I Spent 24 Hours In An Ice Hotel
- So we're sleeping in here tonight? (Tyler laughs) (Safiya laughs) (upbeat music) Hello friends and welcome to another video. This week we're gonna be staying overnight in a hotel made completely of ice. Will we survive? I guess we'll find out. Subscribe in case we don't. Wait, what? Now, a little while back, we talked on this channel about wanting to get into strange hotel content, and with our video about staying in a completely underwater hotel and our series about staying in every hotel on the Las Vegas strip, I think we have firmly waded into those waters, or rather, scuba dived into those waters. - Hey, did somebody order room service? - [Tyler] It's Dane Dash.
- So in my quest to check off all of the crazy hotels that we wanna stay at, you have the Potato Hotel in Idaho, the Salt Hotel in Bolivia, the Trojan Horse Hotel in Belgium, the Robot Hotel in Japan, I figured, why not tackle ice next? 'Cause I've been seeing hints of Icehotel across all my various feeds. And though there are a few Icehotels around the world, the OG largest and the oldest, is the Icehotel located in northern Sweden. It's a structure made completely out of ice and snow that they rebuild every year during the winter and then let it melt in the spring. Yes, this is what the rooms look like, and yes, guests sleep here overnight. I honestly think it looks pretty sick, and I do love sleeping with the AC blasting, so hey, why not take it to the extreme and try and sleep in a giant freezer? And I'm also very curious about how this works.
Is it secretly super cozy or are we all in for a cryogenic freezing, ala Walt Disney's head? So during our recent Nordic/Scandinavian travel trip, we decided to stop in Sweden to stay at the Icehotel and figure all this out. Also, yes, it is just called Icehotel, which you know, is efficient and to the point, but it does mean I'm gonna be saying Icehotel about 8,000 times in this video. Alright, let's go to the Icehotel.
Okay, so the last time you guys saw us, we were at the Blue Lagoon in Iceland, taking one long hot communal bath. - There is a vast delta in our ability to put on masks. (both laughing) - And after wrapping up our extended soak, we were ready to fly to Sweden and freeze our butts off. But a slight problem. The night before our flight out of Iceland, we noticed a storm start to roll in. What on Earth is happening? It's snowing a lot.
Oh my god. We didn't think much of it at the time, but when we woke up early the next morning to catch our flight- - Oh yeah. - We out. - It's gusty out there.
- [Safiya] Things had only gotten windier and snowier. - [Tyler] Let's do it. - [Safiya] And a couple of hours later at the airport waiting for our flight with conditions worsening, we got the news. - [Friend] Dude, look at the weather. - All flights off the island were canceled. Well, okay, time to calibrate.
I don't know, we're gonna figure out something to do today. I don't know. - [Tyler] Is it the penis museum? - Yeah, I'm thinking about it. So we schlepped ourselves to a nearby Courtyard Marriott to wait out the storm and reevaluate our plans. I, being nervous that we were missing our filming time, thought that maybe we should try and do something else that day in Iceland, you know, to make the best of it.
A lot of you guys suggested going to the penis museum, which I was interested in, but the wind was pretty extreme. - Alright, so I'm trying to get a shot of the front of the Courtyard Marriott that we're staying at, this is where the wind will tunnel really starts. - This is us just trying to walk outside right next to the Courtyard Marriott. (Safiya laughs) We're never getting back inside the Courtyard Marriott. So unfortunately, the penis museum was just not in the cards. 18 years of growing up in Chicago could not have prepared me for this moment.
But thankfully the storm subsided overnight and the next morning we once again woke up very early to head back to the airport to try our luck getting off of this volcanic rock. - [Tyler] That's security. - And after navigating the packed airport... No time, gotta go.
- Now it's time to get to the gate. - C23. Miraculously, with moments to spare... - All right, we're here and they're boarding. I think there's a plane.
So we're doing better than yesterday. - We made it on our plane and we're finally on our way to Sweden. We're going.
Where are you at? - Hey. - We're going. Now unfortunately, our itinerary to get to the Icehotel was to fly to Stockholm and then grab a connecting flight to Kiruna, which is way up here in the Arctic Circle in an area shared by Sweden, Finland and Norway called Lapland. Sparsely populated, midnight sun in the summer, frozen wonderland in the winter vibes, perfect for building a structure completely made out of ice. But the flights from Stockholm to Kiruna only run on certain days.
