Rival CFF5 Chocolate Fondue Fountain

I bought this and had it out for our Thanksgiving meal. I knew in advance this thing would be the next breadmaker in our house (meaning the cool thing you use once or twice then put in a counter until it eventually gets sold in a garage sale). But for $50 I figured we'd get the cool points when we had 10 people over for Thanksgiving.Couple of notes:- Forget what you think chocolate should flow like. We melted about 4lbs of Hersheys chocolate chips with some vegetable oil to what I would expect to see in fondue and then put it in the machine as directed. The thing started up sounding like a diesel engine. We thought we bought a lemon but the instruction troubleshooting guide kept saying to add more vegetable oil so we did. Eventually we had this stuff pretty "watered" down and the fountain worked and flowed great. Although it probably didn't help its appeal when people saw us pouring tons of vegetable oil into this thing (lots of "wow, gonna be constipated tonight" comments.- It really is easy to clean and break down and throw in the dishwasher. The hardest thing we had to figure out was what to do with the leftover 3lbs of chocolate in the thing.- If you do this thing, set it up early and get it going before the party. It has a heater so it'll just run in the background. It will make people want to try it more seeing it the whole time. Especially if they don't have to see you pouring eighty tons of oil into it.Buy it, it's a nice gadget. Just be aware that it's a ton of chocolate. Strawberries worked best.

This machine is fantastic. I bought it for my fiance for Valentine's Day and I'm suprised by how much we actually use it. I'm very pleased with the product overall. Actually, I feel a little awkward because I was really reluctant to have a fondue fountain in my house.Pros:- It comes apart easily and almost all of the parts are dishwasher safe.- It's great for entertaining multiple guests.- It's very quiet and attractive to look at -- a great centerpiece.Cons:- Even though it's dishwasher safe and comes apart easily, it's really a production to clean. Very messy. Chocolate EVERYWHERE.- We used 3 lbs. of chocolate (the machine recommended 3-5 lbs.) and we didn't have good of a flow. To get a good flow we had to add two more pounds. That is way to much chocolate unless your having a good-sized party.- I know the heater is just to keep the chocolate from getting cooled to much, but the machine did start making more noise and the flow wasn't as good the longer it ran. And you can't adjust the heat setting so I'm not sure how to remedy that.- Even though I bought this for my fiance, I'm always stuck cleaning it up.

This is the coolest thing I've ever bought for under $20. You have to be sure it's sitting on a flat surface or the chocolate won't flow evenly. The motor made a sad little sound when we first started it up so, I can't give it 5 stars but, I know I read in other reviews somewhere that you have to run a bit of vegetable oil in it first before you pour the chocolate in. Regardless, the sound goes away after the chocolate's been flowing for awhile.The clean up was extra sweet and messy...I didn't mind it. Also, I did have to get back online and read some other reviews to find out how other people remedied the oil in the chocolate. Another reason why it didn't get 5 stars. The recipe in the manual made our chocolate too smooth. When you dipped a strawberry in it, it didn't harden fast enough. Thank goodness they sent a 10% off coupon on quality chocolate. The other remedy may be less oil in the chocolate.Other reviewers said it was gross but, it tasted just fine to us. Come on, it's chocolate!! It's already bad for you!Still, this is a big hit and totally worth the money. I will be looking into better chocolate NOT a better fountain. This one is GREAT!

Unfortunately,I bought this fountain for the 1st. birthday party of my granddaughter..and as you can imagine, we were very excited about it. We spent hours trying to make it work properly, we spent a lot of chocolate, lots of oil and never worked and it had a horrible noise. I called the company and explained in detail my case and the man on the phone said they will refund my money.... yes, I am still waiting. Not only I had bad luck getting a broken fountain but bad luck in getting my money back.

I owned one at $50.00 and loved it. I am a Chef Instructor, and I used the chocolate fountain for a variety of personal and professional activities. Then I dropped it in a parking lot. All four plastic motor mounts snapped. A quick search on Amazon brought up this beauty at only $29.99. Need I say more - melted chocolate is mine again. Not only is it easy to use, it is easy to clean. Unlike some other home fountains, the bowl and moving parts sepearte from the motor for convenient washing. I only lowered the rating to 4 as a caution to the user. This fountain, although fun for everyone, is a home model. It has performed admirably at the events we have taken it to, but it's plastic construction makes a lot of travel and rough handling a risk.