In The Independent’s travel trends column, Trendwatch, we dig into the types of trip, modes of transport and top buzzwords to watch out for.
We wake up in rumpled sheets. Champagne flutes are dotted around, hairspray and heels chucked near the Do not Disturb sign. Then: an unwelcome knock on the door. I stagger to it, draping a fluffy white robe around myself as I go. “I think you ordered one of these?” says a smiling woman in a black T-shirt.
No, not catering staff with our breakfast, but a nurse wielding a drip stand, two bags of lurid yellow-coloured liquid, and a case full of tubes and needles. Heads spinning from a tequila-slamming night on the town, my sister and I are about to experience the vitamin “recovery drip”.
Ever since these restorative intravenous body-boosters were popularised by celebrities such as Rihanna, Brad Pitt and Adele as a way to stay perky on tour or recharge after a depleting run of work projects, they’ve been a curiosity for health nuts and hedonistic nightlifers alike. Justin Bieber recently told documentary makers that he gets weekly IV infusions of energy-generating supplement NAD+ to help him with illness, exhaustion and recovery from former drug habits. Now, London’s hotels are beginning to offer IV experiences as part of hedonistic overnight packages.
We’re trying Get a Drip, a “drip to your door” service, at London’s South Place Hotel. Their smart team of nurses also service the capital’s recently opened The Standard. The Dorchester’s spa and celebby five-star The Ned have also trialled IV recovery treatments, while establishments overseas such as Ibiza’s legendary Pikes hotel and Thailand’s Anantara Siam Bangkok hotel have run partnerships with various vitamin-drip brands.
A qualified nurse talks us through the procedure, sets up our drip stands between us, and gets to swabbing our arms and tightening up a tourniquet. Having had minimal medical procedures in my lifetime (and drug use, need I add), it’s interesting to learn that I have “smaller veins” than my sister Abby’s; I’m given a smaller needle on my catheter, and my drip bag takes twice as long to drain. It all seems swift, professional and undramatic to me – though I can imagine it’d be far from a treat for the needle-nervous.
The nurse warns Abby and I that we might feel a cooling sensation or get chilly as the “MultiVit” mixture ‒ a potent mix of B vitamins, vitamin C, potassium, calcium, sodium chloride and…
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