The Kura Door — Attraction in Salt Lake City

I had high hopes for my recent visit to Kura Door, especially after my first and previous solo visit where I received one of the best massages I’ve ever had. Wanting to share that same level of care with my husband, we booked a visit together for the Ofuro Bath experience. Unfortunately, our experience was deeply disappointing.

While the bath, sauna, and steam room were amazing, the massage and lack of response has left me disappointed and concerned.

As a licensed massage therapist with over 11 years of experience, I’m very familiar with industry standards and best practices. The massage I received fell far below even the most basic expectations. My preferences were discussed prior to the session, and were not honored. Entire areas, such as my glutes, neck, face, and even one of my hands, were completely overlooked. The draping was careless enough to make me uncomfortable (which is hard to do), and the overall technique felt disjointed, erratic, and far from relaxing. There were long periods where the therapist was walking around the room with no explanation, which made the experience confusing and frustrating.

What made the situation worse was the lack of opportunity to provide feedback afterwards. Instead, I was immediately asked about tipping, which felt uncomfortable and pressured given the quality of the massage. I didn't feel the service warranted a tip, yet I felt trapped into giving one.

I sent my concerns privately to the spa three weeks before posting this and have not received a response. I debated writing this review, but ultimately I feel it’s important to share in hopes that others don’t have a similar experience. Kura Door is known for a higher standard, and I believe guests deserve consistency in the care they receive. I am stunned that such a reputable and high-end spa would allow such a poor massage experience to occur, and then to ignore the feedback provided. This was, without exaggeration, the worst massage I have ever received.

My intention in writing is not to complain for the sake of complaining, but to advocate for the standards that I believe a high end spa should uphold, and ultimately felt it would be irresponsible not let others know what happened, to ensure that other guests don’t have similarly disappointing experiences, and if they do, to speak up, because bad massages like this are...

My husband and I chose to go to the Kura Door to celebrate our 1st anniversary. The ambiance was nice, and the facilities seemed decently clean. Our favorite part was the steam room, which was awesome. That said, I wouldn't spend my money going back. The massage was mediocre at best. We splurged, and tried the hot stone massage. Before the massage, my masseur asked if there was anything I especially needed. I explained that I had been experiencing a lot of stress headaches lately, and knew that I needed extra focus in my shoulders, upper back and kneck, and not to worry as much about the rest of my body. The massage began, and I'll admit that the hot stones were interesting, but I felt that a lot of time was spent swapping out stones; if you're just looking to relax, this was really cool, but if you're needing a more concentrated massage, skip this. The massage started at my feet, and worked up. I noticed that the masseur I had would do something to one side, and wouldn't replicate it on the other side. It all just felt rushed and lopsided. He finally got to my focus areas, rushed through that, and kept on going. I thought "well maybe he's just rushing through the whole thing, so he can come back to the area I need focus on for the remaining time." And then time was up. After he asked me how it went, and I told him it was relaxing, but I was disappointed that he didn't focus where I needed like I had asked. He told me, a bit condescendingly, that I should have spoken up during the massage, and I replied that you have no sense of time when you're on the table, so I had thought he would have listened to my initial needs. He seemed frustrated with me. My husband enjoyed his massage, though. We've had other massges where we left FEELING like we'd had a massage- our muscles were looser, tension released, etc. We didn't leave with that feeling here. Our muscles were still just as tense. My headaches were still persisting. So it was a disappointing massage for how much money we spent. We don't plan to go back.

Mark- not sure how to respond, other than to edit my review. You're welcome to contact me, but I'm not comfortable leaving my contact info...

Updated: Kura Door has started offering the Ofuro bath again. I appreciated them reaching out to me (which I didn’t realize they were going to do) and making arrangements to get me in for my full package quickly. All of my services were fantastic and the staff worked very hard to make it a nice visit. The steam room and dry sauna are still closed, but overall very pleasant. The only reason I’m withholding one star is because of the lack of flexibility in scheduling my package over the past year.

Original review: I have been going to Kura Door for years. First, I have always had a good experience with the services themselves (specifically facials and massages). The reason for my low rating is their customer service with respect to gift packages. I have had a gift card for a package my husband bought me since December of 2019. One of the items on the gift package has not been available since COVID (the Ofuro bath). I have tried several times over the past year to schedule it and am told each time that they can't offer the package because the bath isn't open. My options are to keep checking in and wait until someday when they open it (I've been told 1-2 months twice now in the past couple of months) or to use it for $ value only and lose the discount that was applied to the package. Additionally, many of the amenities that typically made Kura Door stand out (steam and dry sauna) continue to be unavailable through COVID, which makes spa visits less enjoyable than they once were. I understand that there are difficulties with staffing and COVID protocol. However, given how long this has gone on, I would expect Kura Door to honor the intent of the gift cards and come up with more flexible options for their customers. I understand and appreciate that the gift cards never expire, but people's circumstances change (they move, etc) and holding onto a gift card for multiple years is not...