Ste. Anne's Spa — Attraction in Alnwick/Haldimand

My partner and I stayed at the Birdsong inn in the Dove room, for two nights. It was a nice get away, here are our ratings and experiences overall.

Food 3.5/5 The food was hit and miss, but there were a lot of different tea/coffee/juices to try; however I highly recommend the Vanilla Oat Matcha Latte iced. Service was ok, however normally you seat the patron before filling the cups of water. Food portions were alright, tea time, lunch and breakfast were a bit smaller, however it was not terrible as you are able to ask for more if needed. Dessert was fantastic! Highly recommend the pork belly and falafel.

Spa treatments 4 / 5 My partner and I both had 3 different treatments; I had the foot focus, custom body polish and 45 min RMT Massage, my partner had a facial, eucalyptus wrap and 45 min RMT Massage. We both really enjoyed the actual treatments that were performed however the spaces which I was given my treatments were loud as they were located near the changerooms, I was trying to relax but would hear constant noise coming from spaces around me which distracted from the calming and relaxing experience.

Facilities 2 / 5 The overall facility was nice, there lacked seating areas around the property. The large pool was nice to swim in. The change rooms were okay. The hydrotherapy baths were tiny in comparison to other spas, there were 4 main hot baths and one cold bath. As I expected the hydrotherapy space to be a relaxing and silent/quiet whisper zone, my partner and I found it opposite. More than once we found ourselves hearing loud conversations from bigger groups which was annoying as we were trying to relax and listen to nature not to people talking. At other spas, there are staff who walk around to enforce the quiet zone, but no staff were near to address any of the behavior.

Classes 2.5 / 5 We had booked one class each, my partner did evening yoga and I took the rolling relief class and we had booked an additional class with our $350 spa/wellness credit. When we arrived on our itinerary we had been booked in for our E-bike tour for the 27th. Throughout our entire stay no one had called or informed us that our class was canceled. The morning of the 27th I had called to ask where to meet for the e-bike tour, the staff had said there was no class that morning. This was frustrating as it was our last scheduled activity. When we paid our bill i was looking at the charges which were made and i noticed they charged us for the one class which was supposed to be included in our all inclusive package. They had kept saying we were never charged for it, but we were since our other class was canceled, we had lost $20 each towards our $350 allowance. Eventually a manager was able to refund us, kindly look over your invoice prior to leaving.

Itinerary 2 / 5 Since it's a full all inclusive spa, they schedule you for everything. This was great to have as for the massage slots and wellness activities, however for the rest of the day just simply seemed like a jam packed 3 days. For example the second day we had to have breakfast at 8:00am to make our spa time for 9:00 am and 9:15am but they wanted you to check in to your spa appointment 15 minutes prior, which left us with 45 minutes to eat. After the spa finished around 10:15 am, we were scheduled for lunch at 11:30am, giving us a little over an hour between. Next we had a treatment at 1:30, so we had a bit more time. My point is you may find yourself stressing to get to the next scheduled thing. A suggestion would be to have scheduled treatments and wellness classes, but meals unscheduled.

Overall experience i think was decent, however i definitely was expecting some things to be a bit better...

Four months ago, I wrote the following review after a two day visit to the spa. I received a response, also below, via this site from the spa saying that if I hadn't already heard from them, that someone would be contacting me regarding my experience as sited in the review. While someone reaching out to me was completely unexpected, I thought that was a professional and thoughtfully polite thing to do regardless.

Well, it's been over 4 months. Haven't heard a word from anyone at Saint Anne's, so how about you reassess promising big and delivering small Saint Anne's? I didn't expect to hear from you BUT when you said that you were contacting me, well...I guess I just expect businesses of your purported calibre to do what you say you're going to do. Clearly, the service that I spoke to in the review being inconsistent continues to ring true. Following is my original review. Adding this, my own follow up edit, has reduced my stars and reaffirmed my lack of interest in returning.

