| March 2015 -
ICEHOTEL, Sweden
This was my 3rd trip to the ICEHOTEL.
I went because it was the 25th Anniversary. I had
decided to make it a short trip: Fly in; Stay 3 nights; Do 3 excursions; Fly out. I told
kumi that and she decided she also wanted to go. I left Sacramento at an obnoxiously early hour Saturday. Met kumi in Chicago O’ Hare airport. Then we boarded a plane for an 8 hour flight to Stockholm, Sweden. Somehow we scored seating in SAS Plus. (Much more legroom. Recliner type seating.) From Stockholm, a quick 2 hour flight to Kiruna. We arrived at Kiruna early, but ended up waiting for a few hours because the ICEHOTEL seemed to have forgotten us…. A quick phone call and the problem was resolved. Upon arriving at the ICEHOTEL, we checked in at cold reception for cold accommodations. (There are two reception desks. One for cold accommodations and the other for warm accommodations.) There are 4 types of cold rooms: Deluxe Suites, Art Suites, Northern Lights Rooms, Ice Rooms, and Snow Rooms. We had an Art Suite. Since I made the reservation before this years ICEHOTEL was built, we had no idea which suite we had until we arrived. One nice thing the ICEHOTEL does is they allow you to change suites if you find another one available and you like it better than the one you’re assigned. They post a list of available Art Suites for the night. After a quick tour, we went in to compare Art Suites. We were originally assigned Art Suite #305, Time Piece, but we chose Art Suite #317, Forest Fairy. The rooms were phenomenal as ever. We only made it through about half of them on the first day. (A synopsis of the suites can be found here.) The ICEBAR however, compared to ICEBARs from the previous years, was a serious letdown. It was a huge ice dome, with a little 'L' shaped bar, some bench seating, and a lot of empty space. I'm assuming the reason for the design was to accommodate the overflow from Aurora Hall. Their new venue space which accommodates 150 people and is attached to the ICEBAR. After choosing our suite, we checked out a few other suites and rooms; Visited the ICEBAR; Stopped by the Gift shop; Hung out for bit in the ICEHOTEL lounge; and had a light dinner in the ICEHOTEL Restaurant. Both of us were tired after dinner. We tried to stay up a little late, but we couldn’t do it. We called it a night and went to bed.Day 2 - We slept (quite well) in Art Suite #317. Kumi woke up around 5:00 AM. I was awakened a short time later by a camera flash…. I’m not actually sure when breakfast starts, but we went around 8:00 AM. The ICEHOTEL provides a complimentary buffet breakfast in the ICEHOTEL Restaurant (a separate warm building). It’s a very good buffet with eggs, assorted meats, juices, fruits, breads, etc. After breakfast, we returned to cold reception, packed our bags and checked out. We would be staying in a warm room for the rest of our visit. Immediately after checking out of cold accommodations, we went to the ICEHOTEL meeting area for dog sledding. Turns out, we were the only ones going, so we had a 9 dog team and driver to ourselves. Dog sledding was a leisurely activity where we sit back and let the dogs do all the work. However, “work” may not be an accurate description. The dogs get really “annoyed” if they’re not running. Except for the lead dogs because they’re just too cool. (Side note: kumi was impressed that the dogs could run and poop at the same time.) We made a stop on an island. (Well, during the summer it’s an island.) We had some coffee, tea and cinnamon rolls. Then it was back to the ICEHOTEL. We arrived back just in time to see staff harvesting ice blocks for next year’s ICEHOTEL. Each ICEHOTEL is built from ice from the previous year. Once we returned to our warm room, we rested for a few
hours…
After which, we went on a Northern Lights tour by snowmobile. We
didn't get many pictures, so it might be hard to tell how much FUN this
was. Kumi did get some video
though. Although,
we didn’t see the Northern Lights, it was a very good tour. We
were fed very
well and driving snowmobiles at night through the forests and over
frozen rivers is fun. (Side note: Sweden has zero tolerance
on drinking and driving. They actually have police sitting on
snowmoblies, beside snowmobile trails, day and night. Yes, they
can and will pull you over.) Day 3 - Last day at the ICEHOTEL. The excursion: Moose Safari by horseback. We met our group at the ICEHOTEL meeting place. Then we were off to the stables. Funny thing: There were 6 of us in the van, not counting the driver. All 6 of us were from California. We arrived at the stable approximately 40 minutes later. We were assigned horses and immediately went to the task of preparing them to ride. My horse was named “Kjölur”. (I have no idea what that means.) Kumi got "Sokki". Once we were all saddled up, we had a quick ” What to do/What not to do” briefing, then off we went. It was a long, leisurely ride through the forest. The horses had obviously been through this many times before. They followed each other in a single line. We really didn’t have to do much but sit on the horse and enjoy the ride. We actually saw a lot of moose too… and one rabbit. After the ride, the staff at the stables prepared lunch for us. Very good. Very filling. I almost went into a food coma afterwards. After we returned from the “safari”, we went to the ICEHOTEL to take pictures of the rooms we missed. Then we went to the ICEHOTEL store to buy touristy stuff. We finished the day with dinner at the ICEHOTEL restaurant. Oh, one more thing, the previous night we did the Northern Lights Snowmobile tour. Unfortunately, the Northern Lights did not appear. However, they did appear on our last night. They were bright enough to easily be seen, but not bright enough to get a picture… unless you had a really good camera... I tried. We departed early the next morning. So early that the ICEHOTEL made us breakfast-to-go. Not much to say about the trip back: SAS Plus great; O'Hare tops my list of worst airports to go through security. For those that missed it, my blog is here, http://richard8016.tumblr.com. In addition to a few more pictures, there are a few videos. To see pictures from previous years, go here, or here. Things to note about the ICEHOTEL:
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