Ice Castles now under construction at Geneva National Resort & Club, set to open late December or early January

LAKE GENEVA -- Construction is officially underway in Lake Geneva for this year's Ice Castles. A news release says crews started growing and harvesting icicles earlier this week to create the acre-sized attraction at Geneva National Resort & Club.

Over the next several weeks, ice artisans will grow and harvest up to 10,000 icicles each day to build the winter experience. Each of those icicles is then hand-placed and sprayed with water. The process is repeated until the castles reach heights of around 30 feet.

The Utah-based company behind the attraction anticipates the Lake Geneva location will open in late December or early January. Exact opening dates are weather dependent.

The news release says the team of ice artisans in Lake Geneva will spend a combined 4,000 hours this season dripping, shaping, and hand-placing the icicles, while embedding the structures with color-changing LED lights to create a life-size fairytale playground.

Ice Castles features ice-carved slides, tunnels, fountains, crawl spaces, and towers of cascading waterfalls. For those interested in reserving tickets early, presale vouchers are available at icecastles.com/wisconsin until midnight.