The Ice Factory of Central Florida

Nastiest rink in Florida, and worst referees in the league, hands down. Refs that constantly call stupid crap, create hostility and get kids hurt. If we didn’t have to play here, I would NEVER go back. Worst part is, the manager that dresses like Charlie sheen thinks they’re good. The whole place is a joke. Oh yeah, and the ice is definitely the worst in the state. It’s so slanted, if your team gets put on the wrong end, you are literally playing uphill for 2/3’s of the game. Somebody turn on the heater and put this place out of business. I don’t ever want to have to go here again, ever.

An average ice skating venue with some weird features.
My friend and his wife invited me and my wife to go ice skating at The Ice Factory last Saturday. While I haven’t really ice skated very much, it sounded like a unique and fun idea. We pulled up to the venue at around 7:45. There weren’t many cars in the parking lot, but there were a good deal of cars next door at the almost-​adjacent church. We looked inside the venue and saw a movie being projected on the wall. I was a little worried that this was the church’s property rather than a private venue and we might be interrupting some Easter event, but we went inside and discovered there wasn’t anything really going on, much less a church event.
Once we got inside, we started looking around while waiting for our friend. The most obvious feature was the lights were turned off in the non-​skating entertainment area for the movie projecting on the wall. While I understood the logic, it made the place seem essentially closed since hardly anyone was there. The entertainment area had a few tables, a pool table, and an air hockey table. My wife and I decided to play some air hockey while we waited, but the table wouldn’t keep score properly and turned off after about 5 minutes. We were tempted to leave at this point, but we stuck around to see how things would go.
Once our friends arrived, we purchased the $ 55 skating package, which included admission, skates, a pizza, and 5 beers. Not the worst deal, but it seemed a little high for such a mediocre venue. We sat down and ordered our pizza (only cheese and pepperoni were options) and beers (only bottled domestics available). The pizza and beers were fine, but nothing special.
After finishing our pre-​skate meal, we went to rent our skates and head out on the ice. They offer 3 types of skates — regular, hockey, and classic (?). I started with the regular, but switched to hockey due to the bulkiness of the regular. The venue has a full-​sized skating rink and a small rink for kids. They offer metal walkers for kids to use who aren’t good at skating (none for adults unfortunately). We skated for about about 2 – 3 hours. While it was fairly empty at first, a good deal of middle school to high school aged kids showed up around 9. Many of these kids seem to skate a lot, so they were flying around the rink at a very fast rate. I had only skated a couple times before, so I was slowly moving around. A few kids almost knocked me over, but luckily I was able to stay out of the way until the end of the night.
Near 10pm, the ice was rather choppy and unkept. I know the zamboni was scheduled to come out at 10:30, but it should have came out earlier. It was so choppy that I actually tripped on the ice and hurt my right arm pretty badly. Fortunately, I was able to get off the ice and get some ice on it (although the concession guy getting the ice seemed rather annoyed by me asking for some), but it was pretty annoying to make it through the night without falling until an impurity in the ice trips you up. My friends bought me a pretzel afterwards to cheer me up, but it was stale and rather mediocre like the venue itself.
Overall, this skate rink has some features that were rather off-​putting for someone over the age of 18. Unless you are looking to hang out with high school kids, drop off your own kids, or have an overwhelming desire to ice skate in the Kissimmee area and don’t want to pay Disney prices, I would recommend avoiding The Ice Factory.

Came here after buying a groupon for admission for 4 plus skate rental and drinks and popcorn. We soon realized that it was not a special deal as we saved maybe $ 2 and got free popcorn. Lol
The place seemed crowded since parking lot up front was small. The side of the building had about 10 handicap spots which made me scratch my head since I don’t think I have ever seen a handicap person skating… but I digress… so we had to park in the back which smelled like a chemical waste dump. The parked the Zamboni out there and the ice shavings from the rink. This constant melting over time has made some funny looking drainage problems since the smell was bad and the color was odd.
Once you walk in you get that old time skate rink feel… you know the one where it only costs $ 4 to skate? Well not so much as it was $ 9 per head. The people at the counter were grouchy and blah but we made our way in. We had to enter the rink area to get our skates. The area was not big so it was a jumbled mess of people trying to put skates on and get on the ice.
The skates were average but of course the blades were not sharp. My son has never been skating so instead of dragging him all over I wanted to get him on of the «walkers» the kids use to hold themselves up. Well I found out they cost $ 3 to rent but than was told they have none left!?! What rink runs out of them??? So this made my skate session a disaster as I needed to help my son the whole time as he slipped, wobbled, spin and fell. By the end my feet and back were done.
They did have a little toddler rink next to the full size one which was cool. Hockey practice was waiting to get on after open skate so once again the place was a disaster trying to get in and out.
Look elsewhere is you have other options to skate…

Not the fanciest rink but its good for an afternoon with the family. The Friday night public skate is for the teenage kids and they have a great learn to skate program for the little ones.

Really nice skating ring. Definitely cost-​effective. Everyone will enjoy! Best value locally during any season. The training classes are definitely worth the investment & time.

This is an awesome place! They take all the work & worry out of birthday parties and make your party fun and easy. They are very easy to work with and very nice. My family and I will definitely be going again. It’s a wonderful place for a party or just good family fun!!!

Has two rinks, studio size and NHL size. The best thing about this rink it reminds me of the northern rinks. Seems to have a decent ice hockey team there with a good department behind them.
Their figure skating team is not as seen which is not as surprising considering the area. This is not a big area for it, which is fine.
They usually have a pretty open schedule for a variety of types of skate. The only one they are missing is speed skating. There are not too many speed skaters around, so this is unsurprising. But, I can dream they would have some time just for speed. Maybe one day.

Had a great time skating on the small rink late on a weeknight. It’s bigger than the rinks we used to shovel on the lake up north. The big rink, I can wait to try.

Been to most of the rinks in Florida and this is one of the more dumpier ones. The place could use a facelift and a sanitizing deep clean.
The rink is across from a cow pasture and is loaded with vicious, angry flies. The bathrooms smell like a hockey lockerroom. The lockerrooms have problems with their climate controls and are like saunas. Our kids couldn’t finish getting dressed in them because of how comfortably they were. They finished getting dressed in the ice rink.
The concession stand had the usual junk food. There’s only one sheet of ice. There’s a small studio rink next to it where they had public skate during hockey games.
Only go there because we have to for my son’s hockey games. Gave it two stars because the quality of the ice is good. Wouldn’t go otherwise especially for a birthday party because of the cleanliness issues. Would recommend RDV over this place in a heartbeat.

Good place for fun!

It’s your typical ice skating rink. Serviceable but not much personality… They have a large main rink, then over to the right a smaller «studio» rink. They have rental skates, both figure and hockey, and skate aids for the younger set. They look like mini-​walkers; pretty useful for the kids!
It’s chaos trying to get onto the ice, as there is only one small door open leading to the main rink. With all the parents clogging up the area, kids pushing ahead of you and people trying to get off the ice, it almost made me want to give up! However, I persevered and small one and I made it out the door…
The ice was fairly smooth and there were only a few pits/​holes where they put the nets for hockey. One major annoyance for me is the amount of water the Zamboni left behind… small one always manages to fall down and get soaked!
The pizza is your standard institutional type, with a twist, it actually tastes decent! Bready crust, but chewy, and tasty sauce and cheese. Not haute cuisine, but not half bad!
If you’re looking for a few hours of cool in the Kissimmee area, then the Ice Factory is where you should head to!