Ice Hotels

Sorrisniva is an ice hotel on the bank of the Alta river in Finnmark. The building is made of snow and ice and stands for the winter season only. Each autumn the operator builds it again from scratch, with a new plan and new carving, and in spring it melts back into the ground it stood on.

Rooms, a bar and a chapel are cut into the packed snow, and beds are blocks of ice dressed with hides and insulated sleeping bags. Warm service rooms sit beside the ice building, and the operator also runs a year-round lodge on the same riverside site.

Worth knowing

• The ice building stands for the winter season only.
• Confirm opening and closing dates with the hotel directly.
• Heated rooms in the riverside lodge are open year round.

Lainio Snow Village is a village of snow and ice built each winter near Ylläs in Finnish Lapland. Halls, a bar, a chapel and sleeping rooms are cut into snow raised over timber forms. The plan and the carving are drawn again for every season, so the layout of one winter does not describe the next.

Sleeping rooms hold ice beds with insulated bags, and the temperature inside stays below the outdoor swing. Warm cabins, a restaurant and washing facilities stand on the same site and are run by the same operator, which is where guests keep luggage and change.

Worth knowing

• Snow structures are seasonal and rebuilt for every winter.
• Ask the operator which halls stand this season.
• Warm cabins and washrooms are on the same site.

Above Zermatt, on a terrace reached by mountain lift, the operator raises a village of snow domes for the winter. It is a separate site of its own rather than a wing of a hotel in the town below. The domes are packed and shaped on the spot, and they are taken down or left to melt when the season closes.

Interiors are carved, and some domes are cut with reliefs while others stay plain. Sleeping is on insulated mats in expedition bags, described this way in the operator’s own material. A bar and a warm service building stand beside the domes, along with an outdoor hot tub.

Worth knowing

• Reached by mountain lift; check the last descent time.
• Domes are raised each winter and melt in spring.
• Ask the operator which buildings stand this season.

Snowman World sits on the operator’s own site at Rovaniemi, on the edge of the Arctic Circle. The igloo hotel is part of a wider winter park that also holds an ice restaurant and an ice bar. Snow and ice rooms are built for the season and cut again the following winter on a fresh plan.

Sleeping rooms are carved chambers with ice beds, hides and insulated bags, and washing facilities are in a heated building nearby. The same operator runs glass-roofed resort rooms on the site, which are heated and stay open outside the snow season.

Worth knowing

• Snow and ice rooms are open in the winter season only.
• Heated rooms and washrooms stand on the same site.
• Ask the operator to confirm this winter’s opening dates.