The Polar Express returns to Gaylord Palms Resort this holiday season.
Kissimmee Resort’s annual story-driven ice sculpture exhibit — Gaylord now stylizes its name as “ice!” In contrast to “ICE!”, it will feature elements from the animated film “Polar Express” starring Tom Hanks. It’s a promise of return. The 2004 film was the inspiration for Gaylord Palms’ 2019 event.
“Our guests are always talking about when it’s going to come back, and I think we were like, ‘Oh, eventually we’ll rotate it again,’ or ‘We’ll find the right opportunity,'” said Nico Nicolaou, senior director and creative of special events at the Gaylord Hotel.
“The stars aligned this year and we are very excited to bring back Polar Express,” he said.
Visitors will be able to revisit the giant black ice version of the locomotive and other familiar scenes from the movie. Things have changed since 2019. Last year, the Polar Express was stationed at Gaylord National Resort in Maryland.
“All of our ice shows grow as we rotate and debut in new spots. We adjust them to be more efficient for our guests,” Nicolaou said. “Creatively, there are little tweaks that tie the story together a little bit better, and interactive things that evolve and develop. So we’re always doing something with it.”
One thing I will definitely come back to is the slide room. There are five downhill slopes made of ice that you ride down to the ground. This year it represents the movie Glacier Gulch. Nicolaou said Gaylord first used forced perspective in the 2019 edition.
“On the left side of the slide room is a scene where a runaway train is happening, the train is hurtling down the hill, and then the slide is on the right side,” he said. “That’s why the train is wrapped all the time with a big moon behind it.”
Work is underway on the exhibit, which opens on November 14th. Workers began making blocks of ice in June. A group of artisans from Harbin, China, a hotbed of ice sculpture, will arrive in Kissimmee in late September to begin work on the piece.
The “Ice!” display is the centerpiece of the resort’s Christmas event at Gaylord Palms, which includes activities such as snowball tossing and ice tubing. Christmas shopping and naughty or wonderful escape room. The resort will introduce a Christmas merry-go-round inside the Snow Factory and provide entertainment such as the light show “#LIT” in the atrium and the stage production “Pomp, Snow & Cirque-umstance.”
Once complete, visitors will walk through 12 scenes made of 2 million pounds of ice inside the structure, which is kept at temperatures below 9 degrees below zero. The exhibit has evolved to include more selfie/Instagrammable moments. Designers have incorporated more lighting and color over the years.
“I think we were talking about gold for a good day, but finding the perfect gold required all different shades of gold,” Nicolau said.
“We continue to push the limits of what artistry is possible through the medium of ice,” he said. “We’re going to start seeing these new techniques across the portfolio.”
Ice! The franchise has expanded this year, adding new locations in San Diego and Phoenix, bringing the total to eight resorts. Three new intellectual properties will be introduced: “Home Alone” at the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, “The Nightmare Before Christmas” at the Gaylord Rockies near Denver, and “Harry Potter” at the Gaylord Texas near Dallas.
“Our partners are amazing and we trust them to have access to these stories and it’s such an honor to be able to carve them into this medium. And it really speaks to the artistry of what this project is about,” Nicolaou said.
dbevil@orlandosentinel.com
