Museum of Ice Cream is a quirky spot for photos

With photos of celebrities like Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian posing in sprinkle pools and sitting on rainbow unicorns flooding our Instagram feeds, we were compelled to see if the Museum of Ice Cream was really worth the hype.

The Museum of Ice Cream, located in San Francisco, is the second installment of a series of pop-up museums celebrating imagination and childhood.

After hearing about the newly opened San Francisco location, both of us knew that we had to get our hands on tickets. After sitting at our computers for 45 minutes at 9 a.m. on ticket release day in September, we secured the $38 tickets for the end of December.

The museum itself is fairly strict with tickets; they are non-transferrable and time slots are taken seriously. If a group does not arrive 15 minutes within their time slots, their tickets are no longer valid. Thus, we got in line to enter the museum well before our time slot.

Once our group of four entered the museum, we were greeted by an enthusiastic employee who outlined the rules before letting us enter the actual exhibit.

The museum was crowded, and there were many families who had several small children with them. The energetic environment and free sweets only fueled the frenzy. We were always on the lookout for youngsters running around.

Luckily, the Instagrammable rooms and figurines of sweets kept our spirits up. Each room had a unique display or backdrop with a matching flavor of ice cream. There were 3D cherries, a room filled with mirrors, a sprinkle pool, a diner setup and fun sets that reminded us of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.

The museum also provided small snacks, including peach bellini ice cream and glittery cotton candy.

Though all these attractions were enticing, we were disappointed when we found out that we were only allowed three minutes in the infamous sprinkle pool, a small pool filled with plastic sprinkles and pool toys. How were we supposed to get the perfect photo in just three minutes while still trying to have fun?

After our time in the pool, sprinkles were stuck in places we didn’t know possible. Despite the air vacuums we used, when we got home, we had our own mini pool of little sprinkles stuck in our clothes.

Overall, though we admit the museum gave us chances to take cute pictures and eat yummy ice cream, it was overhyped and very hectic. We wouldn’t go again, but we are glad we had the chance to explore it.