Is It Worth It? An Honest Review Of Gaylord Hotels "ICE!"

As someone who has been living in Colorado since infancy, I have seen a lot of "major" companies and events come in and out of the Denver metro area. With the expansion of the area's population, and Denver International Airport rising in popularity, it was no surprise that a Gaylord resort was built here. Opening in 2018, the Gaylord Rockies Resort boasts 1500+ rooms, a convention center, restaurants, a full-service spa, a Top Golf suite, and multiple pools. Another thing that Gaylord Rockies offers is something that is at various locations - the ICE! holiday-themed event.

ICE! is an event where the Gaylord brings ice sculpture artists in to create a themed walkthrough made entirely out of ice sculptures. Boasting about over 2 million pounds of ice, snow tubing, an ice slide, and a holiday market, the event itself sounds like it's geared up to give guests a pretty magical experience.

I had heard about the ICE! events for a few years now but was reluctant to actually go. The price for the event itself seemed a bit steep and never having been to the Gaylord resort, it felt a bit out of range for me. After all, the lowest price room at this place is over $500 a night. But my partner and I decided to take the plunge this year and we got tickets to ICE! featuring Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas. What started as an exciting day at a fancy resort quickly turned into... well, something else.

What is the Gaylord Rockies like?

Long story short, I couldn't tell you. Going into this experience, both of us were a bit excited to see the resort and walk around. We had even explored the restaurants thinking since we weren't staying on property for the weekend, maybe we could have a nice brunch or lunch. First of all, the event parking for ICE! is completely separate from the actual resort. If you're standing in front of the main hotel, the area dedicated to the holiday event is separated off to the right in a different building. There are even different driveways you're instructed to take in order to park.

So to get it out of the way, you won't see any of the main resort unless you are staying on property or planning to spent your entire day at the Gaylord before or after your ICE! reservation time. Had we known that, we might have planned the day a bit differently.

Things started to get a bit sticky, and it all started with the parking experience. To get into the event parking area, you receive a parking ticket and you're tasked with finding a space - just like any other event you have been to. The one thing I will warn you about, because we almost fell for it, is to NOT pay for parking too early. The ticket has a QR code where you can pay for parking from your mobile device. We paid for parking when we got back to our car with the QR code and quickly noticed that once you pay for parking, your validation is only good for two hours. Our reservation slot was for 12:00pm and we got our parking ticket around 10:45am. We didn't leave until almost 3:00pm, so if we would have paid right away, our parking would have expired while we were still inside.

Another word of the wise with the parking situation is if you use the QR code, they charge you an extra $2 with a "service fee," so you're better off just paying the attendant when you exit. Also, good luck parking. If we wouldn't have found someone leaving fairly quickly, we would have circled around looking for a spot for who knows how long. The parking area dedicated to ICE! isn't big enough for the amount of tickets they sell.

What was the ICE! event like?

Once you're parked and start walking up to the building ICE! is in, you'll notice a giant white tent next to the building. The tent is where the ice sculptures actually are and the building is where you queue up to get into the tent. There is also a holiday market inside of the building, along with the advertised "snow tubing" which isn't snow at all. It's just a giant indoor slide that is decorated with lights.

Immediately my complaint was the lack of information presented both with your ticket and within the building. There really aren't any clear indicators of what is and isn't included with your ticket, where you are able to go, or what requires an additional reservation and/or ticket. The entrance to the market itself is a bit confusing because it's right next to the queue line for the ice tent, so we weren't sure if we could go into the market only with our reservation time or if it was something entirely separate. We finally decided to just start walking in and see if anyone stopped us, which they didn't because the market and ICE! are completely separate things. honestly, you could pay for parking and do the holiday market without ever buying a ticket to ICE!.

Inside of the market there is ornament decorating, a gingerbread house decoration room, a merchandise store, Build a Bear Workshop, Cinnabon, and a few other food spots. There was even a room where you could meet Santa Claus. However, like I said, there really isn't any indicator of what you need to be able to do any of these things. After seeing a sign next to Santa saying "reservations required," we assumed everything else must require a separate ticket. The ornament decoration room had an attendant standing in the doorway, as did the gingerbread room. We finally decided to get Cinnabon but wound up having to walk out of the market into the main hallway because there was absolutely no seating available inside of the market. They had about 10 tables with chairs and 4 benches for 300+ people.

By now, it was about 11:50am so we figured it was a good time to queue up for our reservation spot. There is a screen next to the front of the line that tells you which reservation spot they are lining up for. The screen said 12:00pm so we tried to get in line. The attendant asked what our reservation time was and when we said noon, he told us to stand to the side and not get in line. We heard people with 11:45 slots still getting through, along with other people with 12:00 spots being told to not get in line, so they were running a little behind. At 12:00, the screen was now showing 12:15 so I decided to just get in line and a minute or so later, the attendant started telling 12:00 people to exit the queue. At this point, we were both confused and when someone with a 12:15 spot got in line in front of us, we just got back in line and figured whatever happened would happen. This was after a party of about 22 people cut in front of us because they had two people "holding" their spot in the line.

We were finally pushed through to the next phase of the queue which was inside of the holiday market. There was a photo spot and some informational screens about the creation of the ice sculptures. After 5 minutes or so, we entered another room and I swear... I have been in shorter lines at Disneyland. We were warned there was no restroom beyond the point we'd reached and after they scanned our tickets we were committed. From start to finish, we waited in line for about an hour to get into the ice tent.

Before entering you are offered a Gaylord parka to wear inside of the tent because it's only 9° F inside, but it's not required unless you want to go down the ice slide. We took our parkas and were transitioned to yet ANOTHER line where we had the opportunity to have a photo taken. After walking through the doors to get into the tent, there is another line to wait in. Once you are finally in the tent, you're hit with the cold air and you get to see all of the ice sculptures.

Personally, I was not impressed as it's just a bunch of ice bricks put together. Some of the sculptures were more elaborate, but the two of us kept looking at each other with a mindset of "this is it?" Not only that, but the way the tent is setup is very poorly designed. You aren't able to freely roam, so you are stuck behind the people you've been behind for the last hour. There also aren't designated photo spots people block the flow of traffic to take photos. Like I said, it's 9 degrees in the tent, so standing stationary waiting for the party of 22 to stage 10 different pictures was not enjoyable at all. We were finally able to squeeze past them but were met with even more large parties slowing down the flow of traffic.

Just like the holiday market, there isn't really clear information on if the ice slides are included with your ticket. We didn't want to get in yet another line only to find out it was extra, so we skipped the slides. It was also extremely claustrophobic because we were packed in there tighter than a can of sardines. Every opening we saw we blasted past people trying to get to the end, which didn't take long because the tent itself takes maybe 5-10 minutes to walk through. If it wouldn't have been so crowded, we could have gotten through it in even less time. When you leave the ice tent, there is a parka return area and you're led back into the holiday market.

Would I do ICE! again?

No, I would not to it again. Not only did we drop over $100 after all was said and done, but there were far too many people. Of course there will always be people, but there were too many people. You can't enjoy something like this when you have hundreds of people in a very small space. Between the staff not honoring or even enforcing reservation times mixed with the amount of tickets they sell per time slot being way too many, it was impossible to enjoy. I have heard people saying they went in previous years and it wasn't this crowded and the layout of the tent was different, but I am good never experiencing this again.

If I had any feedback to give Gaylord Rockies about ICE!, it would be this:

1. Drastically reduce the amount of tickets sold per time slot, or at least widen the window. Every 15 minutes doesn't seem to work and it created a massive backlog of people. Make the reservation window an hour and if people miss their window, then they miss it. We saw people still entering after 12:00pm who had reservation times of 10:45am.
2. Have a maximum limit of how many people per party. It wasn't just the massive group in front of us, there were several parties of 15+ people. A majority of were cutting in line, saving spots, and blocking you from walking past them inside of the tent. Personally, I would set a maximum of 10 per party. Gaylord Rockies could accommodate larger parties only during specific days and reservation windows (aka, less peak times).
3. Do not allow photography inside of the tent, or have designated group photo spots within the tent. I know this is controversial, but one of the biggest issues we ran into was having people stop every two steps to take pictures. It's too cold in the tent to be standing around like that, and it is also what slows everything down.
4. Offer "adults only" days and times. We attended Zoo Lights at the Denver Zoo in 2024 during a 21+ adults only promotion and we agreed to never do Zoo Lights again unless it's adults only. It was more low key, it was quieter, and it wasn't as crowded. For ICE!, it would no doubt lessen the crowds on both sides of the aisle. Guaranteed, people who would attend adults only wouldn't even consider going on other days, which makes it more attainable and less crowded for those with kids.

Any further advice I could give you if you do decide to give ICE! a try is to eat beforehand, be prepared to do nothing but wait in line, and bring plenty of money with you in case you are able to do any other activities. And again, pay for parking with the attendant or you'll be charged extra for using the QR code on the parking ticket.