Galgorm Resort & Spa | Travel Review | Discover N.Ireland

This weekend Emily Hartridge and I took a short 1 hour flight from London Heathrow to Belfast City in Northern Ireland to visit this incredible place - Galgorm Resort & Spa. The Galgorm Resort & Spa caters for a wide variety of events including weddings, special relaxing spa weekends away, country walks, epic scenery, an onsite 9-hole pitch & putt golf course and promises to have you rejuvenated and relaxed for when you return to normal life. 

The Galgorm Resort & Spa is located in Ballymena in Co. Antrim which is a 30 minute drive from Belfast City airport or only 15 minutes outside of Belfast International Airport, which actually makes the location remote enough to feel like you are miles away from everyday life but close enough to make it into a special weekend away from London.

On arriving at the resort, we checked in to our Riverside View Deluxe Room, which was incredible by the way. The bed was super comfortable, we had a balcony which over looked the spa and the river, the room had everything you would need for a weekend away.

It was time to explore the grounds and what a marvellous setting it was.

I booked myself in for a Men's Indulgent 55 minute treatment, which consisted of a facial, shoulder massage and head massage - you can view a full list of their treatments here. Although if you are new to spa treatments I would recommend this one which was so relaxing it is hard not to fall asleep! 

The staff in the whole resort couldn't have been more attentive, knowledgable and genuinely lovely...they really made our stay at the resort extra special. 

I've recently been to a couple of Spa's and thought very highly of them, although now I have been and experienced some of what Galgorm has to offer, it makes all the other spas seem pretty average to be honest. I mean I can't write down how incredible it was...seriously check it out.

That evening, we headed out to 'Gilles Bar & Grill' which is one of the local onsite restaurants at the resort. The other choices are The River Room Restaurant, Fratelli or they also host afternoon tea, I mean, there really is no need to go outside of the resort!

After an amazing nights sleep, it was day 2. A day for us to experience the Thermal Spa Village, the Riverside Private Tubs and the Celtic Sauna. A day of perfect relaxation. 

I got up early to a crisp sunny day and the resort had a moody, mysterious, misty feel to it and made for some beautiful pictures. 

We could use the Thermal Spa Village throughout the day which had plenty of swimming pools, saunas, hot-tubs, steam rooms for everyone to use. To get to the Thermal Spa area, you have to get changed into your robes and slippers, which is all provided by the resort. The changing rooms are fully equipped with lockers, shower gel, hair dryers, shaving stuff, deodorant - so just bring yourself and the rest is taken care of. 

Get changed into your robe and explore the full spa village. My personal favourite was seeing Emily struggling with the cold in the snow room followed by the extreme heats of the sauna.

Available to pre book are these incredible riverside bathing tubs which are fuelled by wood stoves. The resort has 4 of these tubs, which are private and perfect to relax in whilst enjoying the river view and amazing company whilst having a glass of champagne. 

The final part of the day was to experience a Celtic Sauna, which I had no clue what to expect. I knew it was about mindfulness and relaxation amongst other benefits. Mindfulness is not usually my thing. I like to think all the time, at times worry about everything, plan everything and live my life at a million miles per hour, so I was sceptic as to how I would take to this new experience.

Well I can truly say that after this one session, I'm converted. I mean, maybe I will never become the most spiritual person ever, but I will and do have a new appreciation for the art and have found that enjoying time doing nothing physically but most important mentally is incredibly important to a persons wellbeing. I leant breathing techniques to help relax the mind and body and it really was an eye closer (so to speak).

I'm now back home in London and would mainly like to thank the staff at Galgorm for making our stay enjoyable - you truly couldn't have done anything more for us and we are grateful. I will always remember our experience and I'll see you in 2017 as you now have a customer for life.