And while our original flight was on a Monday when there was a connecting flight to Lapland, on a Tuesday when we actually got to Stockholm, there was no flight to Kiruna until the next morning. So we were once again stuck, this time in Stockholm. Hey look, it's Sweden. - [Tyler] The airport. - Now the smart thing to do would probably have been to take the day off and rest up since we had just had to wake up for the same super early morning flight two days in a row. But I had never been to Sweden before.
As a half Dane, the closest I've come is staring angrily at it from across the channel at Hamlet's Castle in Denmark. Canons at the ready in case Sweden decides to get fresh. And we all really wanted to explore.
So we once again made the questionable decision to spend the day filming TikToks. Today I'm filming vertically and Tyler's filming horizontally. - It's gonna be a disaster. (Safiya laughs) - Exhausted international TikToking.
I guess that's our thing now. Okay, we're in Stockholm. We had to stop at Under Armour for Tyler to get some extra long johns. - We did. They're very tight. They're very tight, but it's good.
- [Safiya] Now Stockholm is a very attractive city with lots of large impressive buildings of varying styles overlooking these canals that flow between them. - [Tyler] Venice of the North. - [Safiya] And since our plans were pretty last minute, I can't say we really knew all the spots to hit. Probably the best souvenir shop. Maybe, could be. But we did take a peek at the historic touristy area of the city called Gamla Stan, where we grabbed some Swedish fika, aka coffee and cake.
- Oh wow. Oh wow. (Tyler grunts) (Safiya laughs) What? - Take a sip. We also caught a quick ferry across one of the canals to get to the ABBA Museum because of course they have one of those. - [Crowd On Video In Museum] We want (indistinct). We want (indistinct).
- And after having our own "Mama Mia" moment, we did also hit up a Swedish McDonald's to see some of their alternative offerings. So wow, the the ice cream machine's not working here either. - [Tyler] Oh no. (Safiya laughs) - As well as a Swedish Ikea. It's like a city IKEA, so it's not like a full IKEA, but we had to come see it.
Just to say that we had been to an IKEA in the Motherland. We're looking for the cafeteria. - We are. - We're not hungry. - No. - We just wanna see it,
verify that the meatballs are here. And after a whirlwind day in Stockholm... Meatballs confirmed, they have 'em. - [Tyler] They have the meat balls.
- Exhausted and just a little bit cold... We did some stuff. - Yeah! - We headed back to the airport hotel to catch a bit of sleep before our next early morning flight to the Icehotel.
- Today we sleep in a warm room, tomorrow an ice one. - Yeah baby. - Yeah. - Now Kiruna is Sweden's northernmost city and it is also thankfully just a few minutes' drive from the Icehotel in the small town of Jukkasjarvi. And as you guys well know, we were a few days late to our reservation at the Icehotel. Oo! This is fun.
- Yeah. - I can't believe we're finally here. So while we were supposed to have a couple of days to explore and film, we actually really only did have about 24 hours to do all of the things on the docket. Alright, let's go. - Yeah! - Let's go.
- We're layered, baby. - Which meant we had to basically get right off the plane, head to the Icehotel and immediately start filming. So if we seem or look disheveled here at all, we were.
Alright, So after a long journey with many twists and turns, we are finally here at the Icehotel. It is about noon. We have about two hours of daylight left. So we're gonna try and show you guys all of the different nooks and crannies of the Icehotel campus and then we'll move into our frozen accommodations. Now this thing that we've been showing you is the Icehotel, but the Icehotel Resort is comprised by more than just this one building made of ice and snow. There are actually a lot of buildings.
Only a couple of them are literally icy. Some of them are normal, not frozen ones like the main lobby, which is attached to a cafe at the back, as well as a number of warm rooms or normal hotel rooms that visitors can stay in as well. Oo, come on in. - [Tyler] Oh, this is a nice room. Oh, look at this. - Wow. This is nice! For health reasons you're not supposed to sleep for more than one night in a row in the actual cold ice rooms.
So these warm rooms are key for people who wanna stay at the resort for more than just 24 hours. Overall, I think this warm room is really cute. It kind of gives me like sauna vibes. - Yeah. - You know, there's like wood on the walls, kind of smells like wood. That's mostly what's giving me sauna vibes.
