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The Daily Meal spent a night at Hôtel de Glace, a Québec ice hotel constructed anew each winter with 20,000 blocks of ice. This year the Hôtel de Glace is open until March 24.
Though ski vacations remain a popular winter retreat, vacations revolving around ice are increasing in popularity thanks to ice festivals popping up around the world, like the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival (哈尔滨国际冰雪节) and the Québec Winter Carnival, and ingenuity that has made it possible to build ice hotels anew each season.
While ice hotels are a sight to behold, what’s it like to actually stay at one? Can you really stay warm and get a good night’s rest? The Daily Meal booked a night at an ice hotel to answer those questions and more.
Open from January to March each year, the Hôtel de Glace is located 20 minutes by car from downtown Québec and features 44 guest rooms with one, two, or three beds, an ice bar, an ice slide, a chapel, four hot tubs, a sauna, and tons (literally) of ice. Some rooms feature intricate ice sculptures and hand-chiseled artwork on the walls, and a handful even have fireplaces, which don’t actually emit heat, but rather serve to provide ambiance.
Nearly everything, from the walls to the beds to the bar glasses, is made of ice, much of it backlit with neon lights that illuminate the frozen surroundings in pastel hues from pink to blue.
The hotel is kept at 25 degrees Fahrenheit to keep the ice solid and guests are treated to an ephemeral overnight experience like no other.
Hospitality was provided to the author by Québec Tourism and Hôtel de Glace.
Lauren Mack is the Special Projects Editor at The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @lmack.
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Guests arrive at a regular building at 9 p.m. to check in for the night, where they receive a lanyard with their room number, a key to a locker to store belongings, and a waiver to sign.
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Before bunking at the ice hotel, guests must go through a 45-minute training session complete with instructions on what to wear (cotton of any kind is prohibited, as it is a plant product that absorbs humidity — the enemy when it comes to staying warm, as humidity will cause a person to actually feel colder), how to stay warm, and the proper way to get in the sleeping bag.
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While the slide, chapel, and bar are open 24/7, the cocktails, craft beer, and local wine stop flowing at midnight. Drinks are served in square glasses made of ice, but for those who can’t handle the cold, Caribou, a boozy concoction of red wine, maple syrup, and hard liquor like brandy, whiskey, or vodka, is served warm in paper cups.
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Guests with children in tow (and big kids alike) climb the icy steps to the top of the C-shaped ice slide; the indoor slide empties in front of a frozen Rock Band setup complete with working drums.
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Complete with organ music and an altar, the chapel is actually the sight of several weddings each year but also serves as a respite from the bar and slide.
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Before heading to bed, the hotel staff recommends overnight guests soak in the hot tub and dry off in a sauna. Both activities are not only soothing on a winter’s night (where temperatures frequently drop below zero), but raise guests’ body temperatures before tucking in for the night.
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Once guests are completely dry, they stash their belongings in lockers for the night and head to their rooms, armed only with their PJs, snow boots, and jackets (and optional extra pair of socks).
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Once inside the room (there are no room keys here; just a curtain over each room’s entrance), guests sit on the ice queen bed, which is topped with a firm 1-inch mattress covered in animal skin, to take off their shoes, careful to not let their feet touch the icy ground, as moisture in any amount wreaks havoc on the task of staying warm inside the sleeping bag. Shoes are stacked on top of each other or one inside the other; otherwise, haphazardly placed shoes will curl up and freeze overnight.
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Next, guests stand on the bed to strip off their clothes (sleeping nude provides optimal heating conditions, as the sleeping bag does not keep a person warm; rather, it's the heat radiating from a person’s body that keeps the sleeping bag and person warm). Those who opt to sleep with socks must change their socks from the ones worn to the room to a fresh pair, safely tucked into their pockets. A sleeping bag is then unfurled; extra clothing and jackets are stuffed into a side pocket in the sleeping bag. Any clothing left outside the sleeping bag will actually freeze overnight. Those still clutching cellphones or other items can’t simply place them on the night table, as they’ll freeze and fuse into the furnishings by morning. A light switch on the base of the bed is switched off, leaving a lone candle to provide light to the room. The candle’s purpose is actually to remove humidity from the room; it raises the temperature of the room by 2 degrees ensuring the ice hotel remains at 25 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Those who have survived the entire night (many guests book packages that include a stay at the ice hotel and a hotel room nearby in case it’s too cold, or retreat to the hotel’s hot tubs, sauna, and Celsius pavilion), are awoken with an 8:15 a.m. wakeup call by the hotel’s staff who serve a continental breakfast before guests head off for wintery activities like dog-sledding, tobogganing, and sampling maple treats from the Sugar Shack like maple toffee pulls (maple syrup is boiled to 232 degrees Fahrenheit and poured over snow. After 20 seconds, revelers use a wooden Popsicle stick to roll the sticky maple syrup into a lollipop of sorts).
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