Strøm spa nordique / Vieux-Québec — Restaurant in Quebec

Updated March 29, 2024 after some time searching their website, terms and conditions etc. Multiple clicks are needed to find the tiny font and legal disclaimers that (may) support these business practices. My original comments are unchanged. We consider their "Gift Cards" regardless if paid as full price, no promotion, to be possibly a clear example of Bait & Switch. as the amount you load is not applicable to packages and promotions - not the same value as paying with credit card or cash. Our favourite response so far is that they are so popular that delays checking in are inevitable. We were amongst the first 20 people in on our day and delays were already 20-30 minutes for reserved guests. Can't imaging what the rest of the day was like for the staff and guests. Dear Strom - please review reservations and in advance and staff appropriately. Deploy the managers to support up front when the staff are obviously overwhelmed.

Original comments below. Check-in and gift certificate nightmare.... Gift certificates are a scam (more on that below). Echoing countless comments - the arrival/check-in process is unorganized and very, very long. Having been to similar spas across Quebec (very recently) and Canada, this is the worst for greeting and reception of reserved guests. 20 minutes (13 people in line, 2 receptionists.... and multiple staff walking back and forth behind the counter, who never supported the check in process for staff. Evidence as to why they need a "be kind to our staff" sign as the management were hiding in their office(s) somewhere - when they could have supported the "rush?" If you want too attract and retain employees - set them up for success and support them better.

Gift certificates? Don't bother I purchased on line to give to my wife as a gift. But..... cannot be used for reservations, packages, promotions... If we had paid in full (other than with a gift card) - our day would have been less $$$ but we she would still have what is a useless gift card. So ultimately a scam for the spa to collect money in advance. Zero advantage for customers, and frankly embarrassing for my wife who was lectured as to all of the special terms that apply. Lectured for using something she received as a gift... their gift card at their establishment. Reservation prices are not guaranteed. We were charged almost 75$ more than our reservation. For pricing and questions on the this, we tried to ask questions and get our concerns resolved on the day we were at the spa - but the staff had no permission/training to address the concerns and no manager available to support. We did not want to stress an already overwhelmed employee so (after the long check-out process) we simply paid and left. Massage, lunch, spa facilities excellent as were the masseuses and staff in general. That doesn't excuse the rest nor the obvious lack of improvement promised in many answers to similar complaints. A response beyond the copy-paste answers we are reading here might be appreciated but our confidence in the administration/management leaves us doubtful any of this will...

I would like to start off with the positive! This location is absolutely stunning and has a few more things to offer than the other locations I’ve been to. Maintenance could be a tad better but overall a beautiful spa. First issue, rather small but annoyance to me being to ALL of their locations was, we check in about an hour before reservation time, upon check in the girl at reception asks me for the card I used to make the reservation. Seeing I used a temporary option at the time of booking, before presenting my card I made it very clear that the card I wanted to use to pay would be my personal card and not my business card. She acknowledged that request and proceeded with my card anyways. When handing me the machine I asked her if this transaction was an authorization hold and she confirmed it was, however I was asked to put in my pin which normally I don’t have to do for an auth hold. That was the first issue, will get back to that at the end!

Moving along the day we take a break and go to the restaurant to have lunch. This I will say with confidence to avoid if you truly want to enjoy your time at Strom. Not only is it overpriced but the food just isn’t well prepared or presented well enough for the price point! My sandwich was $27 (Picture added) !!! What came to me was a somehow cold but overcooked sandwich. The porc effiloché was cooked to the max and the bread was burnt and literally crumbling in my hand. We advised the waitress of our disappointment and she too herself admitted that the sandwich used to be way better before a few changes were made in the kitchen and that she has gotten a lot complaints recently. She offered us dessert to compensate. Bill arrives and she charged us for the sandwich and waived the dessert. Not sure if it’s just me but when you offer something as an apology it’s usually on the house on top of removing the item the customer did not eat. Idk maybe it’s just me, but she seemed to think it was fair to charge us the sandwich and not the dessert that we honestly didn’t care for to begin with nor did we finish. After a back and forth between the waitresses and management they accepted our request to pay for the dessert and to remove the sandwich I took one bite out of!

Now we are checking out and i’m ready to pay for the day as per normal process. We get to front desk and the girl at front desk says “you guys are all paid up you can go!”. I ask, it’s not an auth hold and she’s like “no you paid everything in advance.” So the first girl as I expected charges my card after I mentioned not wanting that card used for payment. Moral of this long review is, customer service at a spa is AS important as your time there. Something they should work on. I paid a lot of money to go relax, not...

Absolutely appalling experience — both emotionally distressing and poorly handled by staff.

My husband and I are seasoned spa-goers. I’ve managed a spa myself, and we traveled across provinces specifically to visit this one — having just been to Siberia Station Spa a few days earlier, where we had a peaceful, exceptional experience. We arrived at this spa with high expectations — and left shaken, in tears, and deeply disappointed.

Just 45 minutes into our visit, while quietly settling into the steam room, I whispered to my husband, “Gosh, that’s hot,” after unexpectedly sitting on a dangerously hot metal edge. It was a single, hushed comment — the only words either of us had spoken.

A woman — who had briefly stepped out for ice — re-entered at that moment and screamed “Silence!” at us. What followed was an aggressive, public tirade. She accused us of laughing at her, yelled at us to “shut up,” and repeatedly called us “disrespectful tourist jerks,” “idiots,” and “horrible people.” She threatened to have us removed, declaring that she was a member and we were not. Every attempt we made to explain — calmly and respectfully — that the whisper had been unintentional was met with more verbal abuse. I was eventually brought to tears by the sheer hostility — in what is supposed to be a peaceful and safe space.

We immediately reported the incident to the front desk. Staff were polite and did ask for a description of the woman, but when we weren’t able to offer more than a basic identifier given that we were trying to describe her from memory and she was in the change room and couldn’t be directly pointed out, they made no further effort to follow up or de-escalate the situation. No one tried to support us in salvaging the visit or making us feel safe or seen. Instead, we were asked if we “just wanted to leave” and were issued a refund — a hollow gesture given we had barely begun our experience.

The message was clear: membership status holds more weight than guest wellbeing. One staff member even joked that being a member is “a privilege one that could be revoked” but this was said in jest, which only underscored how little was going to be done.

This wasn’t simply a disappointing visit — it was an emotionally unsafe experience made worse by the spa’s failure to act. We came to relax and left feeling vulnerable, disrespected, and dismissed.

We will never return — and I urge others to consider how they would feel if this happened to them. A spa should be a refuge. Instead, this one allowed an abusive member to publicly humiliate guests without...