- There's wood in the hallway. - And we were supposed to sleep in one of these warm rooms, but we didn't get here in time. See our welcome drinks in this bucket of long melted ice. - [Tyler] 'Cause we were supposed to get here like two days ago. (both laugh) - Yeah. - So ironically,
there's no ice in there. - [Safiya] There is also a restaurant across the road that is also a part of the resort. Smells good.
- [Tyler] This place looks nice. - That serves a yummy breakfast and lunch buffet. Lunch closes in give minutes, so we gotta get everything now. We made friends with Joanna who runs the buffet and she kept feeding us all these really nice Swedish cakes. - [Tyler] The amount of bonus desserts we've gotten is shocking.
As the lady said, all the Swedish grandmas love it. - As well as a wide array of lingon berry products. Another perk of coming late, they give you the whole jug of lingon berry juice. She said it's good for you. Which kind of tastes like an enhanced cranberry, I would say.
That tastes too good to be good for me. - [Tyler] That's what I said. - There are a few other normal buildings scattered about. I think that most of the other buildings are also other warm rooms, like all of those are warm rooms, I'm pretty sure.
- Yeah. - This is an art gallery for art that is not frozen. - [Tyler] Yes, thawed art. - But it's time to turn our eyes back to the cold buildings. Is that where we're sleeping? Could be. - It might be.
- Because the warm rooms and the restaurant are nice, but we are here for the ice. It's kind of central. - [Tyler] You think? - You know what I mean? - No, actually I don't. - The only place to get warm is between your two bodies.
- Okay. That is kind of central, yeah. - Pelt to pelt contact. - So over here in this area at the back, there's this kind of ice fort. - Sturdy. - With a big clearing in the middle and two different Icehotel buildings on either side.
- [Tyler] That's what I'm talking about. This structure over here is of course the Icehotel that we've been showing you this whole time. This is the real deal, baby. Made and remade every year from 5,000 tons of ice and snow.
The building itself is a bit modest from the outside. Cool looking, but not jaw dropping. But inside. - Oo!
- Come on in. - Yeah. - [Safiya] It's one of the cooler things I have ever seen. - [Tyler] Wow! - [Safiya] Wow.
Whoa. - [Tyler] This is crazy. - I feel like we're in a fairytale right now. - Yeah. - Like this is actually kinda magical.
There's a large entryway with a huge hanging chandelier and then branching off from there are two long hallways that take you down to the actual ice rooms. So we're sleeping in here tonight. (both laugh) And then there's also a great hall that's sectioned off by these big doors. Pretty cool, pretty, pretty cool. - [Tyler] Literally.
- Hey. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It turns out that this is an ice chapel and it's pretty impressive with large benches, pelts everywhere, a stage. I won't sing. Don't make me sing. I don't want to sing. Don't make me do it. Oo, I almost slipped too. - [Tyler] It's slippery up there.
- I tried to turn into a little jaunt. Besides that, they have 24 normal ice rooms down this hallway with these sort of crystalline structures jutting out everywhere. - Oh yeah. Oh, sweet. - Wow. After checking out quite a few of these rooms, though they are all unique, they're all generally carved in the same style.
- More spikes. - More spikes! So they mostly look like this. - Stalactites or stalagmites? - [Safiya] G, Stalagmites are on the ground. - Okay. Stalagmites.
- [Safiya] Stalactites are on the ceiling. - [Tyler] Okay. So I didn't get either right. (laughs) - But in the other direction, past the foyer once more and down the other hallway are the art rooms. - Oh! - Wow.
Oh wow, wow. This one's really pretty. - [Tyler] This is so cool.
- And these are an assortment of 12 larger rooms that are all designed and carved by different artists to be totally different styles. (Safiya laughs) Totally unique and totally immersive. Looking for the bed. Looking for the bed. Looking for the bed. There it is. And they are definitely showstoppers.
- [Tyler] Oh damn, that's amazing. - It's giving Northern Water Tribe. - From Avatar.
Right? - Big time. It's Sokka's girlfriend. - My first girlfriend turned into this giant moose on the wall. That's rough, buddy. - [Tyler] That, that is rough.
- With huge ice and snow decor pieces that must have taken hundreds if not thousands of hours from highly skilled artists to carve. This makes the nipple ice luge at the Venetian look like child's play in comparison. - [Tyler] I mean, yeah. - You've got everything from the classic Epcot ice ballroom to the Roman bathhouse room to the video game room. - [Tyler] High score. Little dirty minded there.
