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marinessThis post and the next one were supposed to go up yesterday, as part of a Happy St. Nicholas' Day. (Actually, this post should have gone up before Thanksgiving, but who's paying attention?) And then, things happened, as they do, so, Happy St. Ambrose Day and Dia de las Velitas Day! Or, Happy Friday.
In any case, it's a time for chatting about certain holiday celebrations! So, part one: ICE!
ICE is an ice sculpture thing hosted by the Gaylord Palms Hotel. I've wanted to go for years, but never could find anyone who wanted to go with me, until this year, when my mother unexpectedly scored tickets.
So, ice sculptures!
For some reason this year the Gaylord Palms had joined up with the upcoming Santa Madagascar movie. (Or whatever it's called.) In theory this was an awesome merge of cartoon and ice. In practice, this meant going round and round a large room blasting the trailer from the Madagascar movie as lights kept blinking at us, making me really dizzy. (The general idea, borrowed from Disney et. al., was to keep people entertained while in line, thus the volume to ensure it could be heard over noisy children, which worked rather less well when the room didn't have any noisy children, as in our otherwise well timed visit.) My mother, who couldn't remember even hearing about the Madagascar movie before this ("Is it a Mickey thing?") wasn't doing much better. With joy we saw that we had finally, finally neared the actual entrance, which meant NO MORE BLINKING LIGHTS and no more of the dizzying noise and –
"You'll have to wait here –" said a woman, stopping us.
The hall in front of us was empty. "Oh, please," I said. "The sound and the lights are making me dizzy."
A wheelchair occasionally has its advantages. She waved us through to the hallway and then we both started feeling better.
The next bit was some nonsense over photos, which unfortunately was another room with blinking lights. Another dizzy bit. And then, finally, we got our big parkas and got into the ice sculptures and even if they were almost all from the Madagascar movie it was all terribly awesome.
Also, COLD. And I do mean very cold – the sculptures are kept well below freezing to, well, make sure they don't melt. Which might be all very well for you more northerly folk, but for Florida people, it's cold.
How cold? Well, cold enough that you are not going to be getting decent pictures because, and I am not kidding, my cell phone was too cold. Admittedly, it's a cheap cell phone, but, equally admittedly, it's cold. Since I didn't have my camera with me (which was just as well; that camera hates anything that it doesn't consider to be perfect lighting conditions) that left me with just the iTouch. Which, as it turns out, is not exactly the best thing to use when your fingers are half frozen.
It also leads to pictures that mostly come out looking like this:
Although occasionally I did a bit better with something like this:
Or this:
Penguins:
They also had ice slides, which I didn't go on, mostly because they looked REALLY cold, and a Sphinx, which did not seem particularly Christmasy, and various other things, mostly telling the entire story of the upcoming Madasgascar movie with the result that my mother and I realized now not only did we not want to see the movie, we didn't have to -- we'd just gone through the entire plot.
The movie stuff, however, was followed by some really lovely ice angels:
I could have spent a lot more time there, but it was COLD. So we fled looking for hot chocolate. Alas, the available hot chocolate was pretty terrible, but, fortunately, they were also selling gingerbread cookies as a saving grace.
Afterwards we spent some time looking around the hotel, which apart from ice sculptures, a convention center, water slides, various pools, massage and spa services also has a wetlands area in its lobby, which is pretty awesome.
Next up: Train! I think it deserves its own post.
In any case, it's a time for chatting about certain holiday celebrations! So, part one: ICE!
ICE is an ice sculpture thing hosted by the Gaylord Palms Hotel. I've wanted to go for years, but never could find anyone who wanted to go with me, until this year, when my mother unexpectedly scored tickets.
So, ice sculptures!
For some reason this year the Gaylord Palms had joined up with the upcoming Santa Madagascar movie. (Or whatever it's called.) In theory this was an awesome merge of cartoon and ice. In practice, this meant going round and round a large room blasting the trailer from the Madagascar movie as lights kept blinking at us, making me really dizzy. (The general idea, borrowed from Disney et. al., was to keep people entertained while in line, thus the volume to ensure it could be heard over noisy children, which worked rather less well when the room didn't have any noisy children, as in our otherwise well timed visit.) My mother, who couldn't remember even hearing about the Madagascar movie before this ("Is it a Mickey thing?") wasn't doing much better. With joy we saw that we had finally, finally neared the actual entrance, which meant NO MORE BLINKING LIGHTS and no more of the dizzying noise and –
"You'll have to wait here –" said a woman, stopping us.
The hall in front of us was empty. "Oh, please," I said. "The sound and the lights are making me dizzy."
A wheelchair occasionally has its advantages. She waved us through to the hallway and then we both started feeling better.
The next bit was some nonsense over photos, which unfortunately was another room with blinking lights. Another dizzy bit. And then, finally, we got our big parkas and got into the ice sculptures and even if they were almost all from the Madagascar movie it was all terribly awesome.
Also, COLD. And I do mean very cold – the sculptures are kept well below freezing to, well, make sure they don't melt. Which might be all very well for you more northerly folk, but for Florida people, it's cold.
How cold? Well, cold enough that you are not going to be getting decent pictures because, and I am not kidding, my cell phone was too cold. Admittedly, it's a cheap cell phone, but, equally admittedly, it's cold. Since I didn't have my camera with me (which was just as well; that camera hates anything that it doesn't consider to be perfect lighting conditions) that left me with just the iTouch. Which, as it turns out, is not exactly the best thing to use when your fingers are half frozen.
It also leads to pictures that mostly come out looking like this:
Although occasionally I did a bit better with something like this:
Or this:
Penguins:
They also had ice slides, which I didn't go on, mostly because they looked REALLY cold, and a Sphinx, which did not seem particularly Christmasy, and various other things, mostly telling the entire story of the upcoming Madasgascar movie with the result that my mother and I realized now not only did we not want to see the movie, we didn't have to -- we'd just gone through the entire plot.
The movie stuff, however, was followed by some really lovely ice angels:
I could have spent a lot more time there, but it was COLD. So we fled looking for hot chocolate. Alas, the available hot chocolate was pretty terrible, but, fortunately, they were also selling gingerbread cookies as a saving grace.
Afterwards we spent some time looking around the hotel, which apart from ice sculptures, a convention center, water slides, various pools, massage and spa services also has a wetlands area in its lobby, which is pretty awesome.
Next up: Train! I think it deserves its own post.