Carden Park has long been one of the UK’s best spa hotels – in fact, just in September it was named Spa Hotel of the Year… again.
In the last 12 months its shelves have begun to groan under the weight of all the awards it’s accumulating, with its fine dining restaurant The Vines at Carden earning a third AA Rosette, placing it within the top 10% of venues in the UK.
And now Carden Park has unveiled the first phase of its £6.5m refurbishment, boosting its status even further with smart new bedrooms decorated in soft hues of blue and gold.
Carden Park is famed for its golfing and its outdoor pursuits, as well as its outdoor garden spa (we are very much here for the latter).
The luxury spa opened back in 2020, and features staggering features like a vitality pool, heated relaxation beds, Finnish sauna, a salt steam room, an aroma steam room, aroma showers, and a beautiful bio sauna with panoramic windows overlooking the hotel’s sweeping grounds.
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And that’s just the indoor spa at Carden Park – I’m just getting started.
Carden Park’s indoor poolThe Finnish sauna at Carden ParkThe indoor pool at night
Its crowning glory is its outdoor garden spa, where footpaths weave between sunken hot tubs and heated thermal pods.
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There’s an outdoor pool, also heated, with body massagers built in, and the sight of the steam rising from the pool over the frosty lawns is one for sore eyes and limbs.
From the all-weather Bollinger champagne bar, you can order a mulled wine or a glass of fizz, to sip around the fire pit or on a sun lounger (maybe not the latter at this time of year).
There’s also a panoramic herbal lounge, with sweeping views of the 1000 acre estate at Carden Park.
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A panoramic herbal loungeThe fire pitThe Bollinger Bar at Carden Park SpaCarden Park’s outdoor poolA heated outdoor pod with Carden Park in the background.
A current package running until the new year – the Comfort & Joy Spa Experience – includes access to this incredible spa as well as a 50 minute ‘Time to Pause’ treatment.
Here, your sore muscles are scrubbed and loosened before you flip over for an invigorating facial, using cold stones to cool, soothe and drain toxins from your face.
It’s one of the most thorough and efficient treatments I’ve had at a spa and will leave you feeling pampered, relaxed and invigorated all at once.
The Comfort and Joy Spa Experience package also includes overnight accommodation, dinner in either restaurant, breakfast, a mulled wine or hot chocolate, and loads more.
A refurbished bedroom at Carden ParkThe view from the refurbished bedroomsA refurbished bedroom en suite at Carden Park
And back across at the main hotel, Carden Park’s 197 rooms are slowly being refurbished and crafted into luxury spaces with plenty of British details.
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From the premium beds to the huge marble bathrooms, you’ll want to stay forever.
While The Vines at Carden might be the hotel’s more lavish restaurant, its Redmond’s Brasserie is also exceptional, with a menu full of British dishes including steaks, pies, and puddings.
This is also where guests head for breakfast, where there’s a full buffet of hot food, continental items and even a pancake-making machine.
The bar upstairs at the Carden Park spaDinner at Redmond’s BrasserieRedmond’s Brasserie
And after your breakfast, you can stroll around the hotel’s magnificent grounds, where there’s a vineyard, tennis courts, a lake, and a full sculpture park.
Director and general manager of Carden Park Hotel Hamish Ferguson said of the new refurbishments: “The overhaul of our hotel bedrooms marks a significant chapter in Carden Park Hotel’s journey.
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“We are thrilled to embark on this exciting project to enhance our luxury accommodation, reinforcing our commitment to providing an exceptional and rejuvenating experience for our guests.
“Sustainability has been at the forefront of all previous renovations at the hotel, and we endeavour to continue this trajectory in all future transformation projects.”
The Comfort and Joy Spa Experience at Carden Park
A morning garden spa experience between 9am and 1pm (8.30am arrival)
Overnight luxury accommodation
A divine 50-minute Time-to-Pause ritual treatment; including back exfoliation and calming facial. Learn more about the treatment here.
£30 dinner allowance to be used in either Redmond’s Brasserie or The Vines (Thursday only) – Cheshire’s award-winning fine dining restaurant
Full English and Continental breakfast included in your stay
Access to the hotel state-of-the-art leisure club and 20-metre pool
Either a mulled wine or luxury hot chocolate included in your spa experience
EasyJet is paying for passports for newborns to help families take their first holidays
Daisy Jackson
EasyJet has announced a new scheme where the airline will cover the cost of a baby’s first passport, allowing young families to take those memorable first holidays.
The company has announced that it will pay for a child’s passport (£66.50) when parents book an EasyJet holiday, making it a little easier to start those travel adventures sooner.
Research conducted by the airline and easyJet Holidays has found that 75% of parents agree the move would make a holiday with a baby feel a bit more affordable.
Their surveys also found that four in five parents believe a baby’s first holiday is a landmark family moment, and more than half called it one of their proudest parenting milestones.
But parents also said that they needed an average of four attempts to get an approved passport photo of their baby (have you tried making a newborn follow instructions…?).
easyJet holidays has reported – even this early in the year – a 10% increase in infants travelling this year compared to 2025.
And now, the thought of a holiday with your newborn is more tempting than ever, with the offer to get a free passport for your baby from easyJet.
To claim it, and save £66.50, you can use the code FIRSTPASSPORT until 26 November – find out more HERE.
easyJet Captain Kate West, said: “We carry millions of families across Europe every year, and we know that travelling with a baby brings a whole series of exciting firsts.
“We want to make travel as easy and accessible as possible for everyone, including young families, so they can enjoy all the experiences and memories that travel can bring.
“We hope that covering the cost of a baby’s first passport goes a small way towards making that first family adventure a little easier and gives our youngest travellers a warm welcome to the world.”
Stuart Wright, Customer Director at easyJet holidays, said: “Travel has a unique way of bringing families together, and a baby’s very first holiday is often one of those moments parents remember for years to come.
“By covering the cost of a baby’s first passport, we’re helping more families start making those memories that little bit sooner.”
Chester Zoo welcomes The Traitors stars Claudia and Alan – but it’s not what you think
Lydia Mastrolonardo
No, Chester Zoo isn’t keeping actual Claudia Winkleman and Alan Carr in enclosures – everybody stand down.
The zoo is in fact welcoming its first pair of hooded vultures, to hopefully boost the critically endangered species, and they just so happen to be named after some of our favourite celebrities from The Traitors.
As famous as Alan Carr and Claudia Winkleman are, these two give them a run for their money, as the first of their kind to ever come to Chester Zoo – making them pretty big celebs in the animal kingdom.
The pair of vultures are currently nestling in to their new home, alongside their new white-headed vulture roommates, at the Heart of Africa aviary. It is here that conservationists are hoping the newly bonded pair will start a family, as part of a Europe-wide breeding programme, to help safeguard their species from extinction – no pressure or anything.
Bird Keeper Heather-Anne Pedley said: “Alan and Claudia came to us from the Horstmann Trust, a conservation breeding centre for vultures, where they are an established breeding pair. We named them after Traitors stars Alan Carr and Claudia Winkelman, because what better way to reflect how funny and engaging they are, than to name them after two national treasures?
“Nobody prepared me for how much I would fall in love with them, their antics and characters. They look like they’ve just put a hood up, and they have this beautiful blue ring around their eyes, like natural eyeliner.”
Alan and Claudia, Chester Zoo’s new vultures. Credit: Chester Zoo
Hooded vultures are distinctive with dark brown feathers, a buff ‘hood’ and a bald face and throat, with wingspans of up to 180cm. They are native to west, central and southern Africa, where they typically pick up their lunch by soaring over the land, looking for carcasses to feed upon as part of ‘nature’s clean-up crew.’
It’s not all gore though, they are very active, clever and interested in their environment. The couples are monogamous, will preen each other, gently touch each other’s bills and co-build nests – quite the romantics.
Heather-Anne added: “This pair are real love birds, and we are hopeful they’ll go on to breed. Any youngsters they go on to have will become part of a European conservation breeding programme, helping to create an insurance population for this incredibly rare species.
“In the wild, vultures help prevent zoonotic diseases – illnesses that can spread between species – because their stomach acid is so strong they can eat decaying meat that other animals would not be able to digest. This helps prevent the spread of diseases like anthrax and botulism into the soil.”
Despite their crucial role across various ecosystems, vulture numbers are declining and they are now sadly classified as critically endangered, according to the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species.
This decline is driven by mid-air collisions or accidental electrocution by scanning the ground for prey whilst perched on uninsulated power lines. These birds are also at risk of being poisoned or even hunted to facilitate an unsustainable demand for vulture body parts and eggs to be used in traditional medicine and rituals, while there is no scientific evidence to support this use.
We are really rooting these two and hope that they settle into their new home.
Daisy Jackson -
5th December 2024 