(Tyler laughs) - Like I said, there's something vaguely sensual about the Icehotel. To the tulip room, to the giant pencil room. - Interesting. - I'm sensing some phallic imagery. (Tyler laughs)
- [Tyler] You're not mature enough for the Icehotel right now. - No, I'm not. - I'm not. Literally every room I'm like, I think it's sexual. To the giant snowflake room.
This is Elsa. This is giving Elsa. - [Tyler] Yeah. - I was trying to go the whole video without referencing "Frozen".
- Yeah. - But this one's giving me Elsa vibes. - Impossible to ignore. - Yeah. And taking it all in, realizing how much time and effort went into each and every room.
There are so many, there are so many. And just honestly how good they all were. Like the level of detail is pretty incredible. - [Tyler] Aw, look at this table too, behind ya. - Right? - Look at that! - It's not just a hotel. These are truly pieces of art.
I'm not trying to like shill for the Icehotel, but like it's really freaking cool. Made me wonder how did this become a thing and why is this a thing? So it turns out the guy who started all of this is Yngve Bergqvist, who helped kickstart tourism to Jukkasjarvi in the '80s, by turning it into a canoeing and fishing hotspot and one of Europe's first rafting destinations. But of course those were summer activities. Since Lapland is pretty frozen in the winter, it's not exactly prime rafting conditions. So Yngve started searching for an attraction that would bring visitors to Jukkasjarvi during the winter.
And even though everyone told him that it was too cold, too dark, and too desolate for any tourists to ever want to come, he kept looking, eventually traveling to Japan and discovering artists there who had carved blocks of ice into beautiful works of art. So he recruited some Japanese ice sculptors to come back to Sweden with him and develop and build an art gallery slash exhibition called the Arctic Hall, created completely out of ice and snow. Here we have our load bearing ice. - Oh yeah. Don't lick. - Our structural ice. - Don't lick that one. - Yeah. I feel like the number one rule of the Icehotel is don't lick anything.
(Tyler laughs) Don't do it. Just don't. Just don't. The story then goes that one day with all of the nearby warm or normal cabins completely booked, a group of visitors who had come to see the icy art asked to stay the night. and Yngve jokingly suggested that they could sleep in the hall.
To his surprise, they agreed. And so he equipped them with a bunch of super warm sleeping bags to spend the night. And apparently they loved it. It's like a giant pillow fort. - Oh yeah. But it's snow. - Yeah.
- Yeah. - Yeah, yeah. - And thus the Icehotel was born: an art exhibit that you can also sleep in. And so every year since then, the resort harvests thousands of huge ice blocks from the nearby Torne River, the same river that tourists would raft down in the summers. Alright, we are currently standing on the river that they harvest the ice from. - Yeah. - [Safiya] I know it doesn't look like that.
- [Tyler] No. - But it's completely frozen and covered in snow. - Yeah.
I'm really cold out here though. - Let's go back in. - Yeah. - And artists from all over the world come to the Icehotel to carve their frozen masterpieces, which visitors can enjoy from December to April when the Icehotel melts back into the river and then they do it all again. - [Tyler] I wonder if you can watch it melt.
- [Safiya] Probably takes a while. - That's true. - If I had to guess. - [Tyler] Yeah. - This one is called Icehotel 33, since it's been 33 years since the first Arctic Hall was built. I think this is the backside of the Icehotel. Right? It does just look like a giant snowbank.
There is actually also an ice production building on the resort's campus. That's a lotta ice! Some of which we couldn't film since it's proprietary ice carving technology. But we did get to see some of their giant clear ice blocks. - [Tyler] Look how long your arm looks.
Inspector Gadget. - As the large molds they use to pack and form the snow in the domed shape of the ceiling. - Yeah, you can see that's definitely what the hall looks like.
Yeah, they're big. - Yeah. - They're big. Let me tell you something, they're big. In 2016, the Icehotel also opened Icehotel 365, which is this building over here. And you can probably tell by the name and the look of the building, but it itself is not made of ice.
It's rather sort of a giant freezer building: normal on the outside, but inside... It's the Ice Bar! We're back, baby. Contains an ice bar, which was very acutely decorated as like a Coney Island style boardwalk. Oh, you can see my legs through thing.
