East Day Spa — Local services in Waitematā

Below is an excerpt of what I emailed to East Day Spa regarding a disappointing treatment. I had a spa package in early January.

During the massage, my masseuse did more of a back rub than a massage, it felt very half hearted and she hardly worked into the muscles at all despite me requesting a medium firmness. The few times she did work into the muscles, she did not do so with any balance - she would do one side and not the other. There was no rhythm to what she was doing. The other body parts massage was fine, but I requested special attention to my back so was really disappointed with this.

During the scalp massage, it was again very half hearted with just a bit of rubbing in one area, not a full scalp massage. What was quite upsetting though was multiple times, the masseuse would run her fingers through my hair and try snag out the knots. It was incredibly painful and she could surely see me wincing.

This experience felt very familiar as I have been to East Day Spa before. After the treatment I told the receptionist I was not happy and asked who was my masseuse last time due to this familiarity. She confirmed I had the same masseuse previously. Last time I thought it was just a one off, that the masseuse might be having a bad day so didn't say anything, but to have this experience twice, for the amount of money being paid, I am just so disappointed.

East Day Spa got back to me basically saying that if I was uncomfortable I should have said something during the treatment... well that is all well and good to say, but in the middle of trying to relax but instead being in pain and disappointed it isn't easy to do. It should never be like this in the first place. They never offered any sort of refund after spending hundreds of dollars there, and just encouraged me to come back. Why would I come back after having a bad experience twice, and feeling like the blame is being put back on me?...

I had a pregnancy massage that my husband bought me as a birthday gift. I was so excited about it because not only was I a bit sore and achey from being heavily pregnant but I’d been to East Day Spa a number of times before and always had wonderful experiences, so naturally I was looking forward to being pampered and having some lovely ‘me’ time before my baby arrived. Unfortunately this was not to be as I spent far too long walking along the roadworks maze on Albert Street (the main entrance) only to be told by a very sympathetic road worker that it was closed off. So I called the spa reception who explained that I needed to come up to the Skycity Grand entrance. This required me (at 38 weeks pregnant) to walk up a big flight of stairs and along Federal street when I’d already been on my feet for ages trying to find the entrance. I’d been in touch the day before my appt too, so would have assumed the main entrance being closed off would be an obvious thing to tell people (especially pregnant ones). I got to the spa quite out of breath and was directed to the waiting area without being offered any water which I found really surprising because normally you’re made to feel taken care of as soon as you walk in but I really got a sense that the reception staff couldn’t care less. *I’m giving this review 3 stars because the massage was great and the therapist was lovely. This has brought my overall experience up from 1 Star to 3. At the end of my massage I wasn’t offered water once again and was shuffled back out to reception where I paid up and left feeling like it was completely transactional and I could have got the same massage (without the spa experience which was non-existant in this case anyway) from a place in the mall for half the price. I then bought myself a bottle of water on the walk back to my car feeling quite parched...

Shocking experience. In a nutshell- the masseuse took it upon herself to diagnose my partners medical issue (which he had only mentioned because he didn’t want her to touch the area), and told him that he shouldn’t get surgery because his diagnosis isn’t possible and that he only needed a massage to cure his problem. My partner recently had the surgery for his condition and the surgeon said if they hadn’t operated it could have been life threatening. Completely unprofessional and negligent behaviour from a masseuse- not what you would expect from a high end service.

We emailed East Day Spa with a lengthy complaint and asked for a refund. They came back to us saying they couldn’t refund us and the masseuse denied everything. Surely if they cared about their clients they would have made an effort to seriously look into this and try to provide us with some solace and understanding- especially given that I was in the room with my partner and was witness to the entire thing!

There was also the issue of the therapist pushing and prodding the area (which my partner explicitly said not to go near). She claimed that she was in the ‘medical massage’ field for 10years so her opinion is reliable.

The whole experience was EXTREMELY UNPROFESSIONAL and incredibly negligent. We would have felt a bit better if there were some steps taken to remedy the situation and we got our money back, but there weren’t. The only thing they offered was a complimentary massage of the same type- which we are not going to redeem because we have had such a...