Get your ice cream-loving selves to the Museum of Ice Cream! It is filled with all things ice cream, and beyond: cotton candy, gummy bears, a whole lotta bunch of pink bananas. In other words, this is as close to feeling like California Gurls-Katy Perry as you possibly can.
There are currently three cities with MOIC: San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami. Each one is different, so if you visit the Los Angeles or Miami ones, it won't necessarily look like what I experienced here in San Francisco.
You'll be eating sweets along the way, so do what you will before you go. Personally, we had brunch beforehand to balance our appetites. The sweets may be provided by local places, such as ice cream from Salt & Straw in San Francisco. We also got mochi ice cream, cotton candy, and Pop Rocks.
One question that is on a lot of people's minds, especially the Bay Area, is, how does this compare to The The Color Factory? Some key differences:
The Color Factory is more interactive, in the sense that just about everything is touchable. At MOIC, a lot of things, though understandably, are off limits.
Speaking of photos, one thing that I praised about in my blog post is that The Color Factory has stationed photo booths for several of the exhibits and it gets emailed to you right away. Here, it's all about the selfies, OR hope your group has some great photographers, which we lucked out on.
Lastly, we never really felt rushed at The Color Factory. The biggest highlights of MOIC and The Color Factory are the Sprinkle Pool and Confetti Room, respectively. We were only able to spend maybe two or so minutes in the pool, whereas we could stay as long as we wanted to in the confetti room. Another thing we got lucked out on here is that when it was our turn at the Sprinkle Pool, we only had to share our time with a group of 2–3 people. The spot before us? It was essentially packed in that small pool.
All in all, despite the advantages The Color Factory have over the Museum of Ice Cream, I would still recommend checking it out if you can. Please note that tickets are available online ONLY—there are no tickets available at the door. Be sure to check out their website (and sign up for the newsletter and/or follow them on social) to get up-to-date on tickets because they do sell out quickly.