Those of you that read my blog regularly will know occasionally I decide to write a review or two but it’s only when someone inspires me to do so or I get a freebie for my honest opinion. Recently, I have been so busy with the growth of Prohibition I haven’t had much time to write about my experiences but this I thought was worth the extra time investment. This is the former not the latter, last weekend my wife and I decided to leave the kids back at home and take a trip to the lakes to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. Ten years is a big achievement we felt so we wanted to go somewhere naturally beautiful in the north that isn’t too far from my home town of Harrogate. We did the usual extensive search online and TripAdvisor and came across an adults only hotel called Applegarth Hotel which is located about a mile from the boat port of Bowness. My wife and I don’t stay in many adult only hotels, as we have two little ones, that although very cute are louder than Bart and Lisa from the Simpsons. 
The hotel is stunning on the outside with beautiful gardens that have been prepared to pristine brilliance with a lovely water feature welcoming you in the car park. To the back of the hotel is a quiet field which means you aren’t overlooked. As you walk into the hotel the suites on the left look very inviting with their full sized private gardens and foaming hot tubs. We were originally going to stay in one of those but we decided that would be a little too costly for us at 400 per night as we have another big family holiday planned soon. Upon going inside, the interior is a combination/fusion of traditional and modern, and you are welcomed in the reception area. We tried the bar (see pic) which had five types of Gin which is my drink of choice these days they even ha 3-4 types of tonic and I can highly recommend the elder flower. We stayed two nights and our room had a stunning four poster bed with a lovely new on-suite bathroom, which was enormous, and had the deepest bath I think I have ever encountered. It also had a large walk in shower and the best thing was the fact the air extractor was silent. Those of you that stay in hotels a lot like me will know they aren’t always silent and can keep you awake at night. The first night we took dinner just around the corner in a little three floored Café that served some of the best calamari me and my wife had ever tasted. On the full day we decided to take the boat around the stunning lake and visit Brockhole and its Treetop Trek as we wanted to experience the tree tops ourselves, I helped launch Go Ape in the UK many years ago and this was very similar and brilliant fun. It cost $42 for the both of us and went around in groups of 14 through the tree tops finishing with a I’m a celebrity style treetop zip wire. Breakfast in the hotel was all cooked from scratch, which for me is always a good sign as it’s very easy to make a bad full English in my experience. I often ignore the fried breakfast option for this very reason but I could tell this was going to be good. It had everything from poached eggs with Hollandaise sauce but I choose the bacon and sausage sandwich in toast which was a taste bud sensation. By now it was clear the staff had an attention to detail on the food as it was piping hot and everything just tasted premium and cooked to perfection. On the final night we had dinner in the hotel, as we had a two course meal included in our stay price, and so we both tried the fillet steak (which had a 9 pound supplementary charge which I thought was a bit steep) the steak however was medium rare and again cooked to perfection almost melting in my mouth. The vegetables that accompanied it and hand cut chips were also both severed excellently. Now I need to be clear, I wasn’t given anything free for this review – these are my honest thoughts. This hotel is a straight up nine of out of ten, the staff which are all family are friendly, attentive and the food and drinks are everything you could possibly want from a hotel. It’s a shame we can’t take our children to visit but then it wouldn’t be the sea of tranquility it is. It is so relaxed, even when the hotel is full it doesn’t feel it so it’s the perfect place to go, kick back, unwind and relax. I only wish the weather in the Lake District was as reliable. If you are looking for a nice trip in the lakes this is the place for you.
Chris Norton is the founder of Prohibition and an award winning communications consultant with more than twenty years’ experience. He was a lecturer at Leeds Beckett University and has had a varied PR career having worked both in-house and in a number of large consultancies. He is an Integrated PR and social media blogger and writes on a wide variety of blogs across a huge amount of topics from digital marketing, social media marketing right through to technology and crisis management.
