A Visit to Minnesota’s Ice Castles

My wife and I joined my brother, his wife and our two nephews and braved the cold Saturday night to check out the Ice Castles in Eden Prairie, and I offer a couple of tips if you're going to head there, too.

First, if you're going on the weekend-- especially Saturday-- make sure you get your tickets icecastles.com  before you go, and reserve them early in the week. I got our tickets last Tuesday, and we were able to reserve our 5:30 Saturday time with no problems. I did hear, though, that oten times, Saturdays sell out-- which would really suck if you'd heading up there only to find out you couldn't get in.

Second, make sure you dress warmly-- including boots. Of course, it's winter in Minnesota-- and you're going to an attraction made of ice-- so we already know it's going to be cold. But once you make your way from the parking lot into the actual Ice Castles, you'll be walking in a pretty good amount snow and ice, so boots are a good call.

Another tip is to make sure you're there well ahead of your admission time. Your tickets

give you a half-hour window, and if you get there after your time is done, you won't be allowed in. And, if it's really busy, like it was for us on Saturday, finding a place to park might take you awhile-- and you don't want to get there just after your tickets expire. (Though, in our case, we were close to the cut-off, but they helped us move through the line without any problems.)

Either way, it's a kind of cool thing to check out. Here's a video that explains a little more about it...