Bath house
The Bowenvale Bath House
Two heated outdoor pools, a cold plunge, a cedar sauna and four treatment rooms, at the quiet end of the ground floor with the valley behind them.
The pools
Two of them, outdoors, cut into the slope so they sit below the terrace and out of the wind. The upper pool is held at 38°C and takes about fourteen people; the lower one runs at 40°C and takes eight. Between them is a cold plunge at 12°C that most people use once and then use again.
The water is heated and filtered, not thermal — Christchurch has no geothermal water, and a hotel that told you otherwise would be inventing it. What the pools do have is the view: the city on the flat, the estuary, and on a clear evening the Kaikōura ranges beyond it.
The cedar sauna seats ten and runs at 82°C. There is a rinse shower between the sauna and the plunge, and towels are in the changing rooms rather than issued at a desk.
Hours, prices and who can use it
| Open | 7am to 9pm, seven days. Last treatment starts at 7.30pm. The pools are cleaned between 6 and 7am and the sauna is off overnight. |
|---|---|
| Hotel guests | NZ$32 a day, unlimited in and out. Included at no charge for guests in a Timber Suite or a Heartwood Suite, and in the Bath House Break package. |
| Day visitors | NZ$45 a day, booked ahead. Forty places a day, which is the number the changing rooms hold without a queue. |
| Children | Under-16s in the pools until 6pm, with an adult. No under-16s in the sauna at any time. |
| Treatments | From NZ$115 for fifty minutes, NZ$168 for eighty. Four rooms, two of them doubles. |
| Booking | Telephone +64 3 337 4180 or the enquiry form. Treatments book out first on Saturday and on the Sunday of a long weekend. |
The treatment list
- Full-body massage, fifty or eighty minutes — the one riders book, and the therapists know what a day on the Port Hills does to a back
- Deep tissue, eighty minutes, by request rather than by default
- Facials using a Canterbury-made range, fifty minutes
- Hot stone, eighty minutes, Thursday to Sunday only, because it needs the second therapist
- Two-person room for couples or for a parent and an adult child, at the same per-person rate
Therapists are employed, not contracted, and there are five of them. If the person you saw last time is on, the desk will tell you; if they are not, the desk will say so rather than book you in and hope.
Practical
Robes and slippers are in the two suite categories; everyone else can borrow a robe at the bath house desk at no charge. Bring your own swimwear. There is a hairdryer in every changing room and a locker that takes a bag rather than a wallet.
Pregnancy: the 38°C pool for short periods, not the 40°C, not the sauna, and the therapists have a separate list of treatments after the first trimester. Say so when booking and nobody will have to ask at the door.
The bath house has step-free access from the lift, a pool hoist for the upper pool, and a bench in both changing rooms. The hoist needs an hour’s notice so it can be moved into place.