The Times - Danubius Health Spa Resort, Budapest, Spa holidays, Wellbeing Escapes

Pre Spa

We want you to get the most out of Wellbeing Escapes luxury spa holidays and come back glowing, healthy and happy. To take the stress out of booking and preparing for your spa holidays, we have put together some handy tips to help with the process.

Post Spa

So you've come back from your spa holiday sparkling with good health and determined to keep that feel-good glow. The pressure of a busy life makes it difficult to sustain the lifestyle, routine and diet you had on your escape. But don't worry, we have plenty of advice to help you post spa holiday.

Experts

Introducing the experts

Meet our panel of Wellbeing Experts. Including a renowned nutritionist, an acupuncturist, and some highly respected entrepreneurs, our team of leading experts is on hand with their advice. Throughout the seasons they'll be bringing you the latest health, fitness and beauty tips to keep you looking and feeling brilliant from top to toe.

Trends

Wellbeing Escapes work with some of the world's best luxury spa and wellness resorts. We understand what kind of spa holidays our clients want because we speak to them everyday. Our finger is on the pulse of the spa and wellness industry putting us in the perfect place to bring you exciting new trends and key developments.

For Advice, Guidance and Booking call us on 0845 602 6202 or click here to email

The Times - Danubius Health Spa Resort, Budapest

11 November 2006

Hungary for bargains by Lucia Adams

With treatments that won't break the bank, Lucia Adams finds the Danubius Health Spa Resort in Budapest springs a bargain

The eager therapist lurched towards me: his right hand in the air, mud up to his elbow. It didn’t take long to work out that this wasn’t a candles-and-incense sort of spa. I was lying naked on a sheet of black plastic, the treatment room was sparse, its design influence possibly an abattoir. This was a full-body, mudpack treatment, Hungarian-style.
My husband Seb and I were weekending at the Danubius Health Spa Resort in Budapest; we were there to find out if it was possible to do whole-hog pampering without breaking the bank. It was. A long weekend, including flights, came to under £400 per person, although fripperies such as “healing” crystals and the ubiquitous orchids of English spas weren’t much in evidence. Instead “serious” treatments, including physiotherapy, electrotherapy, oxygen and salt inhalation were available in the Seventies’ airport lounge-style spa.

The Hungarian capital, lying on a fault line, has 120 thermal springs, the effects of which are said to cure joint and muscle problems. More than 30,000,000 litres of warm water pumps up through the ground each day into the various spas around the city.The hotel, an immensely ugly place, is on leafy Margaret Island in the middle of the Danube, a 10-minute drive from the city centre. It was the perfect weekend set- up; I spent the two days days padding from thermal baths to treatment rooms, Seb sunbathed and went to the gym. Although he had never been to a spa before, he took to it like he’d been doing it all his life.

In the evening we blew a few cobwebs away, with a tour of the city’s nightlife keeping us up until well past 4am.

Britons are the fourth-largest group to visit the hotel, and no wonder; treatment prices compare favourably with those in Britain: for example, a 50-minute Thai massage at a London spa costs about £73 compared with £25 in Budapest.

Other treatments were administered with great expertise by Hungarian therapists, and prices varied from £10 for a 20-minute foot or head-and-neck massage to £33 for a 75-minute shiatsu treatment. However, the therapists’ English is quite scratchy, so I wouldn’t want to try to explain a complicated medical history. That niggle aside, this is a great place to come for a few days of culture and cures.