Forty master ice artisans from Harbin, China, have begun hand-carving 7,000 blocks of ice into scenes from the 1964 television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa, kicking off a month of work on an attraction that will keep guests bundled in loaner parkas inside a tent chilled to 9 degrees Fahrenheit. The resort welcomed the carvers to San Antonio on Oct. 22, with the whole affair treated less like a construction project and more like a holiday kickoff party.
According to the San Antonio Express-News, the welcome included a performance by the USA Soaring Phoenix and Lion Dance Association, with lion dancing and drumming marking the artisans' arrival, while students from the International School of San Antonio sang Jingle Bells in Mandarin Chinese. The celebration closed with the unveiling of a small griffin sculpture and a ceremonial first ice chip, carved by project manager Wu Chang Qing. Resort general manager Doug Gennardo said the first chip symbolizes the start of something magical made possible by artistry, collaboration and community, the Express-News reported.
A Carver With Two Decades Of Practice
Among the artisans is Lianhai Wong, who has worked as an ice carver for more than 20 years and is one of those tasked with bringing Rudolph to life this time around, per the Express-News. Wong does not yet know which sculpture he will be assigned to carve, but speaking through translator Frances Kong, he said he would like to tackle King Moonracer, the winged lion who oversees the Island of Misfit Toys. Wong said he enjoys the process and feels a sense of accomplishment when a creative idea comes to life from a plain block of ice.
The attraction is part of a bigger holiday push happening nationwide. According to prnewswire.com, more than 300 master ice artisans from Harbin are fanning out across Gaylord Hotels and select JW Marriott properties this season, with eight different holiday-themed ice attractions running at resorts around the country. The release notes that artisans typically spend nearly 40 days sculpting thousands of ice blocks into displays spanning more than 20,000 square feet apiece, using specialized carving tools and 300-page design books. Gaylord Hotels created the ice-sculpture concept, first unveiling it in 2001 at Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tennessee, per the same release.
Rudolph Replaces Last Year's Frosty Theme
San Antonio's version follows a run of different holiday themes at the resort. The Express-News reports that JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country has hosted the ice series for three years, having made its Alamo City debut with How the Grinch Stole Christmas before last year's offering featured Frosty the Snowman. This year's Rudolph theme will fill a tent with life-sized sculptures, and according to ksat.com, the experience runs from Nov. 23, 2026, through Jan. 3, 2027, with the space kept at 9 degrees Fahrenheit throughout. KSAT also notes guests can enjoy tubing, snowball throwing, gingerbread decorating and holiday shopping as part of the broader Hill Country Christmas lineup, which the Express-News separately describes as including snowball fights, gingerbread decorating and storytelling from Mrs. Claus.
The resort's marketing and PR director, Nina Shokrian, told the Express-News that first-time visitors often struggle to grasp the scale of what they're walking into. She said it's difficult to imagine a two-story slide carved entirely from ice blocks until you're standing in front of one. Ticketholders are loaned parkas for their time inside the display, a detail echoed by sanantonio.culturemap.com, which adds that the finished attraction will use more than two million pounds of hand-carved ice across 11 immersive scenes, with frozen passageways connecting four two-story ice slides.
Comparing Notes With Florida's Version
A similar Rudolph-themed Ice! attraction opened at Gaylord Palms in Florida for the 2025-2026 season, running from Nov. 14, 2025, through Jan. 7, 2026. That display, detailed on gaylordhotels.com, also used 2 million pounds of carved ice and kept its environment at 9 degrees Fahrenheit, built by a team of 40 expert carvers from Harbin working for more than a month. Gaylord's version featured roughly a dozen scenes drawn from the 1964 stop-motion special and relied on about 6,700 ice blocks, each weighing 300 pounds, taking artisans approximately 35 to 40 days to finish the full carve.
Tickets for San Antonio's holiday activities must be purchased online in advance, since the resort has no on-site box office, according to jwhillcountrychristmas.com's FAQ page. The same page clarifies that guests do not need to book an overnight stay to buy tickets to the holiday events, since most activities are open to both day visitors and overnight guests.
