Family friendly-spas

Jordan

This has one of the best spas I've ever seen, specialising in Dead Sea treatments, with a fabulous hydrotherapy centre. My personal favourite is 'dry flotation'. After an exfoliating scrub with Dead Sea salts, you shower, are wrapped in layers of mud, plastic and blankets and then, at the touch of a button, the massage table disappears from under you to leave you floating on the surface of a warm bath while you drift into a state of total bliss. Being the lowest place on earth, the sun is filtered and, while you still need sun protection, sunbathing here is medically prescribed for people with skin or joint problems! The five-star Movenpick Hotel is designed as a traditional Arab village, on the banks of the Dead Sea, with a shallow lagoon for the children and five restaurants to choose from. Fantastic nearby family excursions include the rose-red city of Petra (they shot Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom there), the desert of Wadi Rum and just floating in the Dead Sea itself. Best time to visit: October to April.

Movenpick Resort & Spa
Tel: 00 962 554 6377
Fax: 00 962 554 6376
www.movenpick-deadsea.com

Thailand

Thailand has a reputation as a backpackers' paradise but Hua Hin - the Thai royal family's favoured resort - is a great place for a family holiday. Set in lush tropical gardens next to a perfect white sandy beach and the warm waters of the Gulf of Siam, the Marriott Resort welcomes families, providing a kids' club with lots of watersports, indoor and outdoor activities. The resort has elegant Thai architecture and six restaurants to choose from. The Mandara Spa offers the ultimate in tranquility and I recommend the Thai massage. You wear soft baggy pyjamas, while your masseur pulls, bends and twists you into various unimaginable positions using not only his hands but his feet, knees and whole body. It's a technique that's a cross between massage, pressure point stimulation and osteopathy and, though it may sound rather scary, it irons out the knots and tensions like nothing else I know. Best time to visit: November to February.

Hua Hin Marriott Resort
Tel: 00 66 3251 1881
Fax: 00 66 3251 2422
www.marriotthotels.com

Mallorca

The Son Antem in Mallorca offers sports - in particular tennis and two golf courses - as well as a spa. There is a small, self-supervised kids' club as well as baby-sitting, while older kids can play golf, hire a bike or spend time at the pools. The resort is not by the beach but there are several swimming pools, including warm thermal ones, and jacuzzis and saunas for the whole family. The spa itself has a holistic treatment area (showers, saunas, baths and steam rooms), and a wide range of face and body treatments. And, if you seriously want to get fit, they have a new medically supervised anti-ageing programme with doctors and coaches on hand to design your own individual programme.

Marriott Son Antem
Tel: 00 34 971 12 91 00
Fax: 00 34 971 12 91 02
www.marriotthotels.com

Emilia Romagna, Italy

This region in northern Italy is famed for its beautiful medieval towns, its food - and its spas. Mostly, these are strictly adults-only but the five-star hotel of Riolo Terme - a town named for its thermal waters - has a kids' club with its own swimming pool and organised events set in a beautiful park. Your treatments take place in a grand Empire-style pavilion and are based on natural and thermal therapies, with a particular emphasis on the local volcanic mud, rich in mineral salts, thermal waters and massage, as well as beauty treatments. The area has a wealth of great restaurants, spectacular scenery and the accessible seaside of the northern Adriatic coast.

Terme di Riolo Bagni
Tel: 00 39 546 71045
Fax: 00 39 546 71605
http://www.termediriolo.it