- [Tyler] Yeah. - (laughs) I didn't realize that. Do they look refracted? You know what I mean? - A little bit. Yeah. Oh, big time now. - As well as another slew of icy hotel rooms. Woo hoo! This one's called Sauna.
It's like a spa, but it's ice. And of course, since this building is made out of normal building materials and the interior is kept cold artificially, it's open year round, so visitors can stay in an ice room during the summer months if they want to: Lincoln logs vibes. Great? - [Tyler] Oh, for sure. - To be honest, that sounds somewhat more appealing.
Like to stay in a cold room when it's warm outside. Okay, I was wrong. This is giving Northern Water Tribe, but I will say even though the ice sculpture over here is also impeccably done. - The like... - Giant bunny. Giant bunny.
- Oh wow! - He's literally looming over the bed. (Tyler laughs) The rooms over here are a little more ominous. Absolutely terrifying. - Is it? Oh, that's horrifying. - What? - What is that? (Safiya laughs) That is nightmare inducing. - Which is okay when you're just walking around taking a look.
Oh my God. Ah! But I'm not sure I would wanna spend the night in them. Literally that's what you're afraid of. You fall asleep and you get encased in ice. Why would you put that here? There were a couple of rooms over here that I liked. Oo pretty! That were a little less scary.
- [Tyler] It's kinda like press flowers. - Yeah. The flowers vibes. I love this one. I would sleep in this one. (gasps) I love this one.
But you won't catch me in the clown room anytime soon. The music makes it scarier. - Yeah. - [Safiya] And beyond all of those things: the warm rooms, the cafe, the restaurants, both sets of ice rooms and the ice bar... - [Tyler] Hey sweetie, I'm gonna have to borrow a glove to drink this. - Left or right? The resort also offers an array of activities for their guests to participate in.
During the winter, it's stuff like snowmobiling, dog sledding, ice fishing, and cross country skiing. Some of which we had been booked for, but had missed because of our travel hijinks. And between all of those things, the Icehotel attracts about 70,000 visitors a year, including the weddings performed at the ice church and special events, like apparently the week before we got there, Sweden hosted an EU summit up here. It's Sweden's way of hazing the other countries. - [Tyler] (laughs) Is freezing them? - Up here.
We present EU leaders on ice. (both laugh) - Oh my God. Cute. I mean, I'll watch. - Yeah. - [Safiya] And after checking out this little lookout point with a nice view of the frozen river... - [Tyler] Look at this! - As well as sliding down this ice slide.
- [Tyler] Yeah. - [Safiya] That seemed pretty good, Ty. - [Tyler] I had to do a contact slide.
- It was time for us to hit up the restaurant once again for our dinner reservation, where we had booked a special ice menu. I don't know what that means. I'm thinking raw fish on a slab of ice. But that's just like what comes to mind. - That's a good guess. - Yeah.
And yes, it was bonafide nighttime at this point. Is it 4:00 p.m. or midnight? We'll never know. I got a headlamp. In case it's dark on the way there. - [Tyler] I guide us. Oh.
Oh! - Ready? Let's go. - I like that. Yeah. - And I would say the special ice menu was mostly comprised of Lapland classics.
Like they had moose carpaccio, reindeer twice, once in a steak and once in a soup. You like took a shot of it. - That's awesome. Oh, my lips are chapped.
(Safiya laughs) - [Safiya] As well as raw fish served on a block of ice. - [Waitress] It's from the river, confirmed. - Oh! From the river.
And in ice cream/cookie/cake hybrid dessert, also served on a block of ice. Oh my God, it's green! Wait, I have no idea what's in there, actually. I thought these dishes were pretty interesting. And I did like the touch of serving the ice menu literally on ice. You sleep it, eat it, breathe it.
Ice. It's a way of life. But I think they went a little heavy on using pine as a flavoring agent. - Piney. - Very piney.
- Ornament adjacent. - Which was on theme, but made everything a bit herby. POV, you're on a date with Tyler. He's eating multiple pine scented dishes. - WID. - [Safiya] (laughs) WID.
So after dinner it was time to go check out our room at the Icehotel 33 where we were gonna be sleeping. We've purposefully gatekept this one so far. - [Tyler] From ourselves too. - Even we haven't in the edit though. - Yeah, this is it? - So this is our room, 207, The Mushroom.
Mushroom. The mushroom. (Tyler laughs) Right? - [Tyler] Yeah. - [Safiya] And I think this one was worth the wait.
