Carlo's Ices - New Forest

I have been visiting Carlos for so many years !! I used to take my children and now I take my grandchildren and I still love it and so do they! The ice-cream is just the best!!! It’s lovely to see the little animals too. All in all a great place to go and strangely reassuring having been there so many times over the years!

It feels such a shame to write such a review, but my recent experience was really very poor. The ice cream was substandard, nothing like I remember watery and no flavour. One waitress was very rude, asking us yes what do you want no small talk, no hello or how are you? Just a very cold and harsh reception. No decaf tea avaliable. All the lovely little animals out the back rabbits, guinea pigs, chicken 's I dread to think when their water bottles were last cleaned, they were absolutely filthy (you could hardly see the water in them they were that disgusting) and it was so upsetting to see. All pens full of animal excrement, their food bowls were filthy, and bird poo everywhere. I would not recommend this as an establishment to visit, let alone with children.

Having come here as a child it felt very nostalgic being back. the gentleman serving was lovely, and engaged so nicely with the children. prices very reasonable. few animals outside to see. carlos himself chatted with us again absolutely delightful. the experience was ruined however by 2 waitresses telling us we couldn't eat the ice creams sat in the seated cafe area.....it wasn't full, it was pouring with rain and we have 3 young children, one who needed a highchair. we had asked the man serving us if it was ok to sit there and he said go ahead sit anywhere. there was a sign (we hadn't seen saying no cones in the cafe), but seriously why 2 women had to come independently and tell us we shouldn't be sat there, seemed so unfriendly especially given the weather outside. there is plenty of seating beyond the cafe, but as the man had said we could sit there we felt it was the easiest option. I'd understand if they were full. I asked if they wanted us to move....but each woman in turn said no we're just telling you and there is a sign...I felt close to tears. at least next time we'll know where not to sit!

Used to have a good reputation but I suspect cost cutting has come in. No good having cheap prices if you serve watery coffee and don't bother to properly toast the bread. The worst cappachino I've had in years. Felt sorry for the young girl serving who was struggling to find the prices in the menu and then add them up.

I have such fond memories of Carlos ice creams. Mrs Carlos outside my primary school kindly making ice creams for what ever change you had in your pocket, even if it was only 10p. That was a far cry from our experience today at the tea rooms. We had a pleasant lunch in the tea rooms and thought we’d cap it off with an ice cream cone. One of our group stayed in the cafe, 2 went to the other side to get the ice creams and then returned. We were then told by the waitress that we weren’t allowed to eat the ice creams in the cafe as they were classed as takeaway food, only ice cream sundaes from the menu could be eaten in the cafe. We said that we had had a meal but she said that didn’t matter, there was a sign. There was a bit of an exchange and in the end she did say we could stay but we felt uncomfortable so went outside. Outside there were more signs saying no china or cutlery. We would have had coffee after our ice creams but for that we would have had to go back inside bonkers. The cafe really wasn’t busy, we had had a meal and these strange rules really made for an uncomfortable visit we felt told off!