Experience: Something personally encountered, undergone, or lived through.
merriam-webster.com

In Part 1, I said that I believe time and a quiet, comfortable place to prepare for and recover from treatments are essential elements of the spa experience. No matter how great the treatment or service is, it is diminished by not having this time and a quiet, comfortable place in which to spend it. However, excellent customer service, relaxing and effective treatments delivered in quiet and private rooms, and a place to prepare and recover from treatments is the bare minimum in my opinion.

I was reminded of this during my recent visit to the Roman Baths in Bath, England. When ancient Romans used the thermae, the predecessor to our modern spas, it was an extended experience - a process. A typical routine might begin with a workout in the palestra, followed by a visit to three progressively warmer rooms starting in the tepidarium, the largest and most luxurious room in the thermae. Here the bather would stay for an hour or so while being anointed with oils. This would be followed by a visit to the caldarium with small private bathing stalls offering a choice of hot or cold water. A visit to the hottest chamber, the laconicum, would follow. Here the body was vigorously massaged and the dead skin scraped off with a curved metal tool called a strigil. The bathing ritual would end with a cool dip in the pool of the frigidarium. Refreshed and clean, the bather then retired to the outer areas of the thermae to relax in the library or assembly room.

I find my personal favorite and most rejuvenating spa experiences have been those in which I roughly follow those steps - preparation, cleaning, heating, treatment, and rest. Tabacón Grand Spa and Thermal Resort in Costa Rica, Toskana Therme in Germany, One Spa in Scotland and The Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa in North Carolina spring to mind, but there are many others. The key ingredient at these spas was water - listening to it flow, being immersed in it, feeling its support, losing the boundaries between the body and the water, feeling tension dissipate and losing the sense of time. These were not rushed experiences. I was able to linger.

Granted, extensive and expensive facilities are required to provide those experiences. I don't expect those facilities from every spa. Nor do I usually have the time to spend an entire day at the spa. However, "spa" does have its roots in water. "Sanus Per Aquam" [S P A] is probably the most popular etymology of the word spa. It means health by or through water. Not surprisingly, the first of ISPA's ten domains of SPA is "The Waters."

I think every spa should offer something to capture the essence or offer a taste of this foundation in water for all of their guests, and many do. They have special showers, offer foot baths, or incorporate water into treatments such as Vichy showers and hydrotherapy baths. This helps to transform a place that delivers treatments to a place where you can have a "spa experience."

That's my opinion of The Experience. Thanks for "listening." I am interested in your opinion. Share it with me at jar@DiscoverSpas.com.