Christmas At Gaylord Palms Featuring ICE!

CHRISTMAS AT GAYLORD PALMS, FEATURING ICE!

Tomorrow is Christmas guys! JOKIN’!!! But seriously how fast is December going by??

Over the weekend my family and I visited Gaylord Palms Resort for their annual ICE event.  This event has been on my list of things to do ever since I moved here and we FINALLY decided to go.  Well, I decided because honestly my husband couldn’t care less lol.  I’m always up for making new memories with my babies and now we can definitely add this to our holiday traditions.

Gaylord Palms resort is absolutely beautiful.  We have stayed the night before and it’s always a pleasure when we get to go back.  Around Christmas time it is MAGICAL.  The 4.5 acres is decorated with lights around the Christmas season which makes it even more beautiful. This year ICE! featured a new theme called Christmas Around The World.

SO WHAT IS ICE!?

ICE! is a holiday walk-through attraction of ICE Sculptures.  More than 2 MILLION pounds of hand-carved ice sculptures.  It also includes ice slides, Snow Tubing, A Build-A-Bear Workshop, Snowball Tossing, Pictures with Santa, Gingerbread Decorating, & more.  ANDDDDDDDDDD inside the ICE attraction it is a freezing 9 degrees!!!!!  I kid you NOT!

This was our first time ever visiting and I did not know what to expect.  The site says it’s 9 degrees and I honestly did not think it would actually be that cold.  I initially didn’t even bring our coats or anything, I had to go back home to get them before we went on route to Orlando.  And I still wasn’t convinced it was going to be that cold.  I thought we’d be fine with long sleeve shirts and boots since they provide you with knee-length Parka coats.  UMMMMM I was wrong.

I’m glad we actually took our coats because it was freezing even with our coats and the ones they provided on top.  Its sooo cold your MOCOS (boogers) will be runny!  It was so cold we actually skimmed through the cold part.  Jaiden did not even want to go down the ice slide a second time, MJ was moody and my fingers were too cold to try to capture super nice photos.  Once you’re out of the cold part they do let you warm up before attempting to go in again (if you want).  But once you hand in your coats you can no longer access the walk through again.  We did not walk back in.

Although we were freezing there was still so much to see, everything and I mean everything was made of ICE.  Santa was ICE, the photo Sleigh was all ICE, the lettering on everything was ICE, we were in AWE! All the details on each sculpture was just incredible… you kinda forget that you’re freezing once you take in all that’s around you.  My husband kept saying “OMG!” (with his MOCOS all running LOL) and he’s not easily impressed, EVER!

Once you leave that area it’s crazy warm and your sweating (well I was sweating).  You enter another area where you can pick the photos they take of you when you walk in, and there’s a little shop you can buy souvenirs.  There’s a Build-A-Bear workshop, a section to take photos with Santa, a Gingerbread Decorating Section, some small sections to buy donuts and drinks and a section where Mrs. Claus hands out cookies but she was not there when we went. BUMMER!

When you enter the next section that’s where the Snow Tubing is and the Snowball toss, there’s also another small drink stand and an Italian Ice stand. If you want to do the snow tubing you have to make sure you buy the combo ticket that includes it.  And you can go on it as many times as you’d like. We went around 10am so we didn’t have to wait that long to go on and we were able to go on plenty of times.

We wandered around a little and we came across a Letters To Santa station.  Jaiden was able to write his letter to Santa and mail it write out to him!  It was super CUTE!

Here are some tips I suggest if you’re going to visit :

1. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE 9 DEGREES!!!! BUNDLE UP!!! Hat, Scarf, and Gloves are a must in my opinion ESPECIALLY if you have little ones.
2. Take a duffle with you to change before or after and to hold your jackets and stuff after you get out of the cold section.
3. Next time I’ll wear a sweatshirt and sweatpants and maybe tights under, only because I felt a little stiff with so much on…MJ could barely move.
4. DO NOT worry so much about taking so many pictures, enjoy whats around first, go out to warm up and then go back in to take photos.
5. GO EARLY.  If you really want to enjoy everything and not wait so long, IF YOU CAN, GO EARLY.
6. TAKE YOUR STROLLER.  If you have a little tiny person take your stroller.  I didn’t take mine for MJ because I thought she’d want to walk around and for the cold part she DID NOT. we had to carry her, then for the non cold parts we couldn’t handle her because she wanted to run all over.

After we visit a new place we always ask ourselves (my husband and I) if we’d go again.  I’m honestly glad we both agreed that we’d go again.  It only happens once a year so why not? The kids enjoyed themselves, my husband and I enjoyed ourselves and we got to freeze our butts off a little.  Let’s be honest with all this heat in Florida, that little break was well needed. Another thing to add to our list of Christmas Traditions.

I hope you enjoyed this post.  I hope I didn’t leave anything out.  If you’ve gone to this before let me know in the comments below.  Let me know if you enjoyed it and if you’d go again.  If you have any questions do not hesitate to ask! As always thanks for reading!