We bought two of the Quart Size for our large Boy Scout Troop. The ball is VERY HEAVY once all ingredients are inside so the smaller pint size would be recommended for smaller children. The teenagers did okay with the weight but did become bored during the 30-minutes required to make ice-cream. I would recommend this for a group of 5 or more so there are plenty of people to share the workload. We did best by sitting on the ground in a group and rolling it to each other. The outside of the ball can hurt your hands and feet if you’re not careful. You have to open it half-way through and scrape the frozen-solid stuff off the inside which is very difficult and messy. Then when you’re finished it’s a real bear to get out. Perhaps opening it and scraping it more than once during the 30 minutes would help. The finished product was great and all-in-all it was fun.
We tried this out for my daughter's birthday party. The kids lost interest after about 5 minutes, leaving the dads to finish the job. You have to stop every few minutes to scrape the sides or it freezes up hard (while the inside stays liquid). This would be great for mixing frozen margaritas or chilling martinis, but for ice cream it's just too much work.
It is fun to use and makes great ice cream. Not enough ice cream is made in the pint size for a family of four. Clean up is difficult for the outside of ball, I would not recommend rolling this at the camp site. You need to use ice chips as ice cubes are too big to fit in it.
We bought this a couple of summers ago, and it is a fun way to make icecream, but the quart size gets too heavy when filled. I also find that my kids loose interest with rolling this back and forth after 20 minutes, which leaves me to do the last 10 minutes myself. This is exhausting because it is so heavy. The pint size is smaller, lighter, and only takes 20 minutes.
