Every year Gaylord Palms Convention Centre puts on a magnificent Christmeas display of ICE. The top ice sculptors from China come across and design 5 rooms of massive display.
This year the theme is “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and each room represents a verse of the famous poem.
If you intend to visit then some forward planning is needed. You need proper shoes and not sandals and I would definitely recommend gloves. You do get given a thick blue parka but the extremities do feel the cold.
The first step is to pose with some penguins to have group photographs taken but as you go through the next doors the cold hits you, but your breath is also taken away by the sight of brightly coloured rooftops on the Night before Christmas.
We went at the beginning of December about 6. 30pm this year and it was the quietest it had ever been for us. This was great as you could really appreciate each of the rooms without too many people in the way.
The highlight for us was the life size sculpture of Father Christmas in his sleigh with all the presents being pulled by 6 life-sized reindeer. This was really spectacular.
As usual there was one room with ice slides. There are slides for adults and children but because it was quiet only two of the 4 slides were available. I think the adults were more excited than the children and the queue for the adult slide was quite long.
The final room was again the nativity scene and this is amazing with all the figures and animals, life-sized in clear ice. By this time of course you are getting cool so the best idea may be to out, warm up a little bit and then return to enjoy it again.
When you have decided that you have had enough you return your Parka and exit through the gift shop where you can also look at the photograph taken on your entry and decide if you want to buy it.
To really get warmed up you can take the short walk to the hotel and enjoy your complimentary drink of hot chocolate.
We always decide to stay and have a meal at the Villa de Flora, the wonderful, continental buffet restaurant. If you do this you have a great evening and if you get your parking ticket stamped it gives you free parking.
This year the theme is “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and each room represents a verse of the famous poem.
If you intend to visit then some forward planning is needed. You need proper shoes and not sandals and I would definitely recommend gloves. You do get given a thick blue parka but the extremities do feel the cold.
The first step is to pose with some penguins to have group photographs taken but as you go through the next doors the cold hits you, but your breath is also taken away by the sight of brightly coloured rooftops on the Night before Christmas.
We went at the beginning of December about 6. 30pm this year and it was the quietest it had ever been for us. This was great as you could really appreciate each of the rooms without too many people in the way.
The highlight for us was the life size sculpture of Father Christmas in his sleigh with all the presents being pulled by 6 life-sized reindeer. This was really spectacular.
As usual there was one room with ice slides. There are slides for adults and children but because it was quiet only two of the 4 slides were available. I think the adults were more excited than the children and the queue for the adult slide was quite long.
The final room was again the nativity scene and this is amazing with all the figures and animals, life-sized in clear ice. By this time of course you are getting cool so the best idea may be to out, warm up a little bit and then return to enjoy it again.
When you have decided that you have had enough you return your Parka and exit through the gift shop where you can also look at the photograph taken on your entry and decide if you want to buy it.
To really get warmed up you can take the short walk to the hotel and enjoy your complimentary drink of hot chocolate.
We always decide to stay and have a meal at the Villa de Flora, the wonderful, continental buffet restaurant. If you do this you have a great evening and if you get your parking ticket stamped it gives you free parking.