The Inclusive Edit
There are probably more glamorous reasons to book a five-star hotel than a dental appointment.
But if you’re new here, this is fairly typical of me. Give me a practical errand, a free evening and the faintest excuse for a hotel stay, and I will usually find a way to turn it into an experience.
Which is exactly how I ended up at Rudding Park.
Rudding Park had been on my list for a good while. One of those places I had quietly kept meaning to book, but for one reason or another, hadn’t quite got round to. Then my dental clinic opened a new suite in Harrogate, I had a morning appointment, Martin wasn’t working, and suddenly the obvious thing to do was turn a trip to the dentist into a 24-hour date night.
Which, honestly, feels like the sort of life admin I can get behind.
I had already done what I always do before booking somewhere new. I’d looked for the access information, checked the room options, read what I could find and tried to work out whether this was going to feel simple in practice, or whether I was about to enter the usual pre-arrival detective work phase.
Except this time, I didn’t.
Confidence before arrival
Rudding Park has a really helpful access guide online, and it did something I wish more hotels understood the value of. It gave me enough information to feel calm before I had even arrived.
I could see that the hotel had fully adapted guest rooms with wet rooms, but I could also see that the Follifoot Wing had been designed with accessibility in mind. As an ambulant wheelchair user, I don’t always need a fully adapted clinical set-up. What I need is space that works. A room that feels easy to move through. A bathroom I can use comfortably. A route that doesn’t turn a lovely stay into a logistical exercise.
So I booked a Follifoot Double Room.
I always look around for the best prices, and Secret Escapes had a package that felt too good to ignore. An overnight stay with breakfast, access to the spa, a bottle of champagne and £92 credit towards dinner at the Clocktower for £319. For a five-star hotel with spa access included. This felt like the kind of accidental midweek brilliance that deserved immediate attention.
Once booked, I received an email directly from the hotel confirming the reservation and arranging dinner. She had beaten me to it.
Usually, I’m straight in with the follow-up email, confirming accessible parking, room access, bathroom layout and all the things I need to know before I can actually relax into the idea of a stay. This time, I hadn’t rushed to do that because the information I’d already found had done its job.
That might sound small. It isn’t.
I had already checked in, in my mind, before I checked in to the hotel.
That is what good pre-arrival information does. It doesn’t just answer a practical question. The labour of wondering is reduced. It removes the part of the experience where disabled guests have to manage uncertainty before they have even packed a bag.
I took the opportunity to confirm everything anyway, and to book the Roof Top Spa Garden for the afternoon. Everything was exactly as I had read. On top of that, the team explained that they had a hoist available for the pool and asked whether I required it.
Honestly, in almost ten years of travelling as a wheelchair user, I have never been given that information so clearly. Or advised that it was even an option without having to ask.
Bearing in mind this was a third-party booking, it couldn’t have been more seamless.
Checking in before the spa
We arrived at around 1.30pm, ahead of our 2pm Roof Top Spa Garden booking, thinking we would check in afterwards. Instead, concierge guided us to reception, our bags were taken, the team checked whether the room was ready, and within a couple of minutes we were being checked in properly.
It meant we had time to go to the room, change into our robes and slippers in comfort, and settle into the afternoon without rushing. That alone changed the pace of the whole stay.
There are 38 bedrooms on the ground floor, each with level access, and there was something genuinely lovely about not having to go up and down in lifts every time I wanted to move around the hotel. The only lift I used was for the spa, but even that felt considered. It didn’t have that “we added this because we had to” feeling. It felt built into the experience, which is exactly the difference I’m always looking for.
When Yorkshire pretends to be the south of France
We headed straight to the Roof Top Spa Garden, and Yorkshire decided to show off.
Late April sunshine. Blue skies. Views across the grounds, some perfectly manicured and other patches intentionally wild. A smoothie in the warm infinity pool. For a moment, I forgot I was an hour from home and not somewhere in the south of France.
The Roof Top Spa Garden is designed as a social spa space, with hydrotherapy and thermal experiences that feel genuinely generous. We moved between the Hydrotherapy Infinity Pool, the Panoramic Sauna, the Tepidarium, the Luxury Steam Room. The Experience Showers, taking in the rhythm of heat, water, scent and stillness.
There are sensory details everywhere without it becoming overwhelming. Sunlight therapy, oxygen therapy, heat, ice, water, air. It’s the kind of place where you can do very little and still feel as though your whole body has been given something.
Next time, I would absolutely book four hours rather than two. Especially with weather like that. We only had time for ten minutes on the sun deck, where you’ll also find the Garden Sauna Cabin and Brass-Monkey Ice Baths, before heading down to the hotel spa to finish.
I say only, because there is so much more there than we had time to properly enjoy.
More than a one-night stay
That became the theme of the stay, really. Everything we did made me realise how much there still is to come back for.
The Roof Top Spa Garden alone is the sort of place that deserves longer than two hours, especially on a day when the sun is out and Yorkshire is pretending to be the south of France. I’d go back with more time for the outdoor sauna, the plunge tubs and the sun deck, with no need to glance at the clock.
Beyond the spa, there are still parts of Rudding Park that feel like they deserve a stay of their own. A treatment or two followed by time in the Escape Zone feels like the natural next chapter, especially with its sensory spaces designed around different kinds of rest and recovery.
Horto Café also has my attention, mainly because any excuse for staying in your robe for food and drinks is an underrated luxury. Then there is the Mud Rasul and the Cabana in the Roof Top Spa Garden, both of which feel very much like the kind of things you tell yourself you’ll “just have a look at” before accidentally losing half a day.
And then there is FIFTY TWO
Rudding Park’s immersive dining experience, led by chef and host Adam Degg, holds a Michelin star, and it feels significant enough to deserve its own return.
Set around a bespoke open kitchen and garden, with guests seated facing the theatre of the cooking itself, it sounds less like a restaurant booking and more like stepping into the working rhythm of the place. The no-menu approach, the Kitchen Garden, the terrace arrival and the sense of food theatre all feel very Rudding Park: considered, quietly confident, and rooted in the experience rather than just the performance of luxury.
A Michelin-starred no-menu dining experience was never going to be something I could sensibly leave unexplored. I’m only human.
But for this stay, the pace was perfect.
Dinner at the Clocktower
We strolled back to the room in our robes, changed for dinner and had a glass of our gifted bubbles before heading down to the Clocktower.
What met me there was refreshingly unusual.
We were welcomed as a couple.
Not as a wheelchair user and her companion. Not with an awkward pause while someone tried to work out what to say.
We were simply taken to our table, and I was asked whether I’d like to transfer or stay in my wheelchair. Then, just as naturally, whether I’d like my wheelchair kept at the table or moved away.
That was it.
The questions were woven into the conversation. They didn’t sound like a checklist being recalled with a slight edge of panic. There was no overcorrection, no fussing, no theatrical helpfulness. Just warm, competent service that allowed us to get on with the evening.
I know these things can sound almost like they should be non-mentionable. They aren’t. It is incredibly rare for these conversations to flow so beautifully.
Dinner was gorgeous. We shared Shetland mussels in white wine sauce and Scottish Queen scallops baked with garlic butter. We always share starters, primarily because neither of us can cope with the fear of missing out on what the other one might be having.
I had a Chablis, Martin had a zero Pinot Grigio, and for mains I had whole sole meunière while he had confit duck leg with bean and Morteau sausage cassoulet.
Then I did my usual trick of ordering coffee and stealing half of his dessert. In this case, sticky toffee pudding with sauce so good I could have poured it into a glass and sipped it.
It was the little things too. Waiting staff noticed us taking the obligatory selfie and came over to offer to capture the moment properly. Again, no fuss. Just thoughtfulness.
The kind of night that makes one night feel longer
When we got back to the room, turndown service had been done, with a little gift left on the bed in the form of two chamomile tea bags and Dotty the ladybird body massager. The minibar was stocked with wellness treats, and we settled into exactly the kind of late-night bath and pamper session that makes a one-night stay feel much longer than it is.
Before bed, we hung the breakfast order on the door and closed in for the night.
Waking up to sunshine, beautiful views and slow coffee with Martin in the room was the perfect start to the day. Breakfast arrived with two members of the waiting team who had that morning balance just right. Warm enough to feel personal, discreet enough to let us keep the softness of the moment.
The most relaxed I have ever been before the dentist
Just as we checked out, the receptionist asked whether we had been staying for a celebration or any particular occasion.
That was when I remembered my next stop was the dentist.
I can confirm it was the most relaxed I have ever been going to the dentist in forty years. My analysis… I think this may now need to become a quarterly ritual.
Because this is the thing about Rudding Park. It didn’t feel like a hotel trying to make access work around luxury. It felt like a hotel where access had been understood as part of the guest experience. Not loudly. Not performatively. Just properly.
The information before arrival made me confident. The room choice made sense. The ground-floor access made movement easy. The spa felt integrated rather than adapted as an afterthought. The restaurant team handled access with the kind of natural fluency that shouldn’t be rare but absolutely is.
And somewhere between the rooftop pool, the Chablis, the late-night bath and the room service breakfast. A dental appointment became one of the loveliest 24-hour escapes I’ve had in a long time.
Only I would turn a trip to the dentist into a five-star date night.
But honestly, I recommend it!
