Writing, fatshion, me: Night Away at Thorpe Park Hotel

For my birthday in January Sam, Jacqui and Jodie bought me a spabreaks.com voucher, which was a great present as I love going to a spa. I decided to leave it until after we had moved house, and then I booked myself a night at Thorpe Park Hotel near Leeds. I went once for a meal for a friend's hen party back in 2012, but I had never been to the spa or stayed over. A lot of people rave about it, so I was looking forward to trying it. I booked a night with a food allowance, plus access to the spa, by myself. Lee wanted me to take him but no, I wanted to be by myself!

I had high expectations and sadly the hotel didn't meet them. There were a few reasons why. I was in touch with them before my arrival and was told my spa access was only from 3pm when it was check in, which was a bit disappointing because I would have liked to go earlier for a longer time. I ordered some chocolates for myself for the room in the emails, too. I set off about 2.15pm after I'd had brunch with Lee and Sam, and got there about 3pm.

There was the first problem - there were tons of people checking in at that time and the queue was really long and there was one member of staff. I had to stand in a queue for ages, which is very painful for me. I finally got up to the room at about 3.25. This of course cut into my spa time even more, which was annoying.

The room was lovely - the bathroom had a lovely shower and lovely products in it, and the room had a huge bed and a sofa area. The wardrobes had a dressing gown and a sleep kit in which were both nice touches. There was a fridge and a coffee machine and a kettle for tea. I couldn't work the coffee machine which was annoying, but they did have decaf coffee. But they didn't have my chocolates! So I phoned down for them and someone brought them straight away which was good, but I was a bit annoyed that they weren't there when I checked in.

I put my swimming costume on and went down to the spa in the dressing gown (which was nice and big!) about 3.35 and went in. There's a pool which isn't huge but is nice and warm, and it's big enough to swim in. At one edge there's a big quiet room, which looked lovely but I didn't go in it. At another edge there is a sauna and a steam room and a shower. On the third edge is another relaxation area and a hot tub. The hot tub is quite big but I didn't feel it was big enough for the number of people in the spa. There were people in the hotel in there of course, but it's also a place you can belong to to use, so there were a lot of people around even for a Sunday evening. It took me a while to actually get into the hot tub because it was so busy.

I swapped between the pool, the hot tub, and the steam room, and it was nice. I sat and read my book for a bit too. But it maybe wasn't the amazingly relaxed time I had envisioned. There was a bit of a fracas between a man and a woman and her children. They didn't know each other and I'm not entirely sure what the man thought the woman and her children were doing but he was quite rude to her, it was weird.

I got out of the spa at about 6.30 and went back up to my room. I couldn't work the TV which was annoying - it turned out there were two remote controls - so I had a shower before I went down to the restaurant. I had booked my table for 7.30 so got down just before then. I knew I would be sitting by myself and it was fine - I had gone prepared with my book. The restaurant is nice but the service was sloooow. I had French onion soup and halloumi curry which was bizarre, I should have gone for something else. Alongside I had a lovely glass of red wine. I might have ordered some pudding but no one came to ask me, and I got fed up, so I just excused myself to the staff and went back up to my room. I had some biscuits in there anyway. But again, it's just something else I was bothered by.

I got the TV working and watched some rubbish TV while I got into bed and relaxed. I ended up going to sleep really late because I was finishing my book!

In the morning I got up and got packed up and everything and headed down to breakfast at about 9.30 I think. I wasn't that impressed with the breakfast. It was a buffet and there wasn't a lot of veggie options and there were no pastries left. There was also no decaf coffee which is extremely annoying in such a hotel! I ordered some veggie sausages which took ages to come, and I got some bits from the buffet and took a seat. Someone brought some more pastries out so I grabbed a couple. It was fine, but again just not as good as I was expecting.

I went and packed all my things up and checked out early because I wanted to go to craft club for the last hour or something, so I left about 10am even though check out wasn't until eleven. I then ran into the final problem. As I said, I had a meal allowance of £30 included in the booking I had made, and I had spent about that, plus my glass of wine, so I knew I had to pay for the wine. However the girl on reception said the bill was about £40 and I was just like ....nope. I pulled up my email and she did try to argue with me about it. But I paid for the wine and left!

I really think that as it's a four star hotel it should just be better than it is! The service just wasn't what I would expect! But hey, I did have a good time and enjoyed my little trip by myself.