Spa Pre-booking / On board price difference

[CrazyLlama]

Is there a significant price difference in pre-booking a spa session as opposed to waiting and booking when onboard? 

 

I am considering a treat during an upcoming european cruise but I am unsure and think I would prefer to wait till onboard to confirm it. 

 

Also I have OBC, would I easily be able to use that for an advance booking via the website or does that make the decision for me to wait till onboard? 

 

Thanks. 

[fabby50]

The have frequent specials on board, sometimes more depending on whether you're on a popular cruise or not.  If you're on a more popular cruise, they also can get booked up, you might not get the time or day you want.  I usually prebook one massage and then evaluate what's on offer once I get on board to see if I want to book more.  You can use the OBC either way.

[SuzieQ521]

8 minutes ago, fabby50 said:

The have frequent specials on board, sometimes more depending on whether you're on a popular cruise or not.  If you're on a more popular cruise, they also can get booked up, you might