If you know me, you know I’m a water person! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the water! So, it’s no surprise some of my favorite spas are those with water therapy rooms. I’ll have to do a separate post on my favorite water therapy rooms.
Ancient Aire is like my favorite water therapy rooms from my favorite spas, all rolled into one spa experience. It is a bath house spa.
A unique and exclusive experience
I first learned about the Ancient Aire spas from my older daughter, Chalisse, who visited the one in Barcelona. https://beaire.com/en/aire-ancient-baths-barcelona There are only 8 of these unique spas in the whole world. There are only two of them in the United States. They’re in Chicago and New York. I have to admit, I feel completely bougie saying I’ve been to both of the Ancient Aires in the US.
Ancient Aire New York
My daughter raved about how awesome the spa in Barcelona was, I decided to visit the one in New York City https://beaire.com/en/aire-ancient-baths-newyork# for my birthday in in February of last year. That was right before the pandemic shut everything down. That Ancient Aire was an amazing experience, especially as a couple. Michael and I were able to enjoy the baths and then a nice couples massage. What a treat!
Girls Trip!
Between my girls moving out of the country a couple of years ago, and Covid shutting so many things down, I missed our girls tradition of seeing the Nutcracker. My younger daughter who recently moved to Chicago after finally returning home China; called me shortly after my recent trip to visit her. She told me The Joffrey Ballet would be performing their rendition of the Nutcracker was going to be playing in December.
Then and there, I decided to plan a Girls Trip to Chicago so we could pick up on our tradition of seeing the Nutcracker during the holiday season. To make it a true Girls weekend, I added a spa day at Ancient Aire..
Ancient Aire Chicago
I was pleasantly surprised to learn Ancient Aire Chicago is the largest one of all of them. The place is huge with many different types of thermal baths at different temperatures. The baths have varying temperatures, with restorative functions. They range from balmy temps over 100 degrees to super chilly temps in the 50s for one of the cold baths.
One of the pools, the Floatarium, has the same salt to water ratio as The Dead Sea, so you can simply float your cares away! Floating is one of my favorite beach activities.
You can experience each bath at your own pace during your 90 minute timeslot at the spa.
I’m not much of a cold-water person so I stayed away from the 3 different cold water bath options but I certainly fully enjoyed all the other baths. They also offer two different steam rooms. My favorite one was the lavender infused steam room.
There were so many wonderful water experiences, but I think my favorite may have been the indoor/outdoor bath. You literally can swim outside in a heated pool and sit under the waterfall for a wonderful neck massage. It is a bit of a surreal experience being so warm while it was a chilly 30 something degrees outside. I’ll post the videos soon so you can see what I mean.
Heated marble slab
In the picture above, there’s a heated marble slab that is absolutely amazing to a lie on as you relax in between pools.
Covid Protocols
Mask are required to be worn at most times inside the spa, including while receiving massage services. The exception is when you’re actually in the water. They offer backup disposable masks and hand sanitizers at different stations throughout the spa.
A word of caution
One thing that is not clearly explained AT ANY time during the booking process nor the check in process is you have no real choice over the type of therapist you get. You can request a certain type, like a same sex therapist but there are no guarantees that’s what you’ll get.
This is something I definitely feel should be better explained up front and during check in. It turned out my older daughter got assigned a man and she absolutely did not want a man. They wouldn’t switch her with anyone so she never got the massage.
If they had explained that to us in the beginning, my younger daughter would have switched with my older daughter.
Don’t waste your time asking about this after it happens because they will tell you in the most curt way possible about their cancellation policy which means you would pay for it anyway. That is the one thing that cast a pretty big shadow over an otherwise enjoyable experience. So, know that going in and plan accordingly.
Videos to come
I’m currently editing the videos. I have some video from inside and outside the main areas. Stay tuned. In the meantime, drop me a comment and let me know if this is the kind of spa you would be interested in visiting.
Until next time,
Namaste,
Khadeeja
