Being treated like a celebrity at the Ice Hotel

Yesterday I went to the Sweden Hills "Ice Hills Hotel" that was featured in the TV show I was on last Monday. There are four buildings built from ice and snow, three that are rooms that you can stay over night in and one that is an "Ice Bar".

The (blue) Ice Bar and the three Ice Hotel rooms

The Sweden Hills ice hotel is inspired by and built in cooperation with the Ice Hotel in Sweden, which apparently is the oldest ice hotel in the world. This Swedish connection, and the fact that the new ice hotel is located in "Sweden Hills" was why they asked me to be on TV (being Swedish).

Me and the staff

Me and a cocktail

When I got to the ice hotel, the staff there recognized me from TV and said they were very happy about me promoting them on TV. They showed me around the hotel rooms, and several of them came up to me and asked if it was OK to take a photo together with me. Next time I should go there wearing sunglasses and look more like a celebrity, I guess, haha.

Selfie. They said that you could not have your drinks "on the rocks", only "in the rocks"...

Selfie. The hot cocoa was also good, but not served in ice

I wanted to try the glasses made of ice, so I ordered a cocktail in an ice glass. I also wanted to try the hot cocoa. I was wondering about what kind of system they had, since they did not seem to have a tab where they wrote down what I ordered, but then again when I showed up there with my friends we were the only guests. Later, other guests also showed up and it became quite crowded. I looked at them ordering and they had to pay for everything they ordered at the time of placing the order. It turned out they just gave me everything I asked for for free because they thought I had done a great job on TV...

Flowers and a bunny

Colored lights in blocks of ice

Staircase to a cold bed

The hotel rooms were very nice. They were all designed by different local artists, and one had a plant theme with carvings in the walls. One had colored lights, which looks very nice with the ice and snow. My favorite room had a staircase leading up to the bed. All the beds were made out of ice, though you have a fur blanket on top so it is not that hard to sleep on.

Fur lined door

Other people waling around in the hotel rooms

So far they have had quite a few guests, and the only ones to make use of the "give up" policy (they drive you to a normal hotel and let you stay there instead if you want to give up) was a family with very young kids where the kids could not take the cold the whole night. The roof of the buildings have holes straight out to the night sky, so you get new snow in the room when it snows, and the temperature (while warmer than outside) is not that high.

Ice counter

Ice seats

Ice table

The ice bar was also very nice. The counter and all the furniture are made from ice. The room looks very white when you are in there, but it is actually blue. So all the photos have people looking very blue in the face. The chairs are made from ice but have fur covers so it is quite comfortable to sit there.

Ice glasses

My ice cocktail

The ice glasses are cool (haha). They are a little bit inconvenient to drink from since they are so thick, but they give you a straw to drink through too, so no problem. The hot cocoa was very good, as expected since it is produced by the Royce chocolate company (which has a factory just outside Sweden Hills). All in all, it was a very nice place and I want to go back there again before the facility melts.

Hot cocoa comes with Royce chocolate

They recommended melting some of the chocolate in the cocoa to improve the experience of bot the cocoa and the chocolate.