ice! featuring The Polar Express™ at Gaylord Palms Resort

Guests will once again be able to climb aboard The Polar Express™ when the beloved holiday film returns as the theme of this year's **ice!** attraction at Gaylord Palms Resort.

The annual holiday tradition opens Nov. 13 and runs through Jan. 3, serving as the centerpiece of the resort's Christmas celebration.

The 20,000-square-foot walk-through attraction will feature scenes from the classic animated film carved entirely from ice inside a nine-degree environment. Nearly 40 ice artisans from Harbin, China, will spend more than a month transforming approximately 2 million pounds of ice into larger-than-life sculptures depicting some of the movie's most memorable moments.

Guests will follow Hero Boy's magical Christmas Eve journey to the North Pole, winding through scenes that include the arrival of The Polar Express at his home, the famous hot chocolate sequence, the train racing down an icy mountainside and the grand arrival at the North Pole. Colored ice, clear ice and LED lighting help bring the story to life.

And yes, the ice slides are coming back.

One of the attraction's most popular features returns with five two-story-tall slides carved entirely from ice. This year's slides will send guests racing through Glacier Gulch.

The Polar Express™ previously appeared at Gaylord Palms in 2019 and is making a return trip after years of guest requests, giving a new generation a chance to experience the classic tale.

For those curious about how the attraction comes together, Carver's Showcase will once again offer a behind-the-scenes look at master ice artisans as they carve sculptures throughout the season. The ice! experience concludes with a separate exhibit featuring a full-size Nativity scene carved from crystal-clear ice.

Of course, ice! is only one part of the resort's annual holiday lineup.

Returning favorites include POMP, SNOW & CIRQUEumstance, the Broadway-meets-cirque holiday production that premiered last season. The show returns with new elements and acts. Attractions inside: Snow Factory like ice tubing on Snow Flow Mountain, throwing real snowballs and a new Christmas carousel will be popular holiday hotspots, while the neighboring Alpine Village features visits with Santa, gingerbread decorating and craft-making, story time with Mrs. Claus and more. Elsewhere in the 65-acre resort are holiday shows, an escape room, pop-up Christmas bars, a themed scavenger hunt, hundreds of Christmas trees and more than 3 million twinkling lights to brighten the season.