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The Spa at Pacific Palms Resort
3 reviews for The Spa at Pacific Palms Resort
The spa hostess was very friendly and welcoming. Overall, the facility was clean and relaxing. The waiting area had magazines and iced cucumber and lemon water. The locker area was fully stocked with the usual toiletries.
I came here with my husband to enjoy a massage. I had their shiatzu massage and my husband had the heated stone massage. The hostess was nice enough to offer us one room to have our massages done since we were a couple. What ended up happening is our masseuse didn't realize this and we had our massages done in separate rooms. So, there was sort of a lack of communication. After realizing this snafu, we were offered a discount for the mistake ...which was really nice of them.
As for the massage, it was just OK...nothing fabu about it. My masseuse seemed a little inexperienced...maybe it was just his technique?? My husband said his massage was great and he had no complaints. I'm sure the staff varies, I'll just have to try someone else next time.
Other than that, it was a nice visit not bad for a fairly new day spa. Pleasant staff, great steam room and nice views if you head outside to the golf course or balcony. I'm sure they'll get better as the staff gets more experienced.
Ok...where to begin? I just got back from an 80-minute massage at Pacific Palms, and I'm still not quite sure what just happened to me.
The spa itself is actually quite beautiful. The staff, however, needs to be trained in the art of pampering. In most spas, the receptionist speaks in quiet, soothing tones while checking you in. Sometimes, I've even had the receptionist put his/her arm around me while walking me back to the dressing room and giving me a tour of the facilities. No such luck here. The receptionist called me by the wrong name and then complained to me about how busy the day had been while she escorted me to the back. Listen...I'm usually a sympathetic person. If a waitress were to complain to me about a busy day, I'd feel bad for her. But when I'm shelling out $150 to relax, I really don't want to hear about how stressed out you are, lady. Keep it to yourself.
The facilities are very nice, but there were two bikini-clad ladies in the hot tub who were gabbing at the top of their lungs. Two things annoyed me about this: one, and this is just one of my quirks, I hate it when women wear bathing suits at a spa. It makes me feel like some kind of degenerate weirdo when I get into the hot tub, naked as a jaybird, with women who are clearly not grasping the whole bohemian coolness of the spa experience. Second, listening to people gossiping about their co-workers and dishing about their plastic surgery is not my idea of a relaxing time. Someone from the spa should have asked them to keep their voices down. I decided to forgo the hot tub in favor of the steam room.
The steam room is great. It gets super-steamy and smells good. One word of warning, though. The steam shuts off and restarts periodically, and when it restarts, it comes on very suddenly and sounds like there's a jet freaking engine in there with you. Don't yell "shit!" like I did...it's not good form.
So, I was annoyed. All was temporarily forgiven, though, when I walked into the quiet room to wait for my massage therapist and saw the beautiful spread laid out before me. Even the nicest spas I've been to usually have a bowl of fruit and some water. This place had huge trays of cut vegetables with dip, cut fruit, and sandwiches. They had yummy fruit-infused water and even soft drinks (although why you'd want to pollute your body with a Coke during a spa visit is beyond me). I helped myself to some unbelievably fresh vegetables until my massage therapist arrived and escorted me to the place where we'd spend the next 80 minutes together.
What commenced at this point was the strangest massage I've ever experienced. It was so rough that I began to imagine the therapist had some grudge against me. I prefer long, slow massage strokes. This woman's technique was not only short and fast, as if she could make the 80 minutes pass by more quickly somehow, but also involved a great deal of shaking. She would shake whatever part she was massaging very roughly before each stroke. It was like shake-shake-stroke, shake-shake-stroke, and so on. When she massaged my arms, she held my hands and shook my arms out like she was trying to spread a heavy tablecloth on a table. When she worked on my right arm, she tugged and yanked so hard that I thought my arm would dislocate, which was weird because I didn't remember her doing that to my left arm. Wnat did she have against poor Righty?
At one point, she disappeared and returned with a hot towel soaked in eucalyptus, which she left on my back while she worked on my arms and legs... for like 20 minutes. I detest eucalyptus, especially when it's cold in the room, and it burns. After a while, it passed the Ben Gay stage and felt like freaking napalm. I tried to relax and enjoy the leg massage, but all I could think was FIRE FIRE FIRE.
The foot massage was most bizarre. Before she touched my feet, she took a hot, very rough towel and scrubbed as hard as she could, even in-between and around each individual toe, like I had filthy little potatoes for feet. Yowza...downright painful.
I LOVE a good head massage, so I was disappointed when she refused to touch my head without a towel over it. No finger action, just rubbing my head in tight little circles with her towel-covered hand. Those of you with long, curly hair know what I mean when I say I may need to use my dog's de-matting comb before my shower tomorrow morning.
To be fair, she was really very nice, and she did ask me a few times if I was enjoying the massage. I'm just a huge wuss and didn't have the heart to say no.
As I was paying, the girl who rang me up also sighed heavily and complained about what a busy day she'd had. I grabbed my bag and hightailed it out of there.
So...beautiful spa, good veggies, wacky massage, harried staff...for a place this expensive (a mere 20-minute massage starts at $70, and they tack on an extra 20% as a "service charge"), a disappointing experience.
When you first walk in the door the mood and setting is just right. Music is softly playing and there is always attractive frount desk staff there when you arrive. Everything at this spa is beautiful. From the decor to the friendly staff, you will be just as happy with the services. I have recieved facials, massages and pedicures and they have all been great! I love getting treatments done here!
