About this time last year Mom came across an article about ice castles at Lake Geneva and we immediately thought the girls would love it. If you have girls in the same age range as ours you know anything remotely Frozen is likely a hit! But, by the time we heard about it and looked into tickets it was totally sold out so I put it on my watch list for this year and waited patiently for them to release info.
Sometime before Christmas Jamie got an email that they were selling pre-sale tickets for a discount but you had no idea what dates and times would be available. Knowing what we found out last year, we both bought tickets during the pre-sale and figured we'd sort out the details later. We got tickets for my parents and hers as well and we'd planned to try and all go together in one big group.
Turns out, I didn't have my calendar as updated as I thought and I double booked us which meant the Ritterbusch/McGrath part of the group had to split off and go a day sooner. Not ideal, but we made it work. Anyways, rewind back to Christmas when it was randomly 50 something degrees outside and we slightly considered doing Christmas dinner al fresco on the back deck. You're probably not surprised to find out that most of the hard work of creating the ice castles was ruined and they had to delay the opening much later than originally planned. I was worried we'd never get tickets, but luckily it all worked out, the weather cooled down a little (though, not a lot! It's been a very warm winter).
So, the ice castles finally opened last weekend and we ended up going on opening night. It was honestly so much fun!! We started off the evening with dinner in an igloo (Mom's find!) at Mars Supper club, then we spent a few hours at the ice castles exploring and we ended the night in downtown Lake Geneva where they were putting the final touches on the snow sculptures for Winterfest which was scheduled for the following day.
The ice castles were busy, though not nearly as busy as it was the following night according to Jamie. While there were a lot of people around, there was plenty of room for us to explore and plenty of things to see and do. They even had a few slides made up which the kids loved. The big slide had a LONG wait...everyone except Dad and I wanted to go, so we held down the fort near the fires, drinking hot chocolates, chatting and watching the fire dancers. Not a bad gig if I do say so myself!
The girls loved it, we all had a great time and while I'm not sure that we'd need to go back every year, I can say for certain that we'll likely do this one again. It was fun to do something different, celebrate winter (which we're usually all so sick of by Feb) and spend time together as a family.
If you live local, I'd definaly give this a thumbs up and tell you to look into getting tickets. It's pretty, it's different and it's fun! But, wear snow pants and insulated boots! Both Ryan and I made regrettable shoe choices and we'll never do that again!
Plan your tickets to be there at night, and if you're really feeling wintery, try out the igloos at Mars. It really was a good time!
PS: Aren't my parents the cutest?? That's them in the picture above. And, Dad and I below. These, silhouette pictures were my favorite thing of the whole night. Our family photo may be the cover of our 2020 blog book!
