Royal Day Spa in Tunbridge Wells was apparently voted best day spa in the UK by the Professional Beauty Awards 2009 and shortlisted for the West Kent Business Excellence Awards 2009 in the Tourism and Leisure category. Rewards are well and good but there is nothing like an actual experience which allows you to judge how good a spa is.

As I mentioned in an earlier post Sandra gave me a day at the Royal Day Spa for my birthday. It also included a 55-minute treatment which involved a Ko Bi Do facial and hot stone back massage. Use of the facilities at Royal Day Spa is called a confusing “Royal Password.” Basically a Royal Password gives you full use of the spa facilities throughout the day – facilities which include a gym, a pool, a sauna, a steam room, a jacuzzi, and bedroom with a giant bed!

In addition to the facilities the Spa also offers a number of classes throughout the day but as we went on a Sunday the morning classes (there are normally three or four offered) were replaced by a Brunch! So instead of working out we got to sit around on giant beanbags and indulge in orange juice, pastries, toast and cereal … even if we’d already had a not fried fry up for breakfast. Ha ha!

We thought that we’d spend the whole day at the Royal Day Spa so we booked our treatments for the end of the day and arrived at Tunbridge Wells for about 10.30. In hindsight this was probably a bit longer than we needed at the spa but at the time it felt extremely relaxing indeed.

So, this is how our day looked at the Royal Day Spa: Brunch, Swimming, Jacuzzi, Sauna, Swimming, Jacuzzi, snooze in the Bedroom, Brunch, Swimming, Jacuzzi, Steam Room, Swimming, Jacuzzi, snooze in the Bedroom, Sauna, Jacuzzi, shower, Gymball class, 55-minute treatment. Or something to that effect. Basically we ended up using most facilities a few times each! Heh heh.

We spent most of our time in the Jacuzzi which was moor mud infused whatever that means. It wasn’t literally filled with mud but clearly had the benefit of the minerals from the moor mud and was meant not only to be relaxing but help with your skin. We loved it! The other thing we fell in love with was the bedroom – I have never lain on anything so perfectly comfortable. The mattress was soft and hard at the same time. I could have slept there all day.

The great thing about the Royal Day Spa is the fact that it was never overly crowded. I understand that there are local members who come here to use the facilities like it was their local gym but they were few and far between today. At any one time there was only ever a few people in the people, a few in the Jacuzzi, a couple in the steam room/sauna and a few in the bedroom and as we all sort of moved in a routine circular manner you never had to wait really to use whatever you wanted to. Overall the most people I saw an any one time was probably eight – and that was in the pool room which had the pool, the Jacuzzi, the sauna and the steam room!

Although our treatment was not a full body massage the hot stone massage combined with the facial was amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever had a deeper more satisfying massage of my back. Not unexpectedly I think I fell asleep halfway through it! The strange thing was that my masseuse didn’t really exert that much pressure yet it felt like a very deep massage. Once we were done it was all I could do to stand up! And by the time I got home I was ready for bed though I’m thinking that was a combination of the whole day and the treatment.

The Royal Day Spa wasn’t perfect – for example we were supposed to have a half hour gymball (or fitball) class but our instructor was about 15 minutes late and as we had a treatment soon after the class we only fit in about ten minutes. However, that’s not to say it wasn’t challenging. He had us doing all sorts of things which I’m keen to try out … if only I had space for a giant fitball in the shoebox! I also thought the changing rooms were a bit small and not particularly well laid out. If there were more than four women in the changing rooms (which strangely happened quite a lot) it got quite crowded. Oh, yea, they only give you one towel for the day. We’re not sure if you could have requested more but water got absolutely everywhere – which could have been avoided if they’d at least given you two towels – one for the pool and one for your shower.

Otherwise it was a lovely way to spend the day.