"Saint Anne's is an exceptionally well located, beautiful facility with a super wide range of services. I had three services during my overnight stay and the service providers were professional, knowledgeable, very helpful and pleasant. The foot therapy was exceptional. The reception service depended on the person behind the desk. Some were very pleasant and some were not rude, but quite curt, as in no time wasted on smiles and customer service pleasantries. Check in was a bit of a gong show actually with bags and boots hurried into in a large closet in the main reception hall. We were handed bags with robes in them and pointed to an overcrowded locker room that required wading through a pile of shoes and boots to get in the door, then shoulder to shoulder with the crowd searching for an open locker. There is no assistance with baggage available in the form of bell trollies or staff, so pack lightly! Carrying bags, coats and boots up a flight of stairs (if your room happens to have no elevator access) is difficult to manage for some. When our room was available, we were very disappointed to find that our room was through a private door and up a narrow steep set of stairs. My friend has ambulatory issues and as there was no assistance with bags, and the stairwell was so narrow, a couple of trips were necessary dragging bags, coats, boots. The room was cold with no heat having been turned on, the furniture was shabby and is actually very shabby throughout the entire Inn. There were zero niceties, anticipated at a facility in this snack bracket. Their "turn down service" was actually a bag with two chocolates left on our door knob and no, we did not have the do not disturb hanger on the door. I was surprised to find twin beds, anticipating at least standard/double width. The mattresses were comfortable but definitely too narrow for an adult and I am a petite female.There was no phone in the room to enable front desk contact, no tray to retrieve coffee from the common spaces, just one small glass each for water. So very disappointed in the accommodations, administrative services, check in etc. This is a reputably very high end Inn and Spa and there is a lot of room for improvement. The food and the service in the restaurant was outstanding. Our servers were excellent in every way and the Chef and his/her staff are exceptional. The dining rooms are beautiful and truly a delightful, relaxing and delicious experience. The menu is varied and accommodates all food and dietary preferences and the presentation is beautiful. While I won't be returning to enjoy my mini Spa escapes at Saint Anne's in future, I'm glad for having had the...

We visited for the day spa package that included lunch and afternoon tea. The reason for the 3 stars is because I didn't 100% enjoy my massage and I felt that the drive from Toronto was not worth it. Our package was $386 after taxes and the massage and as the massage was $186 after tax that means it cost $200 for the lunch, afternoon tea, and use of the facilities such as the eucalyptus steam room and the hydrotherapy pools. In my opinion it is not worth it for the 5 outdoor pools and 4 sauna/steam/ warming rooms. Considering we have a set time of 9-6pm for this package it feels like the day went by really quickly, and I am not sure it was worth the price we paid overall. Upon checking the site again I've realized they have updated and increased their prices for massage services, so I am extremely glad we went when we did. As with these increased prices I do not think it is worth it. I was disappointed that my group couldn't be booked more closely together for our massage appointments, as we didn't get to spend time together other than at lunch and tea, however as this place is extremely popular and booked in advance it is understandable. Food: the 3 course lunch we ordered all tasted great but the portions were small. I would give the food a 5 star just because the main course and dessert for all of us tasted great. For the afternoon tea we all got the same selection and enjoyed the sandwiches on the top tier, however the middle and bottom tiers were only okay. Service: all the staff we interacted with were great and I would rate the service as 5 star as well. Edit: we are planning on going again but the prices have increased making it less worth it, but others in the group wanted to try it for the first time. Negative note: we booked in the beginning of December or end of November to visit at the end of Jan and then saw they had a boxing day sale, they would not give us the lower pricing for the boxing day sale. This is completely unfair - we book early so we miss out on the better pricing for the exact same package? Very unfair and lowers my opinion of this place. Further edit: most recently visited end of Jan 2024 and the server Maria that we had for lunch was rude to my friend when ordering. She also completely just stopped serving us and focused on another table next to us when we were waiting to order dessert. The fish dish we ordered had a bone that I almost ate and was not warned that there could be a bone. We also waited more than 30 minutes to be seated for lunch while starving. This is a huge negative of this place: they plan your day for you. You arrive at 8am and don't get lunch until 12:30pm or after possibly and snacks aren't really a thing aside from granola or apples at the front desk. The inn keeper apologized for the long wait which was appreciated. The follow up call we got they said aside from the lunch issue was there anything else? It didn't seem like they cared much or at all for the issues at lunch which was extremely...