Dreams Dream Team Romsey Pocket Sprung Mattress review: A dream for back pain sufferers

The Dreams Dream Team Romsey Pocket Sprung mattress is one of many in the brand’s Dream Team range. As the official sleep partner of Team GB and Paralympics GB, the Dream Team range is designed to suit pro athletes through to everyday sleepers.

The Dream Team Romsey Pocket Sprung mattress sits in the middle of the range price-wise and is great value for money. It’s one of the best mattresses for a bad back I’ve tested, with a firm to extra-firm (depending on your body weight) orthopaedic support.

At the time of writing, I’ve been sleeping on the Romsey for a month, judging its comfort, support, temperature regulation and its ability to control motion transfer. I think it’s one of the best hybrid mattresses you can buy if you’re on a tighter budget, with prices starting from a very reasonable £429. Could this be the perfect fit for your sleeping style? Let’s find out more.

Dreams Dream Team Romsey Pocket Sprung Mattress review: What you need to know

Dreams has been selling mattresses for 40 years and alongside its website, its 208 stores across the UK give you a chance to try out its mattresses before you buy. Don’t worry if you can’t get to a store though, as all Dreams mattresses come with a 100-night trial period, meaning you can exchange the mattress if you don’t get on with it.

The Romsey arrives flat to your front door or, for an extra £29, you can have it delivered to a room of your choosing. You can also choose a delivery date and time from Monday to Saturday to have it delivered. The mattress arrived wrapped in plastic and, once this was taken off, did have a slight off-gassing smell which faded after about 24 hours.

Although the Romsey is a hybrid mattress, I did feel that it had quite a traditional design. Starting at the top you’ll find a soft quilted cover. Underneath this is a hypoallergenic ‘I-Fibre’ comfort layer. This is described as a polyester “alternative to foam” that’s breathable and “100% recyclable at the end of its life” but still has the “pressure relief of traditional foam”. Next up is a layer of memory foam for pressure relief followed by an insulating layer sitting on top of individually wrapped pocket springs. These range from 561 springs in a single up to 1,225 in a super king. The springs react to body movement to help support the body where needed. Finally, the mattress is held together and supported by a base fabric.

At 22cm high, the Romsey is a little more compact than many modern mattresses, but I quite liked the fact I could swing in and out of it very easily. You can’t flip the mattress but you should rotate it regularly to prevent dips forming too quickly. With the super king (the largest size) weighing 38kg, this is also one of the lighter mattresses I’ve tested but the handles on the side are still very welcome for ease of rotation.

Dreams Dream Team Romsey Pocket Sprung Mattress review: Price and competition

I actually felt that the Romsey was extremely well priced. You’ll pay £429 for a single, rising to £479 for a small double and double. The king size retails for £579 and a super king is £629.

Compared to many other comparably firm mattresses, the Romsey is a bargain. You’ll pay £889 for the excellent Panda Hybrid Bamboo mattress, while the Otty Original Hybrid is £750. The Simba Hybrid Pro is another excellent choice for back pain sufferers but has a far bigger price tag at £1,249 for a king.

While some will love the firm feel of the Dreams Romsey, it’s not always the best choice for all bad backs. Our top pick in our best mattresses for back pain, the Nectar Memory Foam mattress, is one of the few that’s cheaper than the Romsey, with a king always costing £549 at the time of writing (Nectar’s rather confusing pricing suggests that it’s on offer more often than not).

Mattresses that arrive flat are often more expensive than mattresses in a box, but this isn’t the case with the Romsey. Of course, you may save a little more if you wait for a sale but I think that even at full price, the mattress is priced extremely well.

Dreams Dream Team Romsey Pocket Sprung Mattress review: Comfort and performance

Traditional mythology always suggested that an ultra-firm mattress was the only choice for back pain. But times have moved on, and it’s now recognised that this isn’t always the case. The Romsey is a firm to extra-firm mattress that will suit a variety of sleepers with aches and pains, but it’s not the perfect fit or fix for everyone.

Lower back pain sufferers in particular should appreciate the lumbar support on this mattress, which does an excellent job of keeping the spine aligned and comfortable. On the whole, I felt this mattress was best suited to average and heavier weight sleepers, who will sink just far enough into the top layers to get pressure relief and cushioning where needed, along with plenty of support from the coil layer. On the other hand, this mattress may be too firm for lightweight sleepers. Bearing in mind that I’m a lightweight sleeper myself, you might be wondering why I awarded this mattress five stars. This is because of the aforementioned lumbar support for lower back pain (which I suffer from). Despite the firmness of this mattress, I found my back pain had vanished within a few days of sleeping on the bed when I slept on my back. However, I am generally a combination sleeper and did find the mattress far too firm for side sleeping. By placing a pillow to stop me rolling over so I stayed sleeping on my back, this mattress was a fantastic choice for my aches and pains.

Perhaps a little surprisingly, considering its firm feel, the Romsey did have a little sinkage around the shoulders. When I conducted some tests, 10kg of weight caused the mattress to sink 22mm. Of course, this demonstrates some cushioning at the pressure points where it’s needed. Edge support on the Romsey is also excellent, with the same 10kg of weights only causing the mattress to sink by 13mm – less than the centre of the bed. This means you’ll be able to spread out and use the whole width of the mattress. With the firm support on offer, the Romsey could also be a fantastic choice for those sharing their beds with a restless sleeper as you’re less likely to register much movement.

I also conducted tests to see how well the mattress dealt with heat and to see whether it would keep sleepers cool at night. The Romsey isn’t marketed as a cooling mattress but it’s important that a mattress can regulate temperature and stop hot sleepers overheating. I warmed up a heat pad to 70°C and then weighed it down on the mattress with a paperback book and 2.5kg weight, with a thermocouple probe to monitor the temperature. Once the temperature had dropped to 50°C, the pad was removed, and readings were taken over 10 minutes. After one minute, the temperature had already dropped to 30.1°C and after 10 minutes, it was down to 24.4°C. This wasn’t quite as impressive as a “cooling mattress” (such as the Emma NextGen Cooling, which dropped to 22°C) but it’s impressive as far as the Romsey’s temperature regulation is concerned.

In addition, I tested whether the mattress could effectively cool down body temperature by sitting on the mattress with a thermocouple placed underneath me. Once the thermocouple reached 30°C, I replaced myself with a paperback book and 2.5kg weight and took readings for a further 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, the temperature had dropped to 21.9°C – an incredibly good result when you consider that the far more expensive Dreams TheraPur that’s specifically designed to cool sleepers, only dropped just over a degree further at 20.4°C.

Dreams Dream Team Romsey Pocket Sprung Mattress review: Verdict

If you suffer with aches and pains, and particularly lower back pain, the Dreams Dream Team Romsey might be the holy grail for your sleep. Yes, it has a slightly old-fashioned design and it’s not as thick as other mattresses we’ve reviewed. But there’s no arguing with the solid support that good old pocket springs give.

It’s also incredibly well priced compared to many of its rivals and if you buy it during a sale, you may even pick it up for less. Build quality is excellent (as you’d perhaps expect from a well-established company such as Dreams) and the mattress is pretty easy to rotate and move around.

For those of a lighter weight such as myself, I’d urge caution unless you suffer with lower back pain and primarily sleep on your back. But for all other sleepers who suffer with back pain or simply want a firmer mattress for good lumbar support, the Romsey is an excellent choice. The 100-night sleep trial also means you’ll have the opportunity to exchange it if it’s not right, so this is a fairly risk-free purchase.