Hot Springs, AR

Girls Trip 

Hot Springs, AR

 Starting back in 2015, one of my bestie girlfriend's and I decided we are taking a girls trip!  We took off to the beach and had the best time ever!  There should NEVER, I repeat NEVER be any guilt for taking a long weekend with a girlfriend and getting away to relax and recoup!  You will come back refreshed and a better wife and mom!  We have been a few times to San Destin, FL and we always stay in the same Beach House, but 3 times we have taken off to a different place.  This post is all about the time we went to Hot Springs, AR!  You see COVID-19 hit hard in the US in March 2020 and made traveling all but come to a halt until May.  We usually take our girls weekend in the fall, so after checking the rules, regulations and making sure places were open for business, we decided to stay closer to home and venture to Hot Springs for a spa weekend!

Where we stayed:

The Arlington Hotel is a very old and historic hotel right downtown and centrally located to everything.  You can literally walk everywhere!  Now it is an older hotel, so do not have high expectations when it comes to 5 star.  It was clean and the staff was very friendly, and that in my book was enough to make the stay enjoyable.  The only complaint I had was the room we had was on the street side and the windows are single-pane so the street noise was a little loud at times.  Also they has not switched the hotel over to heat yet at the time of our stay and it was getting colder in the evenings already.  However,  the staff was very kind and brought us extra blankets that made up for us being a little chilled at night!  

The restaurant in the Arlington was open, but no buffet was being served.  Their lobby bar was open, and the bar tender was very nice! We did enjoy the Spa in the hotel and did the mineral bath, with the hot towel rest after and the massage!  It is an experience if you've never been before.  It is very nice, relaxing and a total step back in time!  We did book this one over the phone in advance before arriving.  

On the day we arrived we dropped off our bags and went for a stroll down the street to another bathhouse to make our appointment for manicures and pedicures because they were not taking online appointments and no one answered the phone prior to our arrival, so we walked down to make the appointments in person to assure we in fact got one while we were in town.  This was at Buckstaff Bathouse.  They too offer baths here but I wasn't sure so booked ours at Arlington instead.  The baths are a whirlpool mineral bath using the hot springs water and you can get a Swedish massage.  Buckstaff was very neat as well, not updated much and it had an old working elevator that you had a staff member who had to drive the actual elevator for us!  It was so neat!

Day1: arrival

cocktails and appetizers at Hotel Hale Bathhouse (no longer a working bath house but restaurant now)

We had Salty Dogs and chickpea flour flat bread pizza with roasted veggies and it was delicious!

Walked along the streets of downtown and then to the room to freshen up and head out to dinner.  We started the evening with a lemon drop martini at the hotel bar and then ended up at Fat Jack's oyster bar.  We had oysters rockafella and another salty dog.  Both were delicious and did not disappoint.  It was a weeknight when we were at Fat Jack's and it was calm and family friendly, however our server said it can get pretty rowdy on the weekends with the night life!  

Day 2: 

We started our day off with a coffee at The Argentinian Wine Bar, which was not the best coffee really.  But none the less we drank it and then headed to Buckstaff for our Mani/Pedi experience.  They only had one girl doing them that day, so it took quite a long time.  We ended up opting for pedicures only to cut the time in half.  She was a very sweet girl and told us lots about the area as she was born and raised there.  Afterwards we went back to the wine bar and had mimosa's and a charcuterie board for brunch. We shopped up and down the street and landed at a Rolando's Mexican restaurant and had jalapeño margaritas and guacamole casero for lunch.  We then went back to the hotel for our mineral bath and massage!  That took several hours and was so relaxing!  After that,  a little down time in the room and to get ready for dinner.  That night we went to dinner at The Ohio Club (famous place Al Capone used to visit back in the day) and had burgers and fries.  Then we went to a roof top bar at top The Water's Hotel for a night cap glass of wine.  The view from up top was amazing! 

 

Day 3: 

We started the morning at another coffee shop, Kollective Coffee + Tea,  at the end of the strip which had very good coffee and good breakfast options including gluten free and vegan!  After that we took off up the hill behind our hotel and went to the Hot Springs Mountain Tower.  It was a beautiful view and so much history to read about up there!  Then we filled up our water bottles in the hot springs along the side of the road and headed down the road about 30 min to Garvan Botanical Gardens.  We spent the majority of the day in the botanical garden soaking up the beauty that was all around us.  It's defiantly worth the drive over to spend the day there.  They do have a food truck and canteen there that you can get food, however we just packed in snacks since we had a large breakfast.  Back at the hotel, we freshened up again and got ready for dinner.  This was our last night and we wanted to go somewhere really nice.  We landed upon Luna Bella for a fabulous steak dinner!  This is defiantly a must when in Hot Springs!  We then turned in for an early night to watch a movie and have some wine in our hotel room.  

Day 4:

We packed it up and headed home.  It was a great and relaxing girls get a way and not too far of a drive from home.  I highly recommend it if you've never been and are looking for a true, old school, spa treatment like no other!