The Spa at Gleneagles

When you get a call out of the blue from a family member asking you if you can use a voucher for 2 spa treatments at Gleneagles Hotel …. there really is only one answer. Eh … Yes! The next two questions were more tricky however… when can I go and worse still …how do I choose who should come with me! Not sticking my head in the sand or anything, I went for sending out a text to four girlfriends that said the first person to reply would get to come to “a” spa with me for a massage or facial. The winner replied back in a speed that would do her well in University Challenge or Family Fortunes! Thankfully the others are still speaking to me!

Gleneagles SPa

On ” G” Day we abandoned our children with their fathers and headed off on our hour long journey to Gleneagles Hotel. Great excitement. I had not been at Gleneagles for well over 10 years ago. In fact the last time I was there was with one of the aforementioned invited girlfriends. We still reminisce about our lovely trip back then. How good our food was …. we had the burgers … stupendous … potentially the best ever!! How gorgeous our room was …. we got upgraded to a massive suite and we obviously did an OK style photo shoot so we could show/boast to the rest of our friends …. still got the photos but she would kill me to show them on here! And finally how amazing our breakfast was … that hot chocolate still springs to mind! Gleneagles did not disappoint then and to be honest, I had a feeling my trip to The Spa today was not going to disappoint either.

Eventually we got to The Spa. Can I just say how lovely it is to have Spa Reception staff who are genuinely smiley! …. and not in a saccharin kind of way. We were checked in …. minor scary moment when our reservation could not be found but it was just a name typo… phew as there could well have been tears. We were then given a tour of the facilities and we instantly felt relaxed …. but at the same time excited to get our things left in our lockers and changed into the big fluffy white robes for the rest of the day.

The Spa at Gleneagles is not what I expected in terms of space. I am trying to think how best to describe it…. for a Spa that has 20 treatment rooms you could expect it to feel massive and clinical …. but it didn’t. Everything was in easy access from the changing rooms to the relaxation room to the hydro therapies and heat treatments. It was dark, warm, ambient and relaxing …. there is that word again!

We decided to get some food first so we could then enjoy the rest of the day. We fluffy robed ourselves up and headed to the Deseo Spa Cafe. First point …. I would like to note that I love the fact they have Wine on the Spa menu …. under Antioxidant Wines …. genius! There is a Spa food menu which is healthy, nutrient filled and looked lovely …. however we were not massively hungry and felt the Spa food menu was more expensive than what we needed. We were offered the main Deseo Menu by our lovely waiter, Lee. One fresh cleansing fruit juice and some tasty and reasonably priced tapas style dishes later we were ready to head to explore the rest of the Spa.

(Massive thanks to Gleneagles for providing the two pictures above. One of the difficulties of reviewing spas is that there are often other people trying to relax at the same time as you want to take pictures … making it difficult to take pictures in certain areas!)You can choose to go between the crystal steam room, tepidarium beds, hot sauna, vitality pool with neck showers, Arctic mist shower and tropical shower before using the ice rub. After all this exertion we decided to head to the Relaxation Room where we could sip on some green tea or fresh infused water, eat some fruit and nuts and fall asleep on the comfy reclining beds. As you can tell we had an extremely arduous time!

As relaxing as it was …. so relaxing…. such a treat! …. we could not wait for our massages. I am rarely early to anything …. but we rocked up to the Courtyard Garden early to wait to be met by our therapists. That day I was lucky enough to have Allana. She was superb. The treatment rooms were bigger than I expected …. sadly I was so chilled out I actually forgot to take my camera to take a picture of the room! My massage started and even though my neck and back were needing a firm massage … joys of working on a PC…. it was still bliss. I am a bit of a talker…. just in case you had not realised …. and I spent most of the 55 minutes in a great conversation with Allana finding out more about the Spa and also learning more about other treatments on offer. Before I arrived that day, I had been on the website to read up on what was available, but I had no idea exactly what Espa Life was. It is now on my to do list to come back to Gleneagles and try this out. This makes Gleneagles more than just a first class award winning Spa, there is a whole other level of alternative therapies that I was delighted to hear about from Reiki to Naturopathic Practitioners to colonic therapy to wellness tests to cranial sacral therapy and so much more. This is how to personalise your spa to your body, wellness and health. Love it!! Let me sign up now!

Gleneagles Spa

My thoughts on leaving The Spa at Gleneagles were fairly simple. I expected this Spa to be good, but it was more than good. The treatments we had were sublime. The staff were genuinely lovely. For a large hotel, every single staff member that I came across was first class! My Massage …. I want to go back …. I want another one. So good. Relaxing…. most definitely. And we felt relaxed. Given that we went to The Spa on a Sunday in January, I was really surprised how relaxing it was. I expected it to feel really busy but you did not feel like you were one of a production line of visitors.

Gleneagles Spa