Spa Weesp — Local services in Amsterdam

The Spa Weesp has some nice Sauna’s where you can add different scents via dispenser near the door (put on your hand and you get the scent in the sauna). The Caldarium with warm bath and steam bath was enjoyable even if busy. Also the scrubbing with salts you can do at the shower area felt cleansing and we enjoyed that. Up stairs there are relax areas where you can take a break from the baths and saunas for a moment and here are also the treatments/ massages (although we didn’t book any, so can’t comment on that). There were even some bed-like couches if you fancy a nap. Over all we enjoyed the spa and had a relaxing day.

That said we did have some issues with how the spa was set up:

Accessibility when going by public transport is really poor. Best may be to take an OV-bike from Weesp station to the place, as with the bus you need to walk for 15min either on a bike lane or on a road with no sidewalks. Didn’t feel welcoming and walking on the road even unsafe.

The changing rooms lack benches. Where we had a locker there were 20 lockers with only 1 short bench, so both coming and going we had to wait for the bench to be free and be able to put on or take off shoes or place bags without them standing on the wet floor. The lockers also have very limited hooks or hangers to place your clothes on.

As mentioned in other reviews the hallways are quite narrow and it quickly feels crowded. The bubble bath at the end of the hallway and the Caldarium are also often full or busy. It feels like there is no enforced limit of how many people can enter the Spa and thus quickly exceeds a comfortable amount of people.

The restaurant has tasty enough food, but the prices are quite exorbitant compared to even more high end restaurants.

When we were leaving, around the end of daytime visitors and start of evening visitors, there was only one receptionist working to both check in new people and check out those leaving. This led to a long queue and felt inefficient, especially since in the morning there were two receptionists to check us in. The queue strechted almost out of the door so that the automatic door would let cold winter air in all the time. In such a situation it would be helpful if there was one for leaving visitors and one for arriving, as the latter process also takes longer. There seemed to be another employee available that came in for a short moment, so perhaps the receptionist should’ve asked for help.

Lastly, the bracelets with which you can pay in the restaurant or for treatments were not adjustable. If you have small wrists you need to hold it constantly and I even saw people wearing it...

Update Aug 2018: We still had 2 entrance tickets left, so went again despite of our previous negative experience. This time we decided NOT to eat at the restaurant to avoid disappointment. We must say that the spa did take many of the complaints to heart and visibly improved the place. Every sauna worked, there were benches and chairs in the changing areas, plenty of plastic bags, the service was friendly and the place didn't seem to dirty. All in all we actually enjoyed our day here. The booking system worked properly again too. There would still be improvements necessary to actually give off a feel of a luxurious and pampering spa, but it seems they might be on their way.

May 2018: Not sure what happened during the renovation, but this place got downgraded in a year. Facilities are missing (no benches in changing room, plastic bags ran out), saunas are broken, resting areas don't have beds anymore but knockoff Fat Boys that are so uncomfortable the whole area was empty. The restaurant went from luxurious and enjoyable to canteen level food. The menu now has beautiful pictures of food which they don't even offer, and the ones they do offer don't even look like the pictures. I don't think anything of the food we ate was housemade. The 'organic Mediterranean soup' turned out to be just tomato soup from a can, the 'samosas' were pictured as actual samosas with potatoes and peas in puff pastry, but what we got were deepfried filo triangles filled with some sort of cabbage and some curry flavor. The Lamb curry was depicted as a huge plate with a nice piece of Turkish bread while what they served was a tiny dish with curry and a big bagel like roll (€18,50). The 'big cappuccino' was clearly machine coffee which costs €3,80. On top of that, we got defrosted factory cake with slushy 'whipped' cream from a can for which they charged a whopping 75 cents extra per person. That was just insulting. The food was disgraceful for the price we paid.

Jan 2017: Nice spa with lots of different saunas. It feels very luxurious to go chill in the restaurant in between spa sessions. They have a lot of vegetarian and even vegan options available! Very reasonably priced; definitely...

The beginning of our stay was nice, we really enjoyed the saunas unfortunately it got really noisy, I think people come there to socialise and have fun with their friends, not to relax. Everyone was talking and laughing very loud. The food in the restaurant was super overpriced and that tasty. We also had to rent bathrobes in order to enter the restaurant. At some point it was very packed and not much space to even walk. After a while we also realised that something isn’t right. Everyone was walking naked everywhere (we wore swimming suits) except the restaurant. We still continued wearing our clothes since we respect private parts of our bodies too much to show them to everyone. We just thought that’s okay. One hour before our stay a member of staff came to us and asked to take off our clothes since a lot of people are coming to complaint to the manager about “a couple wearing swimming suits”. Of course we didn’t do it therefore we got kicked out from the spa. She was following us to the lockers to make sure we leave. She wished us a good evening in a very sarcastic way. We felt like criminals while walking to the exit. No one ever told us we cannot wear ANYTHING at all. We come from countries where we are allowed to wear swimsuits in the SPA as well as in the sauna. I also never heard of a place where you cannot wear clothes in the whole SPA at all. I know you’re not allowed to wear clothes in the sauna but still use a towel. It just doesn’t seem correct for me. We are for sure not going back to this...