With the proliferation of wellness travel over the last few years, it’s become easy to book yourself into a wellness hotel and have a range of activities at your disposal to enjoy. There are endless options for hotels that have onsite gyms, yoga classes, sauna and plunge pools, an onsite spa and healthy menu options at the restaurant.
You can book a getaway at a wellness hotel to suit your required holiday dates and design a healthy holiday for yourself to enjoy.
Sounds easy, right?
Well, there is a BIG difference between a wellness retreat and a wellness hotel.
A wellness retreat is a much more dedicated, curated, personalised and intentional space for you to come and truly focus on your wellbeing, with the support of an experienced and professional team to help you meet your goals.
At Escape Haven, we’ve been welcoming women on wellness retreats for 15 years and we know that one of the most important (and often overlooked!) is the team that is on hand to support you.
While at a wellness hotel you are a mere room number, on retreat, you are a valued family member. The benefits, insights and memories made on a wellness retreat are profound and life changing.
We’re going to explain a few differences below about a wellness retreat versus a wellness hotel so you can see what might suit you best if you’re looking to enjoy a healthy holiday.
Booking your wellness escape
When booking a stay at a hotel, even a wellness hotel, you will generally pop your desired dates into the booking page of the website, enter your credit card details, and be sent an automated reply that you booking was successful.
At Escape Haven, your retreat journey begins the moment you contact us. We work alongside you every step of the way to curate and customise your stay to suit your wellness goals. You CAN book right away on our booking platform, however most guests love to contact us first and find out more information so they know they are making the right choice around packages, rooms and inclusions. Once booked, you’ll have ongoing communication with our retreat planner in the lead up to your stay so that you feel supported and welcome, even before you set foot on the plane.
Your arrival
You’ve booked, you’ve travelled, you’ve arrived. If you’ve booked your own stay at a wellness hotel, chances are its now time to navigate the airport and find a taxi, working through potential language barriers and currency confusion after a long flight and carrying your heavy baggage!
At Escape Haven, we like to greet our guests with a little more VIP style! Your personal driver will be waiting for you (no matter what time of day or night you arrive!) with a sign that you can easily recognise and lets you know you’re in safe hands. Your bags will be carried for you to the awaiting car, and you’ll be whisked away to retreat in air-conditioned comfort with fresh water, a cold face towel and healthy snacks. Your driver speaks excellent english and will make you feel at ease right away which we know is so appreciated when arriving in a foreign land on your own.
Welcome home!
Arriving at a wellness hotel, you may receive a kind welcome from the front desk and a colourful drink to sip on as you go through paperwork and are handed over a key to your room.
When you arrive on retreat, rest assured, there is no front desk and zero paperwork! Instead, you will be welcomed with open arms by our incredible team and gifted a beautiful frangipani necklace. You’ll be guided into a cool shaded area to enjoy a fresh coconut and some delicious vibrant snacks whilst your bags are placed carefully in your private room for you. When you’re ready, a staff member will guide you to your room and walk through everything you need to know about your own private sanctuary for the week! When you feel settled, you’ll enjoy a welcome massage- the absolute perfect way to iron out that travel stiffness and sink into retreat mode immediately.
The staff
You would hope that staff at any hotel you stay in are friendly and helpful. Yet with most hotels, that is as far as the service goes. The staff are providing a service and working within the confines of their position. There is a very clear sense of staff and guests and no overlap or real connection developed as guests are considered to be more interchangeable and transient.
On retreat, the staff become your family. Every single Escape Haven review will mention the staff as the main retreat highlight or will refer to how they became family. Each staff member on retreat genuinely cares about you and your retreat experience. They show initiative and ownership in their roles. They are creative and thoughtful and devise ways to surprise and delight you. They show attentiveness and presence and are genuinely happy to sit down and share a long conversation and learn more about you. From the moment you arrive the team will know your name, your goals and how you like your morning coffee or tea!
On retreat, there is no ‘one size fits all’ mentality. Each guest is different and unique and their journey is customised to reflect this. The staff have the experience and freedom to devise ways to best support you and are encouraged to think outside the box to make your retreat stay not only perfect, but memorable and life changing. The staff are a crucial key element of the retreat journey and this is something that needs to be experienced to be truly understood and appreciated.
The female friendships
Being in a wellness hotel, well, it can be lonely at times! With other guests checking in and out at various times and the transient nature of a hotel, it can feel as though you’re a small fish in a big pond! A wellness hotel lacks that personal connection with others which can be really helpful and supportive, especially on a healing and wellness journey. A wellness hotel will likely also have men and even possibly children, which changes the dynamic of your experience when rest and relaxation are your main goals.
At Escape Haven, your wellness retreat is a personal journey, but it is also a shared journey. With week-long dates, women join for a set duration which creates an incredibly beautiful and supportive container. No men, no couples and no kids means that you get to come and truly relax and unwind. You have the freedom and space to open up and simply be yourself. There is laughter and sometimes tears as guests share stories, support one another and find so many commonalities of their life journeys. The female friendships formed on retreat last much longer than the retreat week and are always such a defining highlight.
The space
A hotel can be lovely to look at and share photos of on Instagram, yet a hotel is still often an impersonal space shared by many people with various rules and regulations to govern the space.
On retreat, the retreat sanctuary is your home. The facilities are yours to enjoy as you please. Your private room is exactly that- your own beautiful room to call your own all week long. The grounds and the suites are designed to make you feel comfortable and welcome at all times. There is no sense of a hotel atmosphere at all, just beautiful spaces, inspiring interiors and thoughtful touches to help you relax and slip into retreat mode. You are encouraged to enjoy the communal spaces- the air conditioned living room, the 2 large pools, the sunbathing pads, the huge jacuzzi, sauna and ice bath, the yoga shala and tropical gardens- all of the spaces are yours to experience as you wish. There are no signs, no curfews, no tacky flyers in your room! Just space to rejuvenate and feel inspired, completely as you are.
Customisation
At a hotel, you may be a valued guest, but you are still very much a room number. The occupancy levels at a hotel mean that there simply isn’t a great deal of scope when it comes to customising your stay and what is possible. There are a set number of activities, class times, tour options and spa bookings that you can enjoy and beyond that, there isn’t capability for a more curated stay.
On retreat, everything about your stay is customised. You select the perfect room from our various room options. You select your retreat package from our signature packages. You can choose to add on different healing sessions, tours, adventures, wellness activities and more. Your meals are customised to your dietary needs. Your schedule is curated alongside you when you arrive with your retreat planner to ensure you are happy with the structure of your week. Yoga is customised to your yoga level and experience. Your pillow is selected depending on your sleep needs! Nothing is ever too much trouble on retreat and all you need to do is ask and we can find a way to make your retreat dream a reality. With a dozen or so women on each retreat week, our guests to staff ratio ensures you will never feel like a number!
Are you choosing a wellness hotel or a wellness retreat?!
These are the main key factors that differentiate a wellness hotel and our wellness retreat at Escape Haven. Hotels can be fun and flexible and sometimes that sense of anonymity is something people like. Yet at Escape Haven, we truly value connection and relationships. We want to know you, support you and delight you. We want to do everything we can to make your journey as perfect and memorable as possible. While a hotel will likely forget you the moment you leave and a new guest arrives, we remember guests forever, and its such a joy when guests come back and revisit us again. We value this level of service and customisation as we know you deserve it.
So, if you’re ready to say farewell to impersonal hotels and come and meet your Bali family, we’d love to welcome you with a Bali spa retreat. Come and see the difference for yourself.