Whoa. - [Tyler] Whoa. Oh, this is kind of incredible. - Oh my God. (Safiya laughs) - Our room had kind of cottagecore, Thumbelina, "Honey I shrunk the Kids" psychedelic toad stool vibes. Okay, the mushrooms, incredible.
The snails, giant. - [Tyler] Oh that's a snail? - And I feel like it's designed to give off the impression that you are a tiny person tucked away in a little knot on a frozen tree. Look at the leaf, like the giant leaf. - [Tyler] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - [Safiya] It looks like you're like "A Bug's Life." I loved it.
And even though obviously it was freezing cold in there, it did feel quite cozy and snug. - It's really cozy. - Like it feels like you're just like enveloped in a little like leaf burrito. - [Tyler] (laughs) I was gonna say nook, but leaf burrito works, yeah. - You're in like a little nook. Right?
You're in like a little storybook nook/ Though after a very controlled bed drop to test out the mattress as it were. Okay. It is okay. - Right. - It kind of feels like an air mattress? - Okay, okay. - In some ways. - Or like a wrestling net. - (laughs) Yeah, like a gymnastics mat. - Yeah.
- [Safiya] It's like a mattress topper on top of ice. The logistics of our icy slumber party were upon us. - So hey, let's hit the slab. - (laughs) Alright, let's go get ready for bed. - [Tyler] Yeah.
- Now sleeping here is a bit of a specific process that you have to follow and also kind of an ordeal. We had actually attended an orientation in the ice church earlier, where Icehotel staff members had walked us through it. - I like how there's a real orientation. - There are some rules.
- 'Cause the stakes are, we don't want you to freeze. - There are some rules. - I think they mean to death, but also in general. - Or to injury either. - Okay. - That would also be bad. Basically after 6:00 p.m.,
which is when the Icehotel closes to the general public, you can check into your room, which includes a locker in the neighboring reverse side lobby that adjoins Icehotel 33. And you have a room key to your locker. And that's where you're basically supposed to put all of your stuff for the night. Come on in. Here's our stuff.
Wow. Our luggage, our backpacks, a couple cameras. - [Tyler] Our little charging station.
- And besides lockers, the lobby has bathrooms, showers, and 24/7 staff members who are there to help at any time. As well as a couple of slightly hidden bedrooms you can stay in in, in case you get too cold or uncomfortable during the night in your frozen chamber. - [Tyler] This room actually looks lovely.
A little bunk bed. - They call it the emergency room. I call it the wimp room. This is also where you're supposed to take care of any nighttime routines you need to do. And as far as pajamas go, you're supposed to just wear long johns or base layers since you really don't wanna sweat during the night or do anything to cause moisture or condensation to form inside of your sleeping bag. And then you grab the gear you're gonna need for the night from the front desk, which includes a thermal sleeping bag, a sleeping bag liner, a night cap.
What do you think? - [Tyler] Looks like a shower cap. I like it. - [Safiya] And a pair of Icehotel chunky boots. I like your outfit. - Thank you. So you basically wear your sleeping bag through the hotel and to your room as a jacket for warmth. I'm like so nervous. I feel like we're gonna end up back in here.
- No. - Sleeping in the lobby. - Not happening. - Okay. - [Tyler] Let's do it. - Are you sure? - Yes. - Okay. So we haven't really talked about the actual temperature of this place that much.
- [Tyler] Home sweet home. - Obviously it has to be below freezing for the Icehotel to stay ice. And the internal temperature of the place hovers around 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Alright, ready? - Yeah.
- I'll go first and you can film me. You can keep wearing your bag. During the day when we were wearing our huge jackets, we were pretty comfortable. But now that we were in our PJs, it was a bit colder. I'm good. I'm warm. I'm warm guys, I'm warm.
I'm not. I'm cold. So this is a matter of speed getting into bed, the trickiest part being that you have to unzip your sub-zero sleeping bag and put the liner inside of it before crawling in. Look at our, look at our magnificent set up here. We also had a couple of things we wanted to bring to our room that ideally wouldn't freeze during the night. Alright, phone going in.
So we stuck them into our sleeping bags to keep them warm with our bodies. Mother hen vibes. - G7X camera going in. - [Safiya] Including our contact lenses, which would totally suck if they froze. Oh! - My fingers are frozen sausages right now.
Alright, gonna close it tight. I'm so bad at taking my contacts out. But fully bundled- - Mermaid. Manatee.
(Safiya laughs) - We were feeling a little more confident about the whole thing. - I mean, seems fine to me. - To be totally honest, this is a great sleeping bag. - And my body is not cold at all. I'm feeling optimistic. But of course we still had to wait and see.
I love this little shot. And then the snail is just like menacingly in the background. If we would survive the night. - Alright, lights off. - Yep.
Oh, goodnight. - [Tyler] Gotta get to the pillow. - [Safiya] Good morning, snail! - Morning. - [Safiya] Hello slug. Okay, so we did make it through the night.
- Goodnight, I'm going back to bed. - [Safiya] Okay, well we have to be out of here in 20 minutes. So I suggest we wake up. I am pretty proud of us that we didn't wimp out.
We slept through the whole night in our ice room pretty much without incident. - Contacts are not frozen. - Yay. - But you know what? I don't know which ones are yours or mine, so. (Tyler laughs) - That'll be interesting to figure out. I actually slept pretty fitfully.
Ah. Oh my God. Suddenly I'm so awake. Okay, I think we should go inside.
Now that we're not in our sleeping bags, it's freezing. - Yeah. - Let's go. Let's go. Let's go, let's go. Okay. Woo hoo hoo! Woo hoo hoo.
Let's go. The only downsides were that my nose, which was the only thing sticking out of my sleeping bag, did get pretty cold. And I did have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It's cold. It's cold, it's cold.
- I gotta pee. - I gotta pee too. Luckily Tyler did as well, so we could go together. But we did have to run in the cold in our long johns contactless to the Riverside lobby and back. - [Tyler] Oo, I can't see anything. Oh, it's snowing. - Oh, that's nice. - [Safiya] Now after your night in the ice room, they suggest you start your day off with a stint in the sauna.
- [Tyler] See you on the other side. - As well as a warm shower to get your body temperature back up. I'm warming up. This is helping. Which we happily did. - Okay. - Alright.
So we are renewed. We're saunaed, we're showered, we're warm. - Yes. - Things are looking up, man. And after thoroughly thawing ourselves, our 24 hours at the Icehotel were almost up. But we did swing by the only activity we were able to actually make it to, which was ice carving aka our chance to leave our mark on the Icehotel. - [Tyler] Oh yeah.
- [Safiya] Right? I'm chipping away. - [Tyler] Yeah, it's all about slow and steady. - For ice carving, they give each person a block of clear ice and an array of tools to start picking away with. And I knew that this was gonna be hard, but it was tougher than expected.
Ta-da! It's a rounded corner, people. That's what I got. We decided to try and make an alien head because I thought that might be a little bit of a simpler shape, but even that was a bit too advanced for our skills.
Kinda looks like the Rosetta Stone right now. And despite both Tyler's and my best efforts, actually from here, I can kind of see it. He kinda looks like the scream. Our alien here ended up a bit cattywampus. - Oh! - Can you see him at all? - A little bit.
- I have a little bit of a soft spot for him, but we should probably leave the ice carving to the professionals. We tried our best. I'm not sure if they're gonna ask us to make a room.
So that was our stay at the Icehotel. Overall, I really enjoyed it and I would say that the Icehotel buildings and the sculptures themselves did really live up to the hype and in fact kind of exceeded expectations. The rooms looked cool online, but in person they were kind of magical. And it is kind of crazy to think that by the time this video is posted, they're all gonna have melted back into the river. But I guess that's part of the allure. And then as for sleeping in an ice room, it's not that cold.
So it's not like cryotherapy, it's more just like camping somewhere in the snow basically. Not the most comfortable, but not really as extreme feeling as I thought it would be. So I would definitely come back to the Icehotel if I had the chance.
It's literally a winter wonderland. - [Tyler] It is! - I bet you Christmas at the Icehotel is bumping. - It probably is. Yeah, you're right. - Yeah. but all in all, I'd call that mission accomplished. We came, we saw, we slept, we did not completely freeze. - Right. Alright, shall we?
- Yes. - Onward and eastward to Finland. - Thank you guys so much for watching. If you like that video, make sure to smash that like button and if you wanna see more videos like this, make sure to smash that subscribe button. Here are our short form/ social media handles and here's our merch website. And with that I will see you guys next time.
2023-05-10 11:30
