
The pool is supposedly three feet deep, but I could only wiggle my feet down about 18 inches - I never touched the bottom, it just gets difficult to maneuver through that much plastic.
No diving. But burying is accepted. And everyone seems to love getting in on burying somebody. I don't know any of these people!
The icing on the sprinkle pool room cake is a shelf of candies along the wall that you can eat as much of as you'd like. :)
Miracle Berry Room
Sadly, you have to move on to the next room. But they give you ice cream there so it's ok.
As soon as you walk in, they give you a "Miracle Berry." It's a pill that's supposed to trick your tongue into thinking sour things are sweet. Apparently my tongue is too smart to be tricked.
Some people say it works. I am not one of those people.
As you can see behind me in the gif above, this room also has some ice cream art. This is really the extent of the "Museum" part of the Museum of Ice Cream. And, for that matter, the "Ice Cream" part too, except for the first room's sample.
Tinder Room
The final room is the "if-you-didn't-come-with-a-date-the-exit-is-right-in-front-of-you" room.
So sad sitting on an ice cream sandwich swing by yourself, huh? Well, forget that.
And there's a little gift stand off to the side that I didn't really look at. But they give you a free bottle of water on the way out! And that was exciting for me. :)
Check out the video of our experience here, including what we thought about it at the end:
