Traveling to The Lake George Ice Castles

How often does someone have a chance to see Ice Castles in their life? Given the opportunity, I had to go!

The Ice Castles are located in New Hampshire, New York, Minnesota, Utah, and Wisconsin.

I missed them last year in New Hampshire due to timing and distance. This year they opened in Lake George, which is much easier for me to travel to.

Even then, I still needed to select an 8:00 pm time on a Wednesday night. Tickets sell way too fast! My friend and I drove the 2.5 hour drive to Lake George immediately after work.

We made it to Lake George in good timing, so we stopped at Duffy's Tavern for an appetizer before our ticket time. I chose their mozzarella sticks with the raspberry melba sauce. I never had mozzarella sticks with anything other than marinara sauce so I wanted to give it a try. Absolutely delicious, I recommend everyone to try it at least once!

By the time we got our food to-go we had to hurry out and find a parking spot closer to the Ice Castles down the road. This time of night there were still a lot of cars so we circled the street once and found a perfect spot across from the entrance.

The first thing you'll have to do is check in. It's super quick, they scanned my ticket QR code and off we went!

You enter through a huge opening in the ice that is colored with slow fading colorful lights. This was one of my favorite areas of the Lake George Ice Castles.

We spent some time by the entrance waiting for the 8:00 crowd to work their way in so we could have the space to ourselves. That’s one of the unfortunate things about these types of events. You don’t get to enjoy much of it in peace, because everyone wants to see what they have to offer.

That being said, everyone was pretty respectful of others taking photos or admiring the sculptures.

After walking through the entrance you enter into the main area. This was a pretty open space with a few different special areas. A moose carved out of ice, a fountain for fairies, a colorful tunnel, and a couple others.

We found a short little tunnel to sneak through and tested out the ice slide. I wish it was a bit longer, but it was super slippery. I’m guessing that’s why they keep it short and simple.

Working your way through past the slides is another open area where you can snap photos in front of a sparkling wall or peer into a handful of different caves. Many photos later we made our way to the exit and back to the car for our late night trip home.

I am absolutely pleased to have the chance to check out these amazing ice designs and am hopeful to visit the New Hampshire version next year. If you have the chance to see them, make sure to snag tickets quickly! They are all done for the remainder of 2022, but will return in January/February of 2023. They book dates based on what the weather is so you need to keep checking back in on their page.

Have you ever visited the Ice Castles before? What was your experience? Drop a comment below!