2026 Gaylord ICE! exhibit features Harry Potter theme

It's chilly inside. Oh my goodness, it's cold inside there for the first time. Elements inspired by the Wizarding World of Harry Potter are coming to life in two million pounds of hand-carved ice. Tasia joins us from inside the freezing. Are your teeth shivering right now? I can hear your mic checking. You're like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, I'm ready. Hey there. You look cute, though. Hey, that's what we were going for. I mean, it is cold, guys. I will say it is nine degrees. So if you do come out here, you definitely want to bundle up. Make sure you're cute. We had to pull out the faux fur, but I don't know. Wisconsin where I'm from or Iowa or I'm at Hogwarts. Looks like I'm in Hogwarts obviously because look at this scene right here. We're here at the Forbidden Forest and joining me is going to be Martha. She'll be speaking more. She was with us last hour to talk more about this Harry Potter theme. How are you feeling? Pretty cold huh? I'm feeling chilly but I'm also excited. It's so fun to see this all done this morning. We had 40 master ice carvers travel across the globe. All the way from Harbin, China to carve this masterpiece. It takes them about six weeks to do and you can see it's full of different colors. We have about 25 different colors inside and what you're walking through and seeing is all of the iconic scenes and characters from the Harry Potter series, which is just huge to have. Brand new to Gaylord this year, but also never done before with Harry Potter. Wow. Okay, so I mean, As we mentioned before, last year you did Elf, this year Harry Potter. Why Harry Potter? Well, we do a survey of guests every year, and Harry Potter always comes at the top of the list. There's a little bit of Christmas in every Harry Potter, as people know, which we've tried to put into these too, and so we knew it would be a very popular theme. We've already sold a lot of ice tickets, so we're really excited for people to come see this, and it really spans, like... The fan base spans from age like eight to 40. So you have a lot of super fans that are kids and adults. So Ricardo is having the best time of his life, going around, showing our viewers what we're looking at right now. So why don't we break down what we're going through? It looks like we're going through the Forbidden Forest, right? Forbidden Forest, yeah. Which is great, because you see all of the creatures in the Forbidden Forest, and they are just beautiful. Some of them are eight feet tall, and this crystal clear ice that they do that looks so beautiful. The artisans know how to make it and remove all the bubbles, so it's really pretty. And also, a little secret in the Forbidden Forest is there's a hidden ice slide for kids to take behind. I have a feeling you're going to make me take this slide next hour. We're going to be taking the big two-story ice slide. so that's a baby one compared to where you're going okay okay and now is there any specific detail in all this this exhibit the size exhibit that would make anyone who is a Harry Potter fan say oh i remember that there's too many to count there's too many i would say a lot of people have asked like will you serve butterbeer and so we do outside right now you're seeing The three broomsticks bar where they're having the butter beer in ice, but right when you come outside of ice, there's a huge butter beer bar that you can get cold or hot, which is a great feature. Okay, so last hour we didn't talk about, we talked about this is going on until January 3rd, obviously, but let's talk about ticket information because I know a lot of people want to check this out. I mean, yes, it is cold, but... You forget about how cold it is because this is just stunning. Amazing. If you just go to GaylordTexanTickets.com, you can get tickets there. But in addition to ice that we're seeing, we also have Christmas Village. So there's a snow tubing hill with real snow, an ice skating rink with real ice, gingerbread decorating, photos with Santa, cookies with Mrs. Claus. So many spots within our winter wonderland here with the two million lights. And so I always say you can come for the day, but also if you can make a little holiday staycation so you can do everything with your family, it really is a truly unique, memorable experience. Oh, you can't miss out on this for sure. Marcia, thank you again. We're going to talk next hour and we're going to have a lot more fun next hour right here. Oh, they're making me go through so much, but it's worth it, guys. I mean, yes, I said it's cold here, but it is stunning. It is beautiful. You're going to want to take the time. You have so much time until January 3rd to check this all out. But everything she just mentioned, we're going to have on our website at fox4news.com. But for now, guys, I'm going to warm up for the next hour so that we can have more fun in this lovely, lovely ice-cold exhibit. I'm keeping it cute, though. Check out the fit. It's cute. Thumbs up. Thumbs up. I will say if you're going there, they give you like the huge parkas. Yeah. But bring gloves. Bring like a hat to like something for your face. Yeah. I mean, it's it's cold. Step it up and make sure you got good warm shoes at times painfully. Yes. Yes.