Holiday entertainment in 2020 is different this year, however, we were able to experience some festive fun at I Love Christmas Movies at Gaylord Rockies.
Disclosure: We were hosted by Gaylord of the Rockies. All opinions are my own.
I Love Christmas Movies at Gaylord Rockies
Last year we were able to spend a fun day exploring Gaylord Rockies and their ICE event. We had a really wonderful time and decided that we would for sure make this our yearly tradition. This year we were invited back to experience their I Love Christmas Movies event.
When we arrived to Gaylord Rockies the hotel was decorated in their holiday best. They switched up the decorations a bit from last year and added a lot of really interactive yet socially distanced activities for people to enjoy and get in the holiday spirit. I personally love the great hall at Gaylord. The water features, the large Christmas tree, the lights, the train and bridge. It is just so pretty.
Activities to Experience
We were able to check out the vast majority of everything that Gaylord Rockies had to offer for the holidays. We attended both a media night preview and a hosted stay and that did allow us a bit more time to experience it all. I would recommend that you book at least 2 days to see it all, however, it could for sure be completed in just one FULL day.
Brunch with Charlie Brown
The majority of dining inside Gaylord Rockies is closed, however, you are currently able to book a very distanced brunch with the Charlie Brown characters. The brunch requires tickets but inside you are escorted to a table and then able to go to various stations to grab either breakfast, lunch, salads, omelets or even dessert!
During the brunch Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy and Linus are hanging out on their own little stages for you to walk up and take photos with. It was a nice way to bring in that classic Charlie Brown holiday fun to the whole event.
I Love Christmas Movies
The main event is obviously Gaylord Rockies massive display and interactive experience “I Love Christmas Movies“, featuring 15 scenes from 5 popular holiday movies. Elf, The Polar Express, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story and A Year Without Santa Claus.
Some advice for those that are going to this event. Your ticket time is the time you are allowed to enter the line to wait, not the time that you enter the display. The wait is about an hour from the time that you enter the line on a busy weekend. During the week, it might be much less of a wait. There are signs on the floor to keep people in their social distanced spaces, but it was still a longer wait than we had anticipated.
It is really nice to walk through and snap pictures of the movie scenes which were very well done. There is some laughter and fun and interactive pieces and we really enjoyed getting to step into the scenes and relive the stories from the inside. It is by no means ICE, but it is still impressive and fun and we enjoyed having some photo opportunities with the characters and props.
Mistletoe Village
Mistletoe Village is the central location to the majority of the Gaylord Rockies holiday experience. In the village you can shop in their holiday store, build-a-bear and even grab some sweet treats and holiday drinks. There is also Mrs. Claus traditions where you sing songs, read books and then walk out with a tasty cookie and milk. You can also visit Santa, grab a scavenger hunt booklet for Snoopy’s scavenger hunt and listen to a Sugary Sweet Storytime.
In addition, you can build a gingerbread house and have a little visit with Mr. Gingerbread man while listening to some holiday music as well. All of these events are ticketed with specific entrance times so make sure to space things out and give yourself enough time to visit.
Outdoor Experiences
The outdoor fun that Gaylord Rockies has set up really is awesome. A massive snow tubing hill, ice skating rink, snow merry-go-round, ice bumper cars and a beautiful holiday lights display. My personal favorite was the ice skating. I grew up roller skating which is completely different than ice skating but I still love to lace up my skates and take on a challenge.
They also had these awesome whales that they were cleaning between users for people to use to both learn to skate and to put the little people on to enjoy a bit more time. If we asked my husband and kids what they loved the most they would say that the tubing hill and the ice bumper cars. However, we can all agree that the light display was amazing.
There is a long walking path completely covered in the most stunning LED lights and various displays like the lanterns you see above. It was just magic and probably our favorite part of the entire experience. So calming, so fun and so pretty.
Silent Disco
For guest staying at the hotel, you can also enjoy a fun little silent disco. My husband and I knew we were taking the kids to experience this because we had been to one before and we truly enjoyed it. If you do not know what a silent disco is, it is a dance party where guests are given headsets with three channels of music playing. They can then put the headphones on whatever station they prefer and then dance along
Our kids were having the best time, dancing, singing and running around. We also watched some adults just letting loose and you could for sure tell that they missed their clubbin years. I swear I have not laughed that hard all year. So much fun.
I Love Christmas Movies at Gaylord Rockies was a really nice time. I would recommend booking your experiences during the week if you can to cut down on crowds. Weekends are of course going to be much busier than a weekday. Click here to check out more details on the events and tickets.
