HydroSpa Muskoka — Local services in District Municipality of Muskoka

This was definitely an experience to remember, but not in a good way.

I wanted to take my mom somewhere speacial for the holidays, and we don't get to spend much time together, so I thought a spa day would be the perfect way to relax and catch up. What should have been a relaxing day turned out to be more stressful then expected.

When we first arrived at the JW Marriott hotel there were very little information displayed to show where we needed to go. There was a desk for the Hydrospa on the left hand side when entering the hotel, however no one was attending the desk. A sign stated to see a clerk at the desk down the stairs. When we approached the reception desk on the lower level, we inquired about having lunch and were directed back to the main floor.

When we returned to the spa, we were directed to the womens changeroom and given a brief description of the amenities available.

When we arrived in the change rooms it was like a guessing game to find out which lockers work. Each locker we opened said temporarily unavailable. We enquired at reception and were told to open each locker until we find one that is available. Finally, we finally found a locker that was not temporarily out of order, however there were no instructions on how to use the locks. We just had to try it out and hope that it works and we are able to get our items out of the locker.

The pool was nice and warm and the hot tub even warmer. After this we moved onto the electric sauna which was leaking from the rain and quite cold. We then decided to try the wood burning sauna, which was much warmer, however the bucket of water was empty and we were not sure where we needed to refill the water.

Moving onto the himalayan salt room, we had no idea what was supposed to happen in this room, and we were looking for instructions, was this a salt scurb room, others entered in belief that it was a salt water pool. There was definitely a lack of commincation on use of amenities. We found eye masks in the room which had 3 modes, pressure, vibration, and heat. While trying to use these we felt none of the modes worked apart from vibrations, we continue to try all the masks until we finally found ones that work correctly. This should really be something that is tested through by the staff instead of just leaving them out of the guests to figure out.

We moved on to the massage chairs, and again this was quite confusing and did not work properly. Some part of the chairs inflate, however there were holes in some of the parts that are supposed to inflate and all you can hear is a hissing sound.

The oxygen bar is definitely an interesting sight to see, we had to find an attendant in the spa to inquire how it works. Deborah was happy to assist us in this quest. After taking a closer look at the oxygen bar we chose not to use it as there were things floating in the flovoured ware the oxygen passes through.

Finally when we decided to leave we had to ask an attendendant for plastic bags to put our bathing suits in to ensure we didn't get our bags wet.

When leavin we said goodbye, and in response the attendant at the desk was quite rude! She said in a rude tone, "did you check out?" As we were not staying in the hotel, i noted this to the attendant and she rudely she said "it doesn't matter you still have to check out." Confused I mentioned I had already paid online, but apparently this wasn't the case. Again the attendant was quite rude.

Overall this experience was a big dissapointment. I would not recommend purchasing a day pass to this spa. It definitely is not worth the $79.99/person. Try...

I am not typically one to leave a a bad review - I am fairly easy going and don’t like to focus on the negative. However, after my experience at the HydroSpa, I feel like it is necessary to leave a review.

I have been going for pedicures since I was in my teens. I have had multiple pedicures a year for well over 20 years; the one I had at the HydroSpa on March 17th was by far the worst one I have EVER had.

I have had $30 pedicure which were far superior to the $115 pedicure I had at the HydroSpa. Of all the nice extra things that were part of this package, I only experienced the paraffin wax; there was no massage, no scrub, and the hot stones were on my feet for about 10-15 seconds per foot.

My feet were not scrubbed or exfoliated well, the corners of my nails were cut on 3 toes, I wasn’t asked if I wanted my nails filed round or square, and the entire pedicure was rushed.

I was there with three other girls, and after our day we talked about how it was and our favourite part - hearing the other girl who had the same woman as me talk about her experience.. you would have thought we had different women doing our pedicures. It was very obvious that I was the last client of the day and she wanted to go home. Furthermore, her lack of skill was so evident I wouldn’t have been surprised if I was told it was the first pedicure she had ever given.

I called and left a message to discuss this and even though the machine said I would receive a call back in 24-48 hours I had to call a second time because it had been 5 days and I still hadn’t heard back.

When I did get a call back the manager was incredibly condescending. I said that the girl I was sitting next to was there an extra 20 minutes (and due to being pregnant didn’t even have the hot stone massage). She said this was because she had shellac… however, that shouldn’t have mattered. Our pedicures should have lasted the same amount of time, actually mine should have been longer because of the “hot stone massage” and then the painting would have started, mine with regular polish and hers with shellac. However that was not the case. My entire pedicure, including nail polish was done a good 20 minutes before her shellac was even started. I watched as her feet and legs were scrubbed and massaged with care (it was evident that the women performing her pedicure knew what she was doing.) while the woman who performed my pedicure was rushing around and cleaning up.

On top of my bad experience I sat in the reception area as I waited for everyone else to finish while I listened to another woman complain about her day and the bad experience she had. Furthermore, one of the girls I was with had to go back as the shellac slid off one of her nails not even an hour after having it done. Her shellac was done by the same woman who did my pedicure. While she was having it fixed she was told by this woman that “not everyone can do shellac, you might just have oily nails so it won’t stay, that’s not my fault” funny, since she has shellac on her nails all the time and has never had an issue.

The heated pool, hot tub, and saunas were lovely, however, after the poor service and condescending follow up call wi to the manager (who was so rude, I ended up hanging up on) I will never return to the HydroSpa.

If you are looking for a relaxing day, Vetta and Scandinave Spa are much better establishments with incredible staff that are both friendly and...

My husband and I purchased a day pass for the Hydro Spa. We pre-booked online and stayed at the hotel overnight. The staff at the spa were very friendly, however, the Hydro Spa experience was really disappointing. The only cold experience is a small outdoor shower. We've been to many similar facilities and every single one of them had at least one cold plunge pool. The massage room on the circuit consists of two massage chairs (like you would find at a nail salon) and one foot massage machine. Every time we tried to use them, they were in use so we gave up. We were really looking forward to the salt cave and it was the biggest let down. Most salt caves have walls and floors covered in salt.There is barely any salt in the room and there are no instructions on what you're supposed to do in there. We were in there for a couple of minutes when a table in the corner started making a fan sound. Is this table the salt source? The lack of salt leads you to believe that this isn't really a salt cave. Again, we have been to other salt caves elsewhere that were much more impressive and effective. The oxygen bar was unattended and there weren't any instructions on how to use it so we skipped it. The outdoor saunas were ok, but nothing special. The outdoor pool was nice and warm. The outdoor hot tub was nice, but it had a bunch of dead wasps floating in it. The steam room in the men's change room was broken. Some small food options would go a long way here, especially if you plan to stay for an entire day. If you want to eat, you have to leave the spa and go upstairs to the hotel and then go back down. This isn't very practical when you're in a bathing suit and robe. The $100 per person price point is way too high for this location. The basic concept of a Hydro Spa is there, but the facilities are not indicative of a true Hydro Spa experience. Had we known, we would have just gone to the hotel pool for the day instead. We will not be back to this Hydro Spa. As frequent Marriott guests, we also felt the Spa wasn't reflective of the high standard of a hotel as nice as the JW Marriott Rousseau. On a side note, we loved the hotel itself. It's in a beautiful location and the staff...