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With V-Day just around the corner, hotels, resorts and restaurants everywhere are ramping up the romance. While gifts of champagne, chocolate, roses, and bling are all good, an increasing number of couples are choosing to get relaxed and romantic side-by-side at a spa. What better way to renew the spark and energy of a relationship than with a little private “us” time for hands-on therapy.
Here’s a round-up of what North American hotels and resorts are dishing up for Valentine Day:
Solid as a Rock Romance
One of our favourite health and wellness resorts, Red Mountain Spa in Utah, is offering couples a three-night Red Rock Romance package for the entire month of February.
Priced from $379 U.S. per person, per night based on double occupancy, the package includes accommodation, three meals a day, a couple’s massage, daily guided hikes, health and fitness classes and healthy-minded cooking demonstrations. The extensive property has, among other things, indoor and outdoor pools, excellent fitness and yoga instructors, walking trails and a meditative labyrinth. There are a lot of things we like about Red Mountain but the one feature that really stands out in the incredible hiking in the red rock hills. Fabulous! Go to www.redmountainspa.com for more.
Cooking Demos and Colour Readings
Enchantment Resort in Sedona, (Sedona tops our list of “most spiritual places”) embraces Valentine’s Day weekend with a package that includes a chocolate cooking demonstration, an aura soma colour reading, a couple’s treatment in Mii amo (another one of our favourites), a yoga class and a sensual dinner at the award-winning Yavapai Restaurant. Lana Holstein, MD and David Taylor, MD, nationally acclaimed experts on couples communication, sexuality and vitality, will host a workshop for guests. Go to www.enchantmentresort.com for more.
Roses, Chocolates and Champagne
Of course, the big guns of romance are everywhere. In California, for instance, the Montage Laguna Beach has a Valentine’s Day packaging incorporated a Romance Artist to draw a rose petal bath. The Spa at The Hotel Hershey, PA is offering a cocoa massage and V Spa at Hilton Anatole, Dallas is featuring a Champagne and Roses Facial. In Scottsdale, Arizona, Sanctuary Camelback Mountain Resort & Spa has a three-night Love & Sanctuary package that includes a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. Sanctuary is romantic any time of year. We especially love the fabulous views – both mountain and valley.
Massage 101
The Biltmore Hotel in Coral Cables, Florida is offering a 70-minute, therapist-instructed Art of the Couples’ Massage teaching a duo massage techniques they can put to good use at home. Now that’s a gift that keeps on giving. For more, go to: www.biltmorehotel.com.
Hot & Steamy
Miami’s favourite place to get hot and steamy (literally) is the Standard Spa in South Beach. The boutique resort’s K.I.S.S. (Keep it Sexy and Keep it Simple) Valentine’s Day package includes three night’s accommodation, full run of their indoor/outdoor hydrotherapy hamam and a 60-minute massage and Turkish-style body rub and scrub for two. You’ll be so relaxed you’ll need the breakfast in bed that is also included. For more, go to: www.standardhotels.com/miami.
Bedside Surprises
As part of its Rendezvous at the Met romance package, the Metropolitan London has a Seduction Bedside Box filled with what they call a “selection of nighttime necessities.” For more, go to: www.metropolitan.london.como.bz/offers/rendez-vous-at-the-met .
Let’s just say that catering to the romantic in all of us is a growing business for the spa industry and there is ample choice, but keep in mind that if you’re with the right person, a visit to any good spa will, depending on where you happen to be in a relationship, either fan the flicker or keep the fires burning.
Find more great spa articles and reviews at Travel to Wellness.