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MIDWAY — The eminently Instagrammable Midway Ice Castles attraction is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, but the coronavirus pandemic has made the upcoming season unlike any in the attraction's short history.
The Ice Castles, located at the Homestead Resort at 700 Homestead Drive, is anticipated to open in January and will follow recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep guests safe, spokesman Jared Henningsen told KSL.com.
"Our guests will be required to wear masks, much like our staff will be as well," Henningsen said. "And obviously, we'll be encouraging and enforcing social distancing, as well."
The Ice Castles website says the attraction "may reduce capacity or close some features" to "facilitate adherence to physical distancing guidelines," that hand sanitizer will be available, and that "crawl spaces, slot canyons, and tunnels will adhere to a one-way traffic flow when possible and will be marked accordingly."
For those who've never visited Ice Castles before, Henningsen said they can expect a "winter wonderland" full of bright lights, crawl-through tunnels, slides and "lots of really organic, natural-looking ice features."
The website says the "experience is built using hundreds of thousands of icicles hand-placed by professional ice artists. The castles include breathtaking LED-lit sculptures, frozen thrones, ice-carved tunnels, slides, fountains and much more."
Henningsen says the attraction is likely to open in early January, but its opening date is "weather-dependent." He explained that Ice Castles needs "a good period of cold weather" to be built out sufficiently to open.
A 2021 Ice Castles presale begins on Monday, Henningsen said. "And given the environment we're operating within, we strongly encourage people to pre-purchase their tickets or participate in the presale. ... We do anticipate, given the reduced capacity at which we are operating, that we are going to sell out."
"Hundreds of thousands" of guests pass through Ice Castles locations in an average year, he said.
General admission Ice Castles tickets are $14.99 on weekdays and $19.99 on weekends and holidays, with discounts for children under age 12. Ice Castles began 10 years ago in Midway, and this year will operate additional locations in Colorado, Wisconsin and New Hampshire.
