I recently escaped all my responsibilities for a spa day and overnight stay at Sopwell House in St Albans and thought it was the perfect thing to re-ignite my blog writing spark for a review. It’s been a while, but if there’s one thing I love to experience and share it would be spa time and treatments.
UK Spa Escape
This was actually my second visit to Sopwell House. I previously visited in 2020 for a two night trip with my husband for our anniversary. We actually only ended up staying one night as the spa was fully booked which meant we couldn’t book any treatments at all so decided to cut it short. However, the spa facilities were gorgeous and I knew I wanted to go back. So when a spa day and escape from mum life was offered up (as a lovely Mother’s Day gift) I jumped at the chance.
I booked the one night spa escape which includes spa access to The Club at Cottonmill as well as the standard Cottonmill spa facilities. Sopwell House has two ‘levels’ of spa – the standard Cottonmill and the Club at Cottonmill. The Club at Cottonmill is the multi-million pound refurb/spa extension that is a spa/private members area. It has top class facilities including beautiful spa gardens, deep relaxation space and whisper rooms. Plus spa gardens, outdoor hot tubs, indoor-outdoor spa pool. Overall it offers two floors of relaxing spa space with steam rooms, saunas and the like. All hotel guests get access to the main pool area (Cottonmill) as standard, but to access the The Club at Cottonmill you need to either pay the extra rate or book as part of your stay package. I believe the extra rate is around £150 for the day, but we’ve always booked packages with it included.
The room rate also included a three course dinner, and breakfast. Spa access is from midday on check in day to 11am on the check out day.
Any treatments are additional cost and I seriously recommend booking well in advance as on our first visit we hadn’t done this and there was no availability at all at check in. In hindsight an obvious error, but having booked the trip on the phone I felt like a heads up to also book spa treatments from the booking staff would have been helpful and good customer service.
This time around I booked a massage treatment, an hour long Aromatherapy Associates muscle relax treatment to try and pummel out all the tension I was holding. Let’s be honest, I needed more than an hour but that hour was great. The therapist did all the right things, talking me through the treatment and asking for pressure preferences and checking comfort levels etc. I can’t fault the treatments experience.
The other area I can’t fault is the changing rooms. It may seem fairly niche but the changing room experience really does tell you a lot about the spa you’re arriving at. The thing that caught my eye? The Dyson hairdryers. I love a Dyson hairdryer, they really are ace and it’s rare but welcome to see them in a communal changing room scenario. The lockers are decent sized and they have a selection of basics on offer for use – deodorant etc. The sort of things you know you need but easily forget. A good touch.
What are the major selling points of the spa?
Well, the Cottonmill spa space is just beautiful, both indoor and outdoor. For the outdoor area, of course the space can only be used in good weather but luckily that was the case and to be fair – when I previously visited in August 2020, we still used the outdoor hot tubs in the rain as no way was I missing out on some of the experience for a bit of bad weather.
There are three outdoor hot tubs, plus a number of outdoor sun lounger and sofa spaces. For a good weather day, there’s a lot of space to be enjoyed. Don’t forget your suncream if you’re planning to spend time outside when visiting.
Indoors, there’s also a fairly decent amount of space. A mixture of day beds, some hanging chairs that look great but not all that comfortable to actually sit on. On our August 2020 visit, they were some of the only options as all other spaces were full. Instagram friendly, not spa-nap friendly.
On this visit, it was much less busy so space to relax wasn’t an issue at all. You can also get drinks brought to your table/bed which is a nice perk. Using a QR code where you can pay using your phone easily.
Where did Sopwell House fall short of expectations?
Overall, the staff were great but there were a couple of issues where it comes to food service. I had three meals at Sopwell House. One in the Greenhouse space, one in the Brasserie and one (breakfast) booked as room service. All three meals took a long time to be served. Something I did raise with the front desk as I checked out. Honestly when it comes to service I always like to be pretty patient with it as long as any delays/issues are communicated but when it happened over and over each time, my patience started to wear thin. My biggest niggle with it was A) Every time I had to chase, when I was waiting 45minutes to an hour for food to be served – no staff realised or checked and B) It was all time I lost from being in the spa!
For additional transparency on my experience: I mentioned I raised the food service delays at checkout – I was told someone would come back to me to follow up. It’s now been two weeks since my stay and nobody has followed up as yet.
No, it’s not the biggest issue but it is something I feel they need to be aware of and look at how they can manage. I was told it was because they had a wedding on. I was also told by the assistant manager they have multiple weddings on every weekend from now until September. So if you’re visiting in that period it’s something to be aware of. As honestly, an hour wait for food to be delivered (especially in scenarios like breakfast where a 15 minute window is selected for the food to arrive – but then it was chased twice and didn’t arrive until an hour later) is longer than I think is acceptable.
ANYWAY. I really don’t want the food service niggles to overshadow the overall positive experience of escaping to a beautiful spa for a relaxing headspace break. The spa really is beautiful, even if some of the wider service issues do let Sopwell House down.
I think having now visited twice, I would perhaps look elsewhere for an overnight spa break and consider the service hiccups if planning food there too. However as a space and treatment wise, it was thoroughly enjoyable. A sunny day at the Cottonmill Spa would be hard to beat. Perhaps one that’s more suited to a day time spa escape than the full overnight stay experience.
How much does Sopwell House Cost?
Cost of overnight spa break: £375
Cost of 60 minute treatment: £115
Additional extras: Around £50 for all additional food and drinks for one person.
All above treatments and costs paid for by myself.