Ice Castle

The website features a weekday schedule advertising ice princesses from 2 – 6 on the weekdays. The ONLY princesses pictured on the website are Anna and Elsa. Concessions are also advertised as available during business hours. I drove a full 30 minutes with an extremely excited four year old little girl to see the ice castle, the Frozen princesses as advertised and pictured and to have some hot chocolate as a treat. I am 38.5 weeks pregnant, so I thought this would be a really fun thing for us to do together before the arrival of the new baby.
When we got there at about 2:45, I asked about the Anna and Elsa appearances. I was told that the Ice Princess (some generic made up character) would be there soon and that the Frozen princesses would be there about 4:00 pm. We toured the Ice Castle, which is pretty, but I wouldn’t say spectacular and waited and waited. I asked numerous staff members about the appearances and either they didn’t know or told me Anna and Elsa were coming later. The staff members certainly didn’t even know who to ask. One staff member even said the whole set up was a «sh*t show» (his words, not mine) and he wasn’t surprised that I was unhappy with the attraction.
The so called Ice Princess eventually showed up and she told me that Anna and Elsa were only there on the weekends. When I went to talk to the woman working at the entrance again and told her this, she seemed flustered and not quite sure what to do. She at first tried to tell me I could purchase bounce back tickets. when I expressed anger over the suggestion that I should spend more money, she basically threw the tickets at me, I think to just get rid of me. I thought for sure a lead or manager would come talk to me, but nope. Oh, also, the concessions were not open the entire time we were there.
I did express my unhappiness with the attraction via the Ice Castle website feedback system. The response I received included no apology, no further information, no offer of repayment and no action plan of how they would avoid this bait and switch or unhappy experience for guests in the future. It only said that if I chose to visit again, they hoped I would have a better experience, which seemed rather dismissive and like extremely poor customer service to me.
The attraction is pretty, it’s ice, this is MN, so I liked it but I’m pretty familiar with ice in natural, beautiful formations. I would have held off until the weekend for a visit, if the website had included clearer and more accurate information. My daughter thought it was beautiful, but she was near to tears with disappointment over missing Anna and Elsa. You can pretty much see how pretty it is from the parking lot without paying the expensive admission.