We kicked off December with a trip to check out the new Gaylord hotel by the airport. Vince and I have visited and stayed at other Gaylord properties in other states but wanted to check out the Colorado location that recently opened in Aurora. They have an ice sculpture exhibit, complete with a two-story ice slide you can go down that we had to check out.

This exhibit is carved from more than two million pounds of colorful ice! It was created by master artisans who traveled from Harbin, China.

They provide complimentary parkas for everyone and I couldn’t contain myself when Winnie put hers on. My little marshmallow haha!!

Tickets cost $13.99 per kid and $24.99 per adult but Vince found us a Groupon that brought the cost down to $19.99 per adult. That groupon is still available here!!

By far the favorite part of the entire thing for the girls was the two-story ice slides. They have one that is a little shorter for little kids but since Winnie goes balls to the wall like her sister, she went on the “big kid” slides.

After our adventure checking out ice sculptures and repeatedly going down the slides, we headed on to the Mistletoe Market. As a former retail manager, my skin was crawling with the total lack of competence on behalf of the cashiers working. I stood in line behind ONE woman for at least 30 minutes (and that’s sadly not an exaggeration.) She insisted that the cashier pull a sales associate from the floor to get her ornaments “from the back still wrapped in bubble wrap” because she didn’t want any of the ones already stocked on the sales floor. (God forbid!) The dipshit cashier obliged and rather than having the high maintenance customer step aside and wait for all her pristine ornaments to arrive, she just sat there and let the line build and build until everyone was enraged. I’m all about the Christmas spirit and being patient, but good God, I was ready to punch someone in the face by the time I finally got checked out. This same story happened to Vince while he was getting the girls hot chocolate, and then again when buying tickets for the bumper cars. So if you go, just know that The Gaylord hired seasonal help and they’re fucking moronic, so go on a day where you have an abundance of patience and empathy for idiotic fuck sticks. Putting aside the folks with a total lack of self awareness, the actual activities were fun. After hitting up the market, we went outside to ride bumper cars.

Bumper cars cost $8.99 per “driver” and $4.99 per rider. As I mentioned above, the employees were not totally with it so when we told them we had a three year old we weren’t sure on putting in her own bumper car alone, they still charged us as if she were an adult even though she could have ridden with one of us! So know before you go so that you can correct them if they try and do that and you’re with small children that will have a hard time navigating their own bumper car.

Other activities you could add on include: “Cirque Dreams Holidaze” show, a “Naught or Nice” escape room, ice skating, gingerbread house decorating, ice tubing, photos with Santa, a scavenger hunt, and making your own stuffed animal at Build-a-Bear. You can buy a platinum pass that includes all activities offered. There were two different hotel guests that bought the entire package and weren’t going to use everything so they offered us their hot chocolate coupons and ice skating coupons which was extremely sweet and generous. We knew it was well past Winnie’s nap time so we didn’t take the ice skating tickets, but it did go to show us that most people probably don’t take full advantage of the “platinum” pass that includes every activity.

All in all I would say it’s fun just to check out the Gaylord itself. There was not one staff member we ran into that seemed to know how to navigate what was happening which leads me to believe the seasonal help probably wasn’t heavily trained by any means. I hate giving negative reviews like this, but as you all know, if I am anything, I am an honest fucker. There are so many great things to do around Denver to enjoy the holidays. My top recommendation with young kids is doing the Santa Express train ride at the Royal Gorge. We are going to partake in it in a couple of weeks with my buddy from college and his wife and kids, so stay tuned on a post on all things Santa Express related! <3 And if you’re out and about this crazy weekend, stay sane friends!!