Cedar Creek Spa & Salon — Local services in Hollister

Big Cedar Spa offers incredible amenities, beautiful location and decor and great techs and therapists. Unfortunately, it's poorly managed, detracting from the overall experience. A few weeks ago a couple girlfriends and I scheduled services that concluded at 6:15. We showered to get ready to have dinner at Top of the Rock at 7pm. From the moment we left our services while we showered, got ready, etc, the manager and staff cleaned around us, paced and huffed. We received multiple warnings starting at 6:30. We felt unwelcome, though the spa didn't close until 7pm. Just a few weeks later today, I took a longtime employee for a day at the spa. We enjoyed wonderful facials, massages, pedicures and each of our tech/therapists were great. Our nail techs assisted us in ordering lunch. Our order arrived just before we concluded our service and we were directed to where our lunch was set up. The person delivering food requested payment. I asked if I should run across the spa to the locker room to get my card and she said no, she'd leave it at the front desk, which is typical of a spa during services. I assumed I would pay for it upon exit as I had done before and at EVERY other spa I have been to. After lunch, we went to the sauna where a staff member aggressively asked "are you Julie?" I responded yes and she loudly replied "I need you to come to the lobby to take care of payment immediately." Our relaxing occasion, which was a treat to my staff member suddenly felt stressful. I had to go upstairs, to the locker room and then the lobby to take care of payment. During this period of time, the woman who was unprofessional at my previous experience was walking around aggressively asking every woman she passed if she was Lisa. As I was retrieving my card from my locker, the woman I had just spoken to asked the same, I kindly replied, no, I'm Julie, retrieving payment for lunch. She stormed from the room. My credit card number was written ON PAPER. The (presumed) manager and staff interaction is not typical of spas - it detracted from the relaxing experience for both myself, my guest and surrounding clients. I highly recommend etiquette training. Also, I pre-paid for our services - why not charge that card or request a card on file up front? You don't walk around in your robe between services with a credit card. I had intended to make another trip in a few weeks and have decided to host at Four Seasons instead due to...

Everything was great, it was the perfect birthday weekend in Branson. The Hilton was great, the food around town was great, and the dinner at Top of the Rock was spectacular. The massage and spa were also incredible, that was until a person named Heather Minnen from the spa decided to ruin my entire weekend by being extremely rude and unhelpful at checkout. First of all, when we booked the massage when we called the first time we were told a couples massage would be $720. We booked and then called back and said nevermind that was very expensive, so then someone said oh no worries, we can just book you as two separate massages in the same room for $190 each. We said ok well $380 is way better than $720 so we will come by. They couldn't refund us at the time and we had to wait til we got there. So, we got our massage that day then when we went to check out and had a coupon for 20% off that I had gotten in my email. I had called to see if this coupon on would work - the gentleman on the phone said that since you are local - Bentonville Arkansas being local - that we could just show our ID to the person at checkout and they would honor the 20% discount for being local per the coupon I received. Heather was so reluctant to let us use the discount she asked two of her colleagues and a manager when they were all saying YES it is OK to use the discount she kept searching for a way to shut us down and tell us NO. It was very rude. It felt as though she just wanted to ruin our great weekend, when the whole weekend in Branson had been an excellent vibe. It sucks because the spa is so nice, but Heather Minnen rained on my parade. Will never forget it. I am always one to rather leave an excellent review then a bad one, but in this case she needs to learn how to treat people with respect and kindness. Then when she finally agreed to consider Bentonville local and give us the discount she then printed a receipt for me and the discount wasn't there, as if she was trying to scam me. Watch your back around there. I have spent a lot of money at this spa, and the area around Top of The Rock, but I will consider taking my business elsewhere...

First of all this spa is beautiful. I had two separate experiences- I would give 5 stars for the couples’ massage and spa day that my husband and I enjoyed two days after our wedding but only 3 stars for my experience getting hair and makeup done here for my wedding day. My hair I was reasonably happy with, though I thought we had agreed she would touch up my natural curls instead of straightening my curls out completely and then curling my hair, which is what she did. I didn’t love the shape of the curls but I still liked the style overall. My sister’s updo was very pretty and my flower girl looked cute (though they charged her more than we were quoted on the phone). My wedding day makeup looked pretty good...for about an hour or less. It wasn’t even a warm day, but within less than an hour it started separating on my skin and looking blotchy. By the time I put my dress on and saw my groom for the first look I was actually almost in tears because it looked so cakey/ blotchy and I didn’t know how to fix it. When I cried a couple happy tears during our first look it streaked terribly. I had my sister in law do her best to fix it and it looked better when she fixed it than it had originally. I don’t know if the salon put too much on or didn’t set it properly or if it was the products themselves, but I definitely felt the makeup was a total waste of money given how quickly it looked bad after she finished. I had offers from friends to do my makeup for free but thought a professional meant it would look better and last longer. I was very disappointed.

The massage therapists definitely knew what they were doing and the grotto pool and spa amenities were lovely. The pricing at this place is VERY pricey- and even at the high price point they charge extra for scented oils which are almost always included in my past experience with massages. In my opinion this takes away a bit from the feeling of luxury and being pampered. We were actually gifted the massages by Big Cedar after they made a mistake with our honeymoon reservation. It was a nice gesture to make up for their mistake and it was a relaxing end...