What is Sleeping in an Ice Hotel Really Like?

Wondering what it’s really like to sleep in an ice hotel? I travelled to Romania in the depths of winter and spent a night in the Bâlea Lake Ice Hotel, so today I’m telling you what it’s *actually* like: the good, the bad…and the near-hypothermic!

I stayed in Bâlea Lake’s Ice Hotel as part of a Transylvania tour I booked with Untravelled Paths. You can read all about the rest of that tour in a post coming soon, but in this post I’ll be covering the part of that tour where we visited the ice hotel, from start to finish.

Arriving at Romania’s Ice Hotel

Our tour bus pulled up to the cable car station, which was an almost entirely unsigned building in the middle of the Fagaras Mountains. Snow was falling heavily, and we were already cold – well before we’d got anywhere near the top, where it promised to be a whole new level of freezing!

We were told the night before to pack only a small bag with our belongings for the overnight ice hotel experience: everything else was to be left in the bus as the cable car wasn’t big enough for people and huge suitcases. I brought my carry-on bag, although I probably could have just taken a tote bag with just a few essentials. I was too nervous to leave it all behind…I was so worried I’d be cold that I wanted the security of having everything with me, just in case.

Our tour guide Cristina bundled us into the cable car station, where we waited in our own priority line (people just going up for the day are in the general queue) until a cable car arrived. There really wasn’t any English signage or information, so this would definitely be challenging to do independently and without speaking Romanian. I was glad to be part of a tour group where everything was taken care of and any questions I had would be answered by someone who had done this before.

We didn’t have to wait too long for the cable car, although once we were in, we stopped a few times on the way up to wait for maintenance workers to catch the cable car going down. It was crowded and cold and nerve-wracking, although the scenery was gorgeous – you could even see the hair-raising mountain road that the Top Gear guys famously drove along far below us.

When we got to the top and stepped out of the cable car building, it was utterly freezing! There was a blizzard, so the wind snapped at our faces and the perfectly-formed snowflakes obscured our vision as we trudged through knee-deep snow, carrying our bags, to reach the warmth of Bâlea Lake Chalet.

On the way, Cristina pointed out the hotel, which was a tiny igloo-like structure, totally unassuming and almost completely unsigned, apart from an A-frame outside. This was the moment when I realised that what we’d be sleeping in was a budget version of an ice hotel. It was also the moment when the price of the trip suddenly made sense (some of the ice hotels I’d seen in Finland or Canada were hundreds of pounds a night. Our four night tour was £299, including all accommodation, transport & entry to attractions).

To say I was nervous was a huge understatement.

We didn’t look inside the ice hotel then, as we were cold and hungry, so we left our luggage in Cristina’s room inside the Chalet and settled in for lunch. The food was pretty rubbish – no one in our group enjoyed what they ordered, but it was hot and filling, and besides, we had no other option.

Things to do at the Bâlea Lake Ice Hotel

We had quite a few hours to kill in the afternoon, so most of the people in our group tried the adventure activities on offer: tubing, snowmobiling, ice rafting and riding on a snow banana. I hadn’t signed up to any of these as I was worried that my clothing wouldn’t be adequate to keep me warm through snow sports, and I really wasn’t going to risk being any colder than was strictly necessary!

I was quite keen on the tunnel trek, but the weather was too bad to do it, so Monica and I sat in the warm chalet for a while, and then went over to take a peek at the ice hotel.

As soon as I stepped inside, my anxiety dissolved. Not only was it significantly warmer inside (not warm, just warmer – temperatures outside were apparently around -16, and inside they don’t get below -2), but it was also very…well…cool. There’s no other word for it.

The ice hotel is a long, narrow, domed structure made up of the main bar and restaurant area, and hotel rooms off to either side. It’s small, with around 16 rooms in total, separated from the bar by just a curtain. During the day, the hotel and bar is open to the public for a small fee, so people were peering into the rooms between drinks, taking photos and dancing.

We joined in, ordering what we thought was mulled brandy and getting instead a small cup of hot palinka, a local drink that honestly smells and tastes like paint thinner. At least, what I imagine paint thinner would smell and taste like. But it was warming, so we winced as we sipped and enjoyed the atmosphere, looking in at the rooms, posing for photos, and admiring the ice sculptures.

Eventually the cold hit us, so we wandered back to the Chalet and relaxed for a few hours as we watched the snow falling heavily outside. By this time, the day-trippers had left, so it was just our tour group, the staff, and a few other hotel guests milling about, drinking in the bar, reading, and chatting.

Dinner at the Ice Hotel

There are two dinner options at the Bâlea Lake Ice Hotel: the ice dinner, which is served in the ice bar on ice tables, surrounded by ice, or dinner in the Chalet where we’d had our awful lunch. We opted for the ice dinner, which was around £40 for four courses including a welcome drink. For Romania this is quite expensive, but for the experience, it was totally worthwhile.

We trudged over from the Chalet and all ooohed and ahhhhed as we saw the lovely tables set for dinner. There were blankets at every seat so we could stay cozy, and glasses of bubbles at each place. We were served our first course quickly: seafood canapes on an ice plate, which made me worry slightly that our whole meal would be freezing cold.

The next course, though, was a hot vegetable soup, served with additional plates underneath so the table didn’t melt! It was delicious, but we had to eat it quickly as it cooled down within minutes.

At this point I was quite full, but our main course arrived: a huge portion of pork with vegetables. It was very tasty, but far too big, so I didn’t eat it all (which resulted in me being berated for wasting food…awks). Dessert was a delicious tiramisu which I nibbled at while getting colder and colder and feeling nervous again about the night ahead.

I couldn’t seem to warm up, so when the dancing started, I joined in (blanket wrapped tightly around me) in an attempt to banish the cold that had seeped into my bones. The dancing (combined with another hot palinka shot) did the job! The blanket was quickly discarded, and soon I was so hot I was seriously thinking about taking my jacket off. Eventually the dancing died away, and there was really nothing to do but get ready for bed.

We walked back to the Chalet and prepared for bed in Cristina’s room. She shared with us some tactics for a good night’s sleep: we were each given a heavy-duty sleeping bag, and told not to wear too many clothes to bed or we’d be too hot (I was doubtful about this). We were also told that we couldn’t bring too much into the room with us (i.e. suitcases, cameras, too many clothes) or they’d freeze overnight. So anything we brought had to come into the sleeping bag with us.

There also aren’t any bathrooms in the Bâlea Lake Ice Hotel. The closest ones are located in the cable car building just behind the hotel, but with temperatures as low as they were, and snow falling so heavily, there was no way I was getting up in the night and leaving the hotel. Just in case, Monica and I made a pact that if one of us needed to go, we’d go together…but only if it was a desperate situation!

After one last precautionary trip to the bathroom, I walked over to the ice hotel in thermal trousers and top, my ski jacket, a hat, gloves, my wellies and super thick, fluffy socks. When we got into the room, it was time to strip down to my thermals (eeeek) and snuggle down into my sleeping bag.

To avoid my outer layers getting wet or frozen, I kept my jacket, gloves, hat and phone in the sleeping bag with me, and I wrapped my wellies in a sheepskin which I then tucked under one of the blankets that covered my sleeping bag.

I was surprisingly snug.

The sleeping bag had a hood, so my face was basically the only thing not covered.

Did you sleep well in the ice hotel?

 

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A post shared by Elle Croft (@elle_croft) on Jan 13, 2019 at 5:22am PST

This is the most common question I’ve been asked since getting home from my Romania trip, and the answer is…yes and no.

I slept waaaay better than I expected to. From my shoulders down, I was super warm, and I really didn’t need any extra layers.

But my face was cold. And because the sleeping bag hood only covered my head when I was sleeping on my back, every time I moved (I’m a restless sleeper) my ears would be exposed, and therefore cold. In my sleepy state, I didn’t even think of just putting my hat on, so I ended up trying to sleep in one very specific position so that I didn’t accidentally expose an ear. Sleeping in the same position isn’t comfortable for me, so although I did sleep, and not too badly, I did wake up a few times, and didn’t wake up feeling totally rested.

And when I did wake up, it was the strangest sensation for my eyelids to be cold. If I’m totally honest, it all felt a little bit too much like camping which, as we all know, I’m not so keen on.

So yes, I did sleep. It wasn’t the best sleep of my life. But it wasn’t the worst, either. Not by a long shot.

I woke up early; about 6:30 I think, and tried to forget the fact that I really needed to visit the bathroom. The chalet was locked between 11pm and 8am, so I knew I couldn’t just head over there and warm up, and I didn’t fancy a trip to the cable car bathrooms, so I waited till 8am on the dot, abandoned Monica (who was still sleeping, impressively), and headed through a blinding snowstorm to the Chalet.

Morning at the Ice Hotel

It was such a relief to be back in the warmth of the chalet, with hot coffee and breakfast laid out for us.

I ate, enjoyed some coffee, and had a nice hot shower in Cristina’s room before getting dressed for the day ahead. My time at the Bâlea Lake Ice Hotel was coming to an end.

When everyone was showered and ready, we all trudged over to the cable car station, past the ice church, which was being built by guys cutting ice bricks with a chainsaw, and got ready to leave the mountain.

Would I do it again? I wouldn’t not do it again, but I wouldn’t hurry to re-book this.

I think this is the kind of thing that is great to experience – because why not?! – but which you don’t need to do more than once to enjoy.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely! It might not be the most luxurious ice hotel experience out there (in fact, it might well be the most budget ice hotel experience in the world), but in the end, sleeping in a room of ice is sleeping in a room of ice, whether you’ve paid many hundreds of pounds, or just a fraction of that.

Sure, I might not have had the most comfortable night of my life, but it was without a doubt one of the most memorable. And in the end, I didn’t get hypothermia or freeze to death, so I’m gonna go ahead and call that a success!

Would you stay in an ice hotel?

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