Tr avel report RIBBY HALL

kitchen – right down to supplying washing up liquid and dishwasher tablets – to the easy-touse and spacious power shower earned the five-star billing.

There is a real sense of space on the site from its wide roads to the woodland walk right around it.

The main reason we were there was to test out its new family swimming pool area which has cost a cool £1.5m.

Now, with the word family you’d expect kids to be everywhere where you can go swimming but this is where they’ve been really clever. Yes, there’s a shallow splash lagoon and a pirate pool area for the smaller kids with slides, cascading water and a family pool along with two hot tubs ... and they’re really hot.

The new flume is as good as those as Center Parcs and you can even select the music you want to listen to as you shoot down the chute. It takes the riders outside the building, over the roof and back in during which they can take part in an interactive reaction game which will give each rider a personal score and a photograph of them riding the slide. They can then upload this directly to their social media account from the poolside on an interactive touch screen.

But walk down a small corridor and there’s a Swedish sauna and a steam room for over 16s only and this leads to a large pool for adults only where you can swim in peace and quiet.

Great showers too and the changing rooms are spacious – the disabled changing rooms are the best I’ve ever seen and they’ve even installed a poolside hoist. Spot on. George loves water and never stopped smiling.

And that stayed on his face when we went out for two meals – firstly to the Bar and Grill where we had piri piri fajita, chicken tikka massala and rump steak. Good quality food and the bill came to £75 for four including a bottle of wine and drinks.

The second night we tried out the excellently-furnished Tapas Bar and Restaurant where the bill topped £100 and again a good meal although we felt the drinks and a couple of the dishes were overpriced.

Harry had a go at lazer shooting, archery and waterwalkerz – they all come at a separate charge – which gave him great fun at the time and memories for life later.

There’s a new play area complete with zip slide and a new Activity Hub featuring a soft play zone and a designated activity area where youngsters can do everything from art classes to ballet lessons. The free wi-fi works well across the 100-acre site. Now back to those bats. There is a Wild Discovery farm on the site open to guests and anyone who fancies getting really close to some animals. So we patted a pig – Miss Piggles is her name – stroked lambs, cuddled chicks and saw piglets showing their mum no mercy during a frantic feeding session.

Then there’s wallabies, meerkats so close they’ll bite you if you try to stroke then, an alpaca, an aviary complete with owls ... with more animals set to join them soon.

Go in the bat shed that’s their home and they are flying about inside – so close you can feel the wind from their flapping wings in your face and the odd speck of liquid on your arm as they do what they have to do.

As I said, that’s close and up and as personal as it gets.

There’s an adult-only spa hotel too but exploring that will be for another time