While I was away in the Philippines, I got to spend a couple days in Manila, right by the bay. While trying to find a way to get into the Mall of Asia, I stumbled upon the Dessert Museum, tucked away in the little shopping centre attached to the Conrad hotel. I, being a dessert fanatic, made it a point to check it out before leaving, and I’m really glad I did. The museum is super interactive, and creates a lot of buzz because they basically curate the perfect instagram photo for you. I managed to drag along my boyfriend and his little cousin Ken, and we took a whole lot of good photos, ate A LOT of sugar, but had a great time overall.

The second you walk into the waiting area, you see a big wall that says “Donut judge our diet” and first of all, I love food puns, and second of all, I love doughnuts. They don’t give you any doughnuts, but you do get to take pictures with some in the first room. We came on a weekday, and there was a special promotion going on so the tickets were cheaper than they usually are. For the three of us, everything costed about 1797 pesos, which converts to about $48 CAD. After you pay for the tickets, they give you a little pink wristband that acts like your ticket to all the goodies in each room. The employees appropriately look like they are straight out of the Willy Wonka factory, or even as if they’ve jumped out of Candy Land. They come around to scan your wristband and then hand you a treat (if you want it, of course). The first room is a doughnut room, and you are given a little brownie pop to start your journey. From there you enter a marshmallow room, with marshmallows hanging from the ceiling, a marshmallow wall, and a big rainbow to complete the marshmallow sky theme. You can’t enter a marshmallow room without leaving with a marshmallow. There is a fountain, and you are given a choice of matcha white chocolate or chocolate fondue to dip your marshmallow in.

From there you enter a room that has multiple photo spots and playground items, making this a great place to take young children to. There is also a candy shelf set, that makes it look like there is candy in jars and floating all around you, along with a large jump rope, seesaw, swing set, and a cupcake lip set, making the perfect background for a cute little photoshoot. You have a choice of picking up some candy from the counter at the side of the room, but at this point we were running out of spaces in our pockets for all the treats we were collecting.

Afterwards, you get to enter a ball pit room with colours that remind you of sprinkles, surrounding a large ice cream air balloon. When exiting the room, you get to pick up a small tub of ice cream, with flavours like french vanilla, and chocolate chilli.

Just when you think you’ve finished walking through the museum, you leave one room with your ice cream, and enter another room with a huge inflated gumball machine. The pink balloons are almost aggressively being blasted around so that you can stand right in the middle of all the chaos.

After that’s over, you enter a room with bathtubs filled with balls and “candies” so you can literally look like you’re bathing in sweets. Here you can pick up some dipped oreos pops that are covered in sprinkles or decorated like unicorns, and take pictures with the giant gummy bears all lined up on the side of the room. At this point our pockets and bags were so full of treats, and we were too full to eat them, so we ended up not having the ice cream afterall. Bring a big bag to put everything in if you’re planning on visiting!!

From here, we entered a pink cotton candy room, decorated with fairy lights and cotton candy walls, and in the corner, there is someone who spins the most circular and perfect-looking cotton candy puffs I’ve ever seen, then leaves it on a cotton candy “tree” so you can pluck it off and carry it away.

By this point we had gotten hundreds of photos with our arms and pockets full of sweets, and finally entered the last room. This room has basketball hoops and fuzzy balls to shoot in on one side, and giant upside down cake pops on the other side. This is the room where you return your bracelet and then exit through the gift shop. This place is great for taking photos, and for anyone who is a child at heart, and I definitely am.