After this year's ICE! orientation, the entire team retreated to the Florida Fridge for a group photo. Yes, it takes a whole lot of people to make ICE! and ICE! Skating a reality!
Click the photo to see a larger version.
A Cure for Cold Cash
At the exit to ICE!, Gaylord Palms features a popular retail shop called "ICE! House Gifts."
The shop is a labor of love for Gaylord Palms Retail Manager Carol Frisch, who spends the entire year searching for the hottest holiday gift items.
Many visitors to ICE! comment that they look forward to the shop almost as much as the ICE! attraction! Now that's incredible!
Here are a few of our favorite items found on this year's shelves:
Gnomes, gnomes everywhere! Last year, the store's "gnome population" flew off the shelves. This year, Carol included The Roaming Gnome, from the Travelocity commercials (and also star of Gaylord Palms' Hidden Holiday Gnome Hunt!)
What is a Florida Christmas season without... flamingos! You'll find dozens of these pink birds here, including several Christmas ornaments.
The shelves are filled with elaborate decorations for the home!
If you love to visit ICE!, tell the world with these "flashy" pins. They are also available with other sayings, including NAUGHTY, NICE, QUEEN, and PRINCESS!
With the hit "Penguin Pointe" scene, these birds are bound to be popular. This year, you'll find plenty of penguins to purchase.
Our favorite? Anything that requires you to push a button to hear a song play!
First Guests of 2007
Every year, we celebrate the first guests to visit ICE! For the past few years, it has been a Florida resident. For instance, in 2005, it was the Mays Family of Palm Bay, Florida. The couple was staying at Gaylord Palms for the weekend, enjoying a holiday package with their grandchildren.
This year, our first official guests came all the way from England! The group included Mike and Mary Daniels, traveling with Jessica and Mia-Mai (21 months old). The family was very excited to visit, and little Mia-Mai was eagerly anticipating the scene featuring her favorite animal... penguins!
Here's a shot of Mia-Mai and her grandfather checking out the live webcam feed of Penguin Pointe:
Fun Facts: ice
Three types of ice are used in the construction of ICE!, the attraction at Gaylord Palms:
- Clear "crystal" ice is the most difficult to make. it is created using highly filtered de-ionized water. It takes three days to freeze the 45 gallons of water used to create each 400-pound ice block. By freezing it slowly, the molecules are able to line up perfectly, similar to a diamond or crystal. In fact, this ice is so flawless it is often compared to Waterford Crystal.
- White ice, which looks like compacted snow, makes up a small part of the attraction, but is invaluable when you're carving a snowman (below). This ice is frozen quickly, giving it a cloudy look. By freezing quickly, the molecules do not have time to perfectly align. This is similar to the cloudy ice you make in your home freezer.
- Colored ice, dyed one of nine brilliant colors, is used for highlighting and accenting many of the ice sculptures. This year, the attraction is as colorful as ever... especially the Candy Land and Penguin Pointe scenes.
This is gonna be fun!
Carving inside Orlando's ICE! attraction is going well! Wow! This year's design is so much fun. Here are a few fun photos we snapped this week, without giving away too many secrets:
Penguins have invaded the all-new slide area:
This giant ice cream cone towers over your head! Candy Land is amazing!
The Winter Wonderland gazebo will make an excellent photo spot... it's also a romantic place for our new marriage proposal program!
More to come! Also, watch for updates about Christmas in Orlando and Christmas events at Disney theme parks at the website ChristmasInOrlando.com
A Bad Joke and a Neat Trick
First the bad joke:
Q. What kind of glue is most popular inside this year's ICE! attraction?
A. That's easy: igloo.
Get it? Go ahead and groan.
Speaking of this subject, here are a few pictures of the amazing walk-through igloo that is currently under construction at the Orlando ICE! attraction.
Now, the neat trick:
Q. What kind of glue is most popular inside the ICE! attraction?
A. You'd be surprised to learn that it's ordinary water! Yup... H20! At 9 degrees cold, the water quickly freezes, adhering one piece of ice to another while forming a solid bond. Elmer's has nothing on us! In the 9-degree Florida Fridge, that's all it takes to get two pieces of ice to stick to one another.
In fact, when visiting last week, we found two of the artisans "gluing" shutters onto the colorful new Candy Land house:
First, they placed out the yellow shutters, which were created by slicing a piece of ice from a larger block of colored ice. One of the artisans then sprinkled "snow" onto the surface (below).
His partner then used the magic "water glue," carefully poured from a time-worn metal pot (below).
Finally, the two then carefully lifted the shutter onto the Candy Land house facade, where it stuck with no problem.
Water as glue? Just one more reason why you shouldn't lick the ice when visiting.
Breaking News - Is ICE! to Blame?
Breaking Orlando News:
COLD WEATHER IN ORLANDO IS BLAMED ON GAYLORD PALMS
KISSIMMEE, Fla. (Nov. 7) -- Central Florida residents woke up this morning to a burst of cold air that is being blamed on, of all things, an Osceola county resort. According to news wire reports, the cause of this morning's cool weather has been traced to Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center, where a new holiday attraction is currently under construction. The attraction, which is called ICE!, is currently being carved from 2 million pounds of ice by a group of 40 artisans from China. The temperature began falling when the elaborate refrigeration system used to cool the 18,000-square-foot attraction to 9 degrees began to malfunction.
"Essentially, they've created a 9-degree winter-like environment in the middle of sunny Florida," said an Osceola county official who asked not to be identified. "What they didn't count on was the accidental cooling of the entire region to 50-some degrees."
The attraction, which is nearly complete, will debut Nov. 19. The attraction will be open to the public through Jan. 3.
This year, guests will take a holiday road trip through ICE!, traveling into a full-size igloo, across a winter wonderland, aboard a holiday train, into the North Pole and inside Candy Land – a magical destination reminiscent of America’s favorite children’s board game. At Penguin Pointe, a thrilling tribute to the attraction’s unique fusion of art and engineering, guests can enjoy three ice slides – including the tallest and longest slide in ICE! history!
The Nativity, carved in painstaking detail from crystal-clear ice, will return with a revised design, and a dramatic new narrative.
According to Gaylord Palms spokesman Keith Salwoski, the situation is under control.
"Our attraction is still 9 degrees, and by afternoon, Orlando temperatures will be back to 70 degrees," he said. "So, in the mean time, we welcome local residents to, um, chill out!"
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Where It All Begins
So, you need about two million pounds of ice to create ICE!
Not just any ice... about 5,000 blocks made to your exact specifications, including ten different colors (above). And some of the ice has to be so clear it could mistaken for Waterford Crystal.
Where do you go?
You go to Cairo.
Wait... this cairo: Cairo, Georgia.
Right over the Florida border, you'll find M&M Ice and Cold Storage, the supplier of the namesake material for the Gaylord Palms attraction. Beginning mid-October, the ice makes the journey across the Sunshine State to Kissimmee via freezer trucks. Specifically, two truckloads a day for 15 days.
If you check out an old page from the M&M Ice website (from the first year of the attraction), you may get the impression these folks are pretty proud to be part of the project!
The specifications (and recipes) for the ice are exact:
White ice: To get this opaque ice, the blocks are frozen quickly, in about a day and a half. By freezing the block under these conditions, the water molecules don’t have time to line up, and freeze haphazardly, creating white ice. This is similar to what ice cubes at home might look like. In the attraction, it is often used to represent snow, like on top of these mountains in the new Penguin Pointe scene.
Clear ice: This ice is made of extremely pure water. In fact, the water is first de-ionized and is highly filtered, resulting in pure H20 without any additives whatsoever. This block is then frozen very slowly, over about 3 day's time. In addition, the temperature remains constant, just below 32 degrees F. This "perfect storm" allows the water molecules to line up perfectly and create pristine glass-like ice.
Colored ice: These giant popsicle-like blocks are made with simple food coloring that is added during the freezing process. Although it sounds simple, there's a catch. The water must be constantly stirred to ensure a consistent color throughout the block when it is cut.
When you visit ICE!, you'll now be able to marvel at its beauty AND know where the ice began!
Ice in Florida?
Ever wonder why the Gaylord Palms "Best of Florida Christmas" celebration includes a 9-degree refrigerated ICE! attraction?
It actually pays tribute to a famous Floridian - Dr. John Gorrie.
Dr. Gorrie was a physician, scientist, inventor, and humanitarian. He also is considered the father of air conditioning and refrigeration.
Yes... there would be no ice (or ICE! for that matter) if it wasn't for Dr. Gorrie.
During an outbreak of yellow fever, Dr. Gorrie was concerned for patients ill with the disease. He advocated the cooling of sickrooms to reduce fever and to make patients more comfortable. He cooled rooms with ice in a basin suspended from the ceiling. Cool air flowed down across the patient and through an opening near the floor.
Since the ice for his experiment had to be brought by boat from northern lakes, Dr. Gorrie began to experiment with making artificial ice. Consequently, he succeeded by inventing a machine that produced ice. This machine lay the groundwork for modern refrigeration and air-conditioning.
On May 6, 1851, he was granted Patent No. 8080. The original model of this machine is at the Smithsonian Institution.
Gorrie represents Florida in the National Statuary Hall in Washington D. C., where a statue stands in his honor. Every year in Kissimmee, we honor his “chilling” legacy with ICE! at Gaylord Palms.
Ice Carving in China
The structures on display at ICE! are created by a team of artisans who also participate in the International Ice and Snow Festival in Harbin, China. This event, held in January and February, is constructed by thousands of professional artisans working with millions of pounds of ice (amazing pictures can be found here and here and here and here). As part of the festival, more than 2,000 artisans carve a 100-acre walk-through Ice Park each year from blocks of ice taken from the Songhua River.
This annual festival starts in early January at Zhao Lin Park, which is named after a general buried in the park. Extremely popular among locals and tourists, the festival runs for two months. The "Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival" is one of the world's four largest ice and snow festivals, along with Japan's Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada's Quebec Winter Carnival, and Norway's Ski Festival.
From what did this amazing artistry evolve?
Ice Lantern Festivals can be traced back as far as the late Ming and early Qing dynasties of Imperial China. Five hundred years ago the far northern province of Heilongjiang had an indigenous population whose life was similar to the American Inuit with one large difference, where the Inuits are sea hunters, the people of Hailongjiang were forest hunters.
During long winter nights, getting lost in the forest was a real problem for the hunters. The frequently overcast skies obscured the stars, and without the compass, navigation was nearly impossible. So the clever Chinese came up with a novel solution. Allowing water to partially freeze in wooden buckets. Once overturned, this formed an ice block into which a candle would be placed in the center. The ice surrounding the candle sheltered the flame and acted as a type of lens magnifying the light from the candle –- creating an ice lantern. The hunters strung these lanterns each night, leading from their homes to the hunt site.
In modern times, an Ice Lantern Festival has been held every winter in celebration of these brave hunters. As part of the Festival, citizens of Harbin, China cut blocks of ice out of the Songhua River to do some simple carving before placing them on display among intricately constructed ice lanterns. During the seven-month long winters, one of the highlights became informal competitions between families to see who could create the most impressive display of sculptures and carvings for the Festival. Sculptures of chickens, ducks and common household items soon grew into impressive displays of pigs, cows and barns.
In 1963, the Mayor of Harbin was so impressed by many of the amateur ice displays that he decided to create formal competition and encouraged adults and children to create more refined and extensive displays of ice for the following winter. The Mayor's goal was to stimulate the artistic and cultural natures of his populous during the long dark winters, a time otherwise of little activity. Organized in the public parks as a government sponsored event, the family-created displays of 40 years ago have now grown into mammoth creations.
If you are wondering why Harbin is so closely identified with ice and snow... consider this:
- Harbin is located in Northeast China, where it receives severe cold winter winds from Siberia.
- The average temperature in summer is 70 degrees (21 degrees Celsius), and about 2 degrees (-17 degrees Celsius) in winter. While sources differ by a few degrees (probably due to frozen thermometers), It can be as cold as -36 degrees (-38 degrees Celsius) in winter.
- Harbin stays below "freezing" for almost half of the year.
- You can imagine why Harbin has gotten the nickname "ice city." (Although its more prominent nicknames include "Oriental Moscow" and "Oriental Paris," after the city's Russian and European cultural influences.)
