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Some people squirrel away a ton of savings in order to fly to Orlando to see the theme parks and the seasonal shows. Not us. We live next to the mouse house, we’re a stone’s throw from Universal and Seaworld, and a skip and a hop from Busch Gardens. All these magical happiest places in the world are literally just a couple of stoplights down the road! So when we heard that Gaylord Palms will do the ICE! thing again this year, we marked our calendars. Besides, this plush and expensive hotel is just at the next corner. I read the Gaylord Palms ICE! feature off their website, so my partner and I were ready with our 9-degree attire, complete with gloves and bonnet. We went at about 7:30 pm, an hour before closing time. We figured there wouldn’t be too many folks anymore. Boy, were we wrong there. A long line led to the ticket booth, and another long line formed at the door of the exhibit. Once they let us is, Disney-crowd-control-style, we had to stand in front of overhead TVs that showed how the ice sculptures were carved… by ice sculptors who had to fly in from a town in China… which is famous for its ice carvers and carvings. After that 10-minute intro, we were herded to the next station, still outside the exhibit area. We were again in front of TVs that, this time, showed how we were going to be given super-insulation parkas, how we should wear them, and how we should be careful when we do the ice slides. I, personally, knew how to put on a parka and didn’t particularly care for an ice slide, so that segment was a total waste of time. Finally, we were allowed to move forward to get our parkas and put them on. We were then a bit bogged down by the families who wanted to pose for a photo-op with Santa. So, at last, there was the door to the ice kingdom. It was like going into a frozen meat warehouse. I won’t go into the details of what were in there, but when it was all over, we were thankful it was only $17 a head, with a free cup of hot cocoa (which we had to walk halfway across the hotel to get). Okay, the nativity scene was great. But I was disappointed to notice that the sculptures were made by stacking regular ice blocks – like the ones you see getting unloaded at the back of Chinese restaurants. And the sculptures weren’t as massive as I expected. I wanted to see HUGE ice sculptures like in the Bond film “Die Another Day” – not figures you’d see on a buffet table. Oh well, maybe next year they’ll have it again, and maybe then they’ll try making grander pieces in more spacious halls. Okay, I’ll be nice… they actually did a pretty good job considering they had to set that whole thing up in Florida. A bigger exhibit hall with grander sculptures would probably mean higher ticket prices with no freebies. Or they can tell us to just fly to China. But hey, the saving grace was the nifty souvenir items we bought at 40% off. 
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