We booked the Aqua Relaxation Rooms experience, which allows you 5 hours to enjoy all the facilities that these rooms have to offer. On entering the spa we were given a tour of the facilities and given some useful tips on some of the warmer rooms. We were then shown through to the smallest changing rooms I’ve ever seen with limited number of lockers and standing room. The lockers required a pound coin (refundable) to open and inside we found a clean white robe, slippers and a towel each.

We then made our way back through to the spa area to explore fully. At 10am we were the only 2 in there, which was great as it felt very peaceful with gentle relaxing music playing in the background. We started off in the very relaxing Jacuzzi, situated next to an adequate sized pool, which was a little shallow but still swimmable. The pool leads straight into a large whirlpool area which didn’t really do very much as none of the jets worked! The foot reflexology baths were fun. You place your feet into the warm water and they are then lightly pummeled and massaged by the underwater jets, which I did find invigorating. There are two sauna rooms which were both pleasant with lots of room inside, and large multi sensory showers to help cool off in after. My favourite 2 areas were the crystal steam room which had large comfortable seats, and a gorgeous eucalyptus smell and the meditation room which was a dimly lit room with twinkling lights on the ceiling and lovely heated loungers to relax on. As we'd pretty much been round all the rooms we decided to chill out in the Conservatory area in front of the pool. There was a large complimentary bowl of fruit (nice touch) and hot and cold drinks to choose from which you had to pay for. We picked up a couple of magazines each and retired to the sun loungers in the Conservatory, which weren’t very relaxing as they were hard and uncomfortable. By now the spa area was getting very busy (12pm) and noisy and there didn’t seem enough room for everyone, with some women even queuing to wait for our loungers!

We went back through to the now very cramped changing rooms, even though there were only 5 of us in there! This area really lets the spa down, there is only 1 toilet, which also had a queue, 2 showers which have seen better days and only 2 hairdryers. I had been feeling beautifully relaxed before I had to get changed in here.

I don’t think I’ll be coming again. Although the spa area itself is lovely it’s a lot smaller than most spas I’ve visited and doesn’t really have any more facilities than I’d find in my local health club. If you’re coming for a day at the theme park, or staying over in the hotel and fancy some time out to relax then I think it’s probably fine as it was only £18.50 each for a 5 hour session but I definitely don’t think it’s worth traveling all the way up to Alton Towers (which is very difficult to get to if you don't have a car) just for the spa itself. There are so many better places to go.