Spa Castle is this mind-blowing amazing place on 57th street in NYC. Since I turned 27 this year on my birthday, I decided to forgo the usual clubbing party that I have, and my friends and I did a spa day for my birthday. Its supposed to be this tranquil place so they recommend you don’t bring your phone so it doesn’t go off and disturb you or anyone else while your in this relaxing sanctuary. Therefore, I unfortunately don’t have any pictures from my birthday. But when I saw that there was a deal on living social for the general admission fee, which is usually $65, for $35 I had to buy it. I told my friends about it, and my friend Ariel was willing to indulge herself and come with me again. This time I brought my waterproof camera with me so I could take pictures and show everyone how beautiful and amazing Spa Castle really is. Please ignore the horrible quality of the photos.
When you walk into the lobby / cashier area from the elevators, you can already tell that you’ve walked into a beautiful wonderland that is Spa Castle. When you walk in you are greeted by black marble floors and elegant purple benches, in addition to an employee or two at the cashier desk. You pay the entrance fee up front, but then they give you this really awesome bracelet-like watch thing that not only opens your locker, but you can charge everything you do at spa castle to the watch and pay for it when you exit. That way, you don’t have to carry around anything with you during your experience at Spa Castle.
After you pay the entrance fee, you walk into your respective locker room, left for men and right for women. You put all your belongings in the locker, and they give you a towel, slippers, and a uniform (a t-shirt and shorts) to wear during your day at Spa Castle. Each locker room has lockers, bathrooms, showers, hot tubs, a steam room, and a sauna. But don’t be disappointed, this is just one regular sauna. Spa Castle has 5 hot saunas and one cold room upstairs available to everyone.
Spa Castle has one indoor pool and one outdoor pool. However the outdoor pool is currently closed, and I asked an employee when it would open and she said that it was up to the courts. I guess NYC isn’t too happy with Spa Castle’s plan of having an outdoor pool. So, that might be why they offered a living social deal.
The indoor pool is still pretty nice though. It has a small sunning area with skylights and lounge chairs, so it has an outdoor feeling, almost (I might be stretching a little bit here). The pool area also has its own bar with alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks available to purchase via your watch. No mixed drinks though, just beer, wine, sparkling wine, champagne, and some mixed “mock-tails” (alcohol free).
Unfortunately, the living social deal brought in all kinds of people that didn’t appreciate the Spa Castle experience. There was a group of older teenagers that got in somehow (they do ask for ID, but maybe they just don’t let people under 21 drink) and were acting like children that had never been in a pool before, and it was really disruptive. The bartender had to actually go over to them and tell them to stop acting like children. I’m not actually sure what she said, and she was really nice, so I doubt she actually said that. However, they were acting ridiculously immature. Splashing each other, pulling each other around in the pool, pushing each others heads under water, screaming and laughing loud; unacceptable behavior at such a sophisticated place. It was a huge disappointment, and I will absolutely wait till the living social deal is OVER before going back to Spa Castle again.
When you get sick of the pool or just want to check out the rest that Spa Castle has to offer, you can head upstairs. The upstairs area has Asian fusion food, a mix of bendo boxes, dumplings, udon and glass noddle soups, and other types of foods including fresh smoothies and fruit juices. My friend Ariel and I ate lunch first before hitting the saunas.
Upstairs there is a plentiful amount of special rooms and saunas to relax in. Spa Castle has a mediation room, a sleeping room, a foot reflexology massage section, an infrared lounge section, and several saunas.
We first went into our favorite sauna first: the gold sauna. It’s lined with gold infused tiles and looks amazing when you’re in it. Spa Castle claims that gold helps reduce dependency and improves mental acuity and concentration by increasing the conductivity between nerve endings. It seems to be the coolest of the hot saunas, and it easy to ease into it by sitting in this one first.
Going down the line, next we sat in the infrared sauna, which was pretty hot. I actually had to sit on my damp towel because I couldn’t sit on the stone bench because it was so hot!
Next we took a break from the heat in the cold room, which is awesome because its walls are lined with ice. Its not too cold, don’t worry, its not 30 degrees in there, it feels more like 45 or 50 after you’ve been in the hot saunas.
The next sauna that we tried was the color therapy sauna. This one had the heat of the gold one, but had different color booths that educe different moods. My two favorite colors were green and blue. According to Spa Castle’s sign, green is associated with peace, love, and relaxation and helps reduce stress and calms the mind, while blue is the color of truth, serenity, creativity, health, vitality, and decisiveness, and has anti-inflammatory properties.
The next sauna is another favorite of mine, and probably many other people considering its popularity, the Himalayan salt sauna. It was really hot, and had bamboo floor mats to lie on because it’s too hot to sit in. Spa Castle claims that this room will help regulate water and blood pressure throughout the body. Calcium, sodium, magnesium, carbon, and manganese found in the blocks of salt help to relieve allergies and asthma, softens and clears the skin, and reduces signs of aging. The salt also moisturizes the air allowing for easier breathing for those with respiratory issues.
The final sauna we spent time in was the soil and charcoal sauna. It had the same set up as the salt sauna and was just as hot. Spa Castle says the scent of Korean yellow clay creates a meditative environment.
After my friend and I were all heated up and ready to cool off, we showered in the shower area in the locker room and changed into our clothes to leave Spa Castle to come back another time. I miss it already.