The new winter travel experience your Instagram has been waiting for

A new frozen attraction due to open at Coronet Peak in July is going to set Kiwi social media feeds on fire.

Ice Castles, a fairytale world of frozen caves, ice slides and towers, is being built entirely by hand using hundreds of thousands of icicles, which will be hand placed by professional ice artists. Visitors can explore the castles, tunnels and caves, and whizz down the slides made entirely from ice.

Ice Castles features caves, ice slides and frozen towers. Photo / A J Mellor

At night, the attraction is illuminated with colour-changing LED lights embedded inside the ice.

Ryan Davis, Ice Castles' CEO, says they are excited to bring the attraction to New Zealand. Already popular in six locations in North America and Canada, this will be the first time they have ventured to the Southern Hemisphere.

"With New Zealand's winter occurring during North America's summer, we are able to give more people around the world an inexpensive way to enjoy the outdoors together and freeze time with their families year round," Davis says.

Ice Castles is set to open at Coronet Peak in July. Photo / Bryan Rowland

Construction began on Coronet Peak in late May, with a projected opening date in early July. Tickets will be available soon at icecastles.com/new-zealand

Each ice castle is built by hand and takes thousands of man-hours to create. Each day, ice-artists must grow up to 12,000 icicles that are harvested by hand and individually sculpted.

Ice Castles was founded in Utah by Brent Christensen, a father of six who wanted to enjoy the outdoors with his family, even in winter. Creating an ice cave in his front yard, it was soon attracting more than just his own children, causing a stir in his neighbourhood.

Now, the six North American locations attract huge crowds, from Instagram travel bloggers, to Frozen fans re-enacting their inner Elsa, to couples posing for wedding photographs.

View this post on Instagram

She may not look like it here but you’ve never seen a a more star-struck two-year-old! The warm hug she gave them will melt those ice castles. Click the link in profile for some serious cuteness overload! #thisishowwebingham #frozen #icecastles #midwayicecastles @icecastles_

A post shared by This Is How We Bingham (@thisishowwebingham) on Feb 4, 2018 at 8:03am PST

View this post on Instagram

Now this is a legit Ice Castle! Crafted by hand using only icicles and water, ice castles feature tunnels, fountains or waterfall, slides and archways. Past castles have also had throne rooms. LEDs embedded in the ice light up the castle at night. In 2015, more than 20 workers started creating the cool curiosity at the end of November. They grew at least 10,000 icicles per day on racks using sprinklers, with hoses running 23 million litres of water from a fire hydrant. The chunks were then placed by hand on top of each other and fused in place with more sprinklers. How cool is that? . . . @_nancykh #fynches #giveexperiencesnotthings #giveexperiences #familyfun #icecastles #winterwonderland #frozen

A post shared by Fynches (@fynches) on May 23, 2018 at 9:46pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

Our fifth, and final winner is @rosymadephotography! Congratulations and thank you to everyone who participated in our #icphotocontest18!

A post shared by Ice Castles (@icecastles_) on Mar 16, 2018 at 7:38am PDT