As an adventure mom, you know I am always looking for unique vacation spots. My best winter vacation ever was to the Ice Hotel or as the French say it, "Hotel de Glace" located just 20 minutes west of Quebec. It is the only hotel of its kind in North America. It's 10th season starts Jan. 4, 2010.

In case you haven't guessed it, this is a hotel made completely of snow and ice…15,000 tons of snow and 500 tons of ice to be precise. It is in partnership with the famous Ice Hotel in Sweden, and was a heck of a lot closer for us to get to.

Each year a totally new hotel is built in about five weeks time, with 20 people working on the hotel and 15 people working on the interior stuff like tables, bars etc. The place consists of 36 rooms.  Some rooms are just a plain square ice room with an ice bed and nothing more. Other rooms, for those with fancier tastes, have themes to them like a James Bond room, or an Egyptian room…or whatever the sculpturer's imagination fancies that year. The cool thing is even the hotel owners don't know what the themes are going to be till the artists get there.
    
In addition to the theme rooms are a Absolut Ice bar, a wedding chapel (where you can get married in a white flowing parka), two exhibition areas - complete with photos and some new age music pumped in, a huge dance club called the N'Ice club (get the pun…good) and two courtyards surrounded by snow covered walls which house both a hot tub and sauna. The place takes up 3000 square meters, which translates into 32,291 square feet…(hey, if the math is wrong blame the conversion table on Google, not me.)

< Prev		Next >