N'Ice Hotel

After visiting Quebec City, we drove half an hour out of the city to the Ice Hotel. We’d only expected bedrooms made of ice, but the hotel had two bars, a disco, two ice sculpture art exhibitions and a chapel. There was a wedding taking place when we arrived! The hotel also had outdoor jacuzzis and a sauna, but these were not made of ice. We walked around the hotel rooms and just tried to take it in that we’d be sleeping on one of the ice block beds in a couple of hours.

An ice hotel takes 4-6 weeks to make and last until the temperature stays above zero continuously for 10 days and nights, usually around the end of March. There are only two ice hotels in World. We’ll let you find out where the other is.

We were given a tutorial on how to use our Winter rated sleeping bags and then had our complimentary cocktail, served in a glass made of ice, naturally. Then it was time for bed. Sarah was worried about the cold so I tucked her into her sleeping bag first. I made sure I did the hood up good and tight. Well we were told to so the warmth didn’t escape. Sarah looked so cute. Then I sorted myself out. It was a strange night. It took a while for our body heat to warm the sleeping bags, but our feet were freezing the whole night. Sarah had two pairs of socks on too, one of which was my thermal pair. We woke up several times in the night because a cold patch would work though the bag or our face would get cold. Sarah had an ice head ache when woke up. It was like an ice cream headache but worse. It had been –15C over night!

We made it through the night though and were proud that we had. That pride disappeared soon after though. On the way to breakfast we met the French guy who’d given us our briefing on using sleeping bags. I puffed out my chest and told him how we’d stayed the whole night in the ice room. Then I tried to embarrass the guy a bit and suggested that he got to sleep in the chateau attached to the ice hotel. “NON! I sleep every night outside in the hills behind the chateau. I love to be under the stars.” Yeah, I bet Frenchie eats his snails raw too.

We had breakfast at the chateau. We could have had a room at the chateau if we’d found the ice hotel too cold. Hmmm, maybe that would have been a good idea. After breakfast we realised that Sarah had lost her gloves. They must have been in her sleeping bag, but when we went back to look for them, the room had been emptied and the staff didn’t find them when they cleaned the bags.

We had a walk around and onto the lake and saw people fishing through the ice and some people on skidoos. Then we drove back home.