When you take your honeymoon in the Poconos, you’ll probably rent a room with a seven-foot-tall champagne-glass whirpool tub for two. But caveat emptor, young lover! Those fancy baths are not actually filled with champagne! They are merely a plastic manifestation of a tired cliché about extravagance. Which is fine, if that’s what you’re into.
If, instead, you want to soak in champagne in both metaphorical and literal senses, there’s a grand hotel having a grand reopening on July 1 that’s sure to make you bubbly.
You’ll arrive at the Royal Champagne Hotel & Spa at its traditional edifice, a 19th-century Post House, but the real party is happening in the back. There, a contemporary wing is curved into the hillside, creating an amphitheater with the vineyards of the valley below as the main show. The 49 rooms have all been sparklingly outfitted with Hermès amenities, and a new 16,000-square-foot wellness center has been added. The spa has a mosaic-tiled hammam, a fitness facility, a eucalyptus-infused sauna, a yoga studio, treatment rooms full of extravagant signature treatments, and swimming pools both indoor and out.
Guests’ insides will be pampered as much as their outsides, thanks to new culinary direction by two-star Michelin chef Jean-Denis Rieubland, who is making a move from the Negresco Hotel in Nice. He’ll be taking advantage of the region’s organic ingredients, including those raised in the hotel’s new terraced garden. And of course, he’ll highlight Champagne’s most famous product, with menus centered around celebrated local vintages. If you can be convinced to leave the grounds, there are a few wine tasting opportunities nearby, we hear.
The Royal Champagne Hotel & Spa is a 90-minute drive from Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport, and 10 minutes from the Epernay train station. Opening rates begin at €495 (about US$600).
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