Easy to use and makes wonderful snow.

Easy to use and makes wonderful snow.  Read Less

Had purchased the following 4 years ago after an exhaustive review of ice cream machines. It is still going strong and am glad...  Read More

Had purchased the following 4 years ago after an exhaustive review of ice cream machines. It is still going strong and am glad I did my research.https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N63J432/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1Well, the same can be said for this snow cone machine. We've had various machines over the course of the past 25-30 years making these. Every one required freezing a round block of ice overnite, stick it in your machine, and either hand crank or later versions electric crank the blade against the ice block for ice shavings. We were never able to get really close to the Hawaiian or Italian ice versions we would buy at the amusement parks and fairs over the years. More like finely ground ice chips.After looking at all the reviews and other products out there, we bit the bullet and made the purchase of this unit. Very simple to use. Through practice, we figure an 18 ounce Go Cup full of ice cubes makes one decent sized snow cone using their cups.As far as noise, mess and cleanup. Yeah, it's loud, but so is being being behind a lawn mower for 2 hours, whereas you can make a snow cone in about 30 seconds. Very tolerable. Side note, whenever our cats see me remove the unit from the shelf, they hightail it out of the kitchen knowing what's coming. Whatever cubes didn't make the cut, we simply dump whatever remains into the sink and let the unit sit on a counter protector for an hour or two to allow whatever ice remains to melt and drain. Then, dry off the unit and put it up. Easy peasy.We also purchased the Ultimate Shaved Party Pack as this included 12 mixing bottles, 8 cups, 8 spoons and a 12 pack of flavors. Came out cheaper buying it separate from the main unit than purchasing one of their other kit options.https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08GL2M9C4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1All of the above are the Pros of this machine. Cons as follows:One of the cups had a hairline crack on the bottom. Didn't notice until we made a snow cone and it started dripping Tigers Blood all over our cloth place-mat. Needless to say ruined as the stain will never come out.One of the mixing bottles has a slight crack close to the top of the neck. In other words, when you shake your mixture, it will come out of the crack.The pour spouts are really poor spouts. Not impressed with the design and utility of them. This would have gone down much better with a screw on spout and a sealing cap that snaps shut. I use a cap from an old lemon juice bottle, screw it on and shake the toot out of it. Then put their pour spout back on to dispense.Helpful hint.Their pint bottles call for 1 cup of sugar for a single mix. Whoa Nelly. That's a lot of sugar. We decided early on to only use 1/2 cup of sugar, along with 12 packets of Stevia (which equates to another 1/2 cup of sugar). There are other artificial sugar options as well. The taste of it doing so has been really nice. We keeping pouring until all the snow has been consumed by the flavoring, so we get a true Hawaiian/Italian ice taste.We enjoyed this so much that we went ahead and purchased 10 six packs of their Natural Flavor powders in flavors that we find the most enjoyable.Hope this lasts as many years as our ice cream machine. Went ahead and purchased a 4 years warranty just in case, but it's basically just Ma and Pa making and consuming these, so use is limited to perhaps a couple a day.  Read Less