Side by Side Comparison of: Margarita Girl vs Margaritaville

Portable party all summer long. Even good for non alcoholic beverage for the kids to have fun.

My husband bought this for my birthday and let me tell you I am extremely happy with this. I like that all I have to do is measure and flip a switch and it shaves and blends for me... The best thing about this is i can make it as icy as I want or make it easy to drink LOL. love this and i have already recommended this to other friends of mine...

We just got ours in yesterday!!! Tried it last night, It was fast delivery packaged very well , we made our First. Margarita from the. Recipe in the book, it was so good , love the way it shaves the ice mixes then adds more ice, that Fast That Easy!!! We even made a snowcone with our Monin syrup!! D licious , Was It Worth it spending that money on the Margaritaville? Yes it was !!!! Plus it's not as heavy as I thought it would be , so easy to put in travel bag and off we go great to bring to Crawfish boils, Family get togethers , We also ordered an extra mixing container, one for Adults and one for kids.

What a great Invention! Wonderful to have at any party. And so easy to use. Add alcohol or not, it's up to you. One word of caution - Be Very Careful when taking the ice feeder cone out of the machine for cleaning. I nearly cut the whole tip of my finger off! The ice shaving blade is very sharp and it should have a locking lever to keep the ice cone from turning or at least a way to protect your finger tips. I found it helps to grab a towel when taking the components apart.Makes a great frozen Margarita! It's also a great conversation piece to watch it work.

I am very impressed with this machine. Even tho it specializes in Margaritas, it also makes the best fruit smoothies and frozen concoction of any kind. What a difference it makes to have that "shaved ice" instead of only a regular "blender" drink! This machine makes frozen drinks to the desired consistency I've been wanting for a long time.It's very helpful to have the automatic settings to use, but also good to be able to manually add more "shaved ice" to your recipe when making your own concoctions. I love how there is an overflow compartment in the back where the melted ice collects and is easily removed to drain. I am able to make my fruit smoothies on a daily basis with such ease! It only takes a few minutes, so quick and easy to use. Very easy cleanup too - and that's important.The only negative side of this machine is how big it is. It's very tall and does not fit in most of my cupboard space. If you buy this machine, then you will likely need to keep it as a countertop appliance at all times. But, considering how easy it is to use, that's not such a bad idea anyway.Oh yeah! Please be careful to hang on to the blender handle with a firm grip before it starts the blending process! The first time I didn't hang on to it, the power of the motor actually unscrewed the bottom of the blender area and it leaked out on the counter. The motor is very strong, and I cannot seem to get the blender blades & bottom seal screwed on tight enough without having to hold it while blending. Otherwise, i have no complaints about the quality of this product.

I distinctly remember making fun of the Margaritaville Frozen Concoction Maker when I first saw it advertised in the Front Gate catalog. ("Who's going to buy a three hundred dollar blender on steroids?!? Hah-hah-hah...") Imagine my horror when my wife announced that she wanted one for her birthday. Looks like that "who" was going to be "me".The vast majority of positive reviews on Amazon calmed my fears a bit and I ordered one up. As usual, Amazon delivered quickly and it was unpacked and setup in a couple minutes.Exactly true to its claims, the thing actually makes perfect consistency margaritas and any other frozen drinks you can think of. I think I like it more than my wife. It has a "power tool" vibe to it that guys appreciate. Spinning blades and high speed motors. What could possibly go wrong?There's a few things/tips to be aware of:1) It's BIG. It just barely clears the front of our kitchen cabinets and is too tall to go under them. Pretty heavy to lift onto a high shelf too.2) It does a more consistent job making a "full" pitcher than just a single drink. Having a lot of ice in the hopper works best; putting a single glass full of ice in will be too watery if you use the automatic cycle. To compensate, for a single drink I manually hold the "shave" switch on for ~4-5 seconds prior to starting the automatic mix cycle. Works great.3) The shaved ice melts faster than cubes when it touches glass, so I've taken to icing the pitcher to keep the glass cool (or at least filling it with cold water for a few seconds) before adding the liquid ingredients. Unlike plastic pitchers on commercial drink makers, the glass (thick glass at that) can transfer a lot of heat. Popping it straight out of a hot dishwasher onto the stand will give you a mighty runny margarita.4) Although "dishwasher safe" the lid to our pitcher turned a funny mottled brown/green color after one cycle in the wash. Not sure if it was the heat or the detergent or what, but after that it was slightly brittle and generally "weird". A call to the 800 customer service number yielded a free replacement which we just hand wash now.All in all, it works as advertised and is a real crowd pleaser at parties. A good gizmo.

Actually works better for pina coladas and strawberry daiquiries. For our group , the margaritas made with the unit are too watered down . We prefer ours shaken and strained , placed in the freezer for about an hour , then poured into a martini glass. Compensating with more liquor and mix or adding lime does not seem to cure the problem when blended with shaved ice. Bought the no-brainer mixer for it. Same issue. Unit is well built and blends anything with ease- ice, frozen strawberries, etc. Noisy , of course.

Great machine. Use tray ice or auto ice maker ice but don't use the hollow barrel ice from the gas station. The ice is too thin to shave so it crumbles the ice and makes your drink watered down. I wish they had a better recipe book or even an android iOS app to go with it and you tell it what ingredients you have and it tells you what you can make. Has a learning curve but design and performance are perfect!

We were staying at a friends condo on the Big island of Hawaii and wanted to buy them a gift to keep at the condo. We decided to go with the DM1000 concoction maker as we owned one back home in Canada. We tried to locate one on the island and could not find one anywhere so we checked on Amazon. Since it was just after Christmas we were not sure how long it would take to get to us. We ordered it and it was shipped to the Big island in 4 days!. We were very excited and the concoction maker worked as planned. The only downside was it did not come with the travel case. IT did not say it was supposed to come with the travel kit but ours did so we just assumed.this is not just an expensive blender. it is a must have

Purchased Key West model for wife as Christmas gift. She loves it, but I'm the one behind the bar who uses it. Margaritaville has taken an event of throwing juice, booze and ice in a blender and hitting the go-button and turned it into an entertainment process of shaving ice before blending, flashing fin-lights as the process evolves and even a stop/start near the end to assure complete blending. All done automatically! Is the result worth it? According to about 10 guests at an after-Christmas Margarita party, ABSOLUTELY! Much smoother ice blend is the big positive, no chunks. Any downside? Two. (1) the heavy glass pitcher is smaller than a standard blender, an issue with large parties as they crank up, and (2) at the end the the party, the ice-container is difficult to empty of remaining ice. You must up-end the entire (heavy) machine. I guess you could just run the machine and "shave" all remaining cubes into snow, again with the event becoming process.Would I/we recommend? 100%!! Like all things Buffet/Margaritaville, you're buying an image, an escape. Way cool!

I bought this gem for a party. It was wonderful. The final product was smooth like a slurpee - no chunks or teeny pieces of ice just all smooth slush just like a slurpee. This thing is really big and heavy (I am not young). I need to haul it out and set it up for a party. I do not use it everyday since it has such a huge footprint and there is not enough space on my kitchen counters for it to just sit there all the time. So I've used it twice just for parties and thus far it has performed perfectly. With planned obsolescence engineered into almost every product we buy today, it is no wonder that every item that can be engineered to fail will wear out so that we must purchase another product. Merchandise just does not last like those in the days of yore. I purchased this on sale and it is a novelty at parties that my daughters have and I am pleased. Recommend!

I ordered the Margaritaville DM1000 on Cyber Monday night. It was delivered on Weds afternoon! Talk about fast, thanks Amazon! I have used it once so far. It is very well made. The blades are very sharp. It is easy to use. It was supposed to come with a free party guide. It was missing. I phoned the manufacturer. It is being sent to me. I purchased this model as you can make drinks by the glass or by the pitcher. My drink was not quite the consistency I expected. It was thinner than the bar drinks I've had. Maybe all I need is practice. It will be fun to try!

Ninja or Nutribullet work just as well minus the mess and less clean up. Only used one time. I wish I can return it. :(

This is a big hit for our monthly margarita group with a card problem! It is difficult to clean and something seems to leak from the pitcher maybe from the pour spout. Also drips from top assuming from melting ice. Thus filling the spot wear the pitcher sits. Have to use a towel to soak up. Removing ice shaving area for cleaning really takes some muscle and real caution so as to not cut yourself. Moisture trapped caused mildew that took a spray of bleach to finally get cleaned as I could not reach it by hand. Would not buy again.

Guess it is good for those who drink a lot. Just have to do so much and to me it is messy.

I was so excited when the Margaritaville arrived but soon learned it was almost too heavy to remove from the box. Never-the-less, my husband unpacked it and placed it on the counter. We used it the next day when friends were visiting. It was really noisey but made wonderful drinks. Sorry to say, I had to return the machine mainly because it is so large and so heavy and not easily stored because of these two reasons. I went back to using my blender for Margaritas!

I've only used it twice so far. It does a good job, but in reading all the reviews before I expected a much finer grind on ice. Might be the ice I'm using from the refrigerator ice maker. Next party I'll be trying ice from a commercial ice company to see if that helps. But, on the plus side, it looks way cool!

bought this for my dad for christmas he loved it mixes drinks perfectly! but i wish it would make larger quantities at one time

It was discontinued. That says it all, but I have no complaints at all with the seller.

Broke after single use, returned for refund,no warranty

Loud, overpriced blender from China. Does not do any better than my $30.00 blender and the blender is easier to store.

Worked great for 3 months then we started having issues with it blending the drinks.

To be fair, my blender worked fine for over a year, and maybe 5 or 6 parties, but then it stopped working properly in automatic mode, when the machine was supposed to stop shaving ice, it just kept going and the jar overfilled with ice. I can still use it in manual mode, guessing at the amount of ice to shave, but in auto mode shaved ice is being added while the blender turns, in manual mode you either shave or blend. So I called the company to see if I could get parts support, as I have fixed washing machines, dryers, refrigerators and can get any part I want, to repair after warranty. The company responded that while external parts are readily available, internal parts are not available due to liability issues and patent concerns and the proprietary nature of the parts? After warranty, liability is my problem, and if someone really wanted to steal a patent and look at the circuitry, do they not think someone would just tear one apart in the first place?Anyway, I resigned myself to sending the unit in for repairs, but guess what? You cannot get it repaired! There is no repair facility in the United States, which amazed me, as the parent company is Sunbeam.The bottom line is, while I can get some use out of mine in manual mode, if your machine burns out a motor or a switch or other internal part fails, a week after the one year warranty expires, you now have a $300 boat anchor. If you use your machine every two months, that will have cost you $50 a party, a might expensive convenience. I'm sure the company will say that failures are uncommon, but just the fact that they can and will happen to somebody, means you have to be willing to take a $300 risk that you won't be the one of those unfortunate people.Any stars I would have given it for performance have been negated by poor customer service.

NO PLACE to get these fixed!!!! Got this item from Amazon May 2010 for our daughters college graduation. We have taken it out and used it about 10 times in 2 1/2 years...often just using to make slushies for the kids in the summer.The last time I took it out the blade wouldn't go around, so I took it apart to find the plastic coupling on both the base and the blade were stripped. I emailed the manufacturer to find out where to take it to get it fixed, after calling several small appliance repair shops and told they do NOT work on Margarittaville mixers. I was told by their CUSTOMER SERVIVE person that they could SELL me the blade coupling and I could fix it, but then explained the coupling on the base was bad, too. They said they could SELL me that too..I said there is NO WAY to get that base coupling off that I can tell....and I AM NOT a repairman, so who could i take it to, to get it fixed? They could NOT GIVE me a list of authorized repair people in my community..PHOENIX. So, I paid 239 for a blender I ONLY USED 10 TIMES and now CANNOT get it fixed. BETTER OFF USING MY KITCHENAID blender, because that I KNOW where to take to get it fixed.