Traditionally the center piece of Rockefeller Plaza between Lake Disney and Disney’s Hotel New York during the cold months of the year is the so called ”Rockefeller Rink” – an ice skating rink that guests enjoyed since 1992. So when the cart track (that in the recent years is the summer alternative) closed down and was taken down in early September (as reported) the work taking place behind hastily set up construction walls was certainly assumed to be the usually installation of the ice skating rink. However, that assumption turned out to be wrong, when the walls came down and the date of the official opening of the rink (last Saturday) arrived …
Traditional the “Rockefeller Rink” was a real ice rink – whichr equired according cooling systems underneath and regular preparation (with excess ice being dumped via a shute into Lake Disney). When the construction walls came down, however, the new rink turned out to be an artifical ice rink. I.e. the rink no longer uses real ice but consists of special plastic elements which “simulates” the experience of ice for skaters. Artificial ice rinks obviously require no colling thus reducing costs and the ecological footprint of the operation – plus allow for extended operating times into warmer months.
According to a report on the Spanish website CincoDÃas the new artifical Rockefeller rink at Disneyland Paris has been produced by the Spanish company Xtraice and apparently cost about 260,000 EUR – however, as stated above has comparable lower operational costs, should be reusuable repeatedly and has a much smaller ecological impact due to the no longer needed constant cooling.
As usual the ice rink is open to the public in the afternoon (2.30 pm till 6.30 pm) and the evening (7.30 pm till 10.00 pm) and requires a fee of 12.00 EUR (adults) respectively 9.00 EUR (children) including rental of ice skates for either time window. Guests staying in one of the Disney Hotels in the weeks leading up to the premiere of Mickey’s Winter Wonderland show may also want to take a close look at the rink during the morning hours as the cast of the show in the past years used to conduct its ice skating training on the rink as preparational work on the rink in the theater and for the stage sets continued.
Let us know what you think about the new artificial rink if you get a chance to try it at Disneyland Paris!
I was in DLP two weeks ago, and when leaving the frontierlandtrain station, i noticed there was something going on in the chaperal theater. I went to have a peak, and allthough the stage is not ready, the ice ring is. The cast was skating there.
[...] rink on the Rockefeller Plaza in front of Disney’s Hotel New York last winter (check out our report from last October for details) everything had been set up the first time ever for a year round operation of the [...]