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This unique luxury hotel has the perfect balance of award-winning dining, stylish rooms and 21st-century technology. The hotel has 91 rooms and suites, and – most pertinently for MF readers – guests can make use of the adjoining health club and treatment rooms.
At the time of my visit I was a week away from completing my three-month MF body transformation plan, so it seemed appropriate to take on the hotel’s BootCamp weekend. A weekend of boot camp-style sessions blended in with healthy clean cuisine and a spa treatment or two would tee me up nicely for the final week of workout sessions and the final photoshoot.
I arrived at 9.30am and was greeted by James, the friendly, knowledgeable personal trainer who was going to put me through my paces for an hour. We hit the ground running with a seven-stage boot camp course consisting of hammer blows, tyre flips, burpees, sandbags and battle ropes. Each stage was 30 seconds with a minute’s rest before repeating the course, only this time for 40 seconds per stage and so on. The one-minute round finally broke me. After a stretching session and a jog to warm down, I made my way slowly to my room to join my wife and two children.
We decided to explore the spa before lunch (children are allowed in the pool between 10am and 6pm). The pool was sectioned off with two lanes for swimming and was surrounded by loungers with free newspapers. The sauna and steam room were small but perfectly adequate with the whole area designed to entice you into a relaxed and tranquil state of mind.
Lunch next at the Goodwood Bar and Grill: we opted for the ‘boot camp menu’ which consisted of a punchy beetroot smoothie and superfood salad.
It seems wrong to visit the Goodwood Estate without hitting a golf ball so we took to the driving range to whack a few balls as far as the eye could see… or in my case, about 30 yards to the left. Having not played golf before it took me a while. No such problems for my seven- and 11-year-old boys, who were knocking them out of the park.
Now for the best bit… half an hour of pure bliss at the Waterbeach massage centre. After a long week at the MF offices, a boot camp session and a more-energetic-than-anticipated driving range session, I was ready for this. My masseuse was superb, applying the right amount of pressure and finding the knots and tense areas from my transformation sessions without any guidance. As always, the 30 minutes flew by and I floated out of the treatment room just as Claire was finishing her treatment (the hotel provides a child care service).
The Goodwood Bar and Grill restaurant provided a relaxed but lively dining environment. The food was more gastropub than fine dining, but the 200g rib-eye steak and sweet potato chips certainly hit the spot – and kept my macro balanced diet on track.
Goodwood offered the best family suite I’ve stayed in. Our bedrooms were divided by the bathroom, which included a roll top bath with a TV built into the wall so you could soak away the day’s grind while catching up on Match Of The Day. First class! The beds were so comfortable it was difficult to keep out of them, and the boys got a fold-down bed and enjoyed camping out in style.
Eight o’clock on Sunday morning found me pedalling away in my first ever spinning class. This would have never happened three months ago – the MF bug has firmly taken a grip on me! After 45 minutes of interval cycling (to music I’d never have listened to otherwise) left me with a sweat on and energised for the rest of the day.
Back with the family in the breakfast room, we had excellent smoked salmon and scrambled eggs – this place certainly knows how to feed you. The boys tucked in to the vast array of cereals and fruit on offer. Our final activity was a leisurely walk around the beautiful estate.
Goodwood Estate, Chichester, West Sussex PO18 0PX
01243 755000
