A longtime central Florida holiday tradition will showcase a brand-new theme this holiday season when ICE! – Gaylord Palms Resort’s frozen yuletide attraction – debuts giant sculptures and scenes, hand-carved from 2 million pounds of ice, featuring New Line Cinema’s popular holiday film, “Elf.”
Inside ICE! guests will experience approximately a dozen different scenes, some soaring as high as 30 feet, as they follow Buddy the Elf’s journey from the North Pole to New York City. Along the way, they’ll encounter favorite characters from the film including Papa Elf, Mr. Narwhal, Jovie, Walter Hobbs, and of course, Santa Claus. Several frozen scenes feature seating areas where guests can insert themselves into the story to create one-of-a-kind photo moments. For example, guests can join Buddy the Elf in his North Pole school classroom or sit next to him as he gets a shoeshine in New York City.
Creating ICE! each year is a team of nearly 40 world-renowned carvers that travel more than 7,000 miles from Harbin, China, to Kissimmee, Fla. Known as “Ice City,” Harbin is no stranger to elaborate ice carvings – it’s home to the world’s largest annual snow and ice carving festival.
At Gaylord Palms, artisans will carve approximately 6,700 blocks of ice, each weighing 300 pounds, into the larger-than-life scenes. Carvers will use tools of all shapes and sizes, including chainsaws, chisels, tongs, handsaws, hand tools and grinders, to bring “Elf” to life. The colored ice is created by a chemist who mixes special food colorings to ensure the ice maintains its vivid hue the entire season. It will take the team of artisans four to five weeks to completely carve the attraction.
The 20,000-square-foot arctic attraction is the centerpiece of the annual Christmas at Gaylord Palms celebration taking place at the 65-acre resort Nov. 15, 2024-Jan. 4, 2025.
Clint Gamache is the owner of ThrillGeek. He started ThrillGeek to share his love of theme/amusement parks and pop culture with the world. You can find him at Halloween Horror Nights. Also, be sure to follow him on Twitter @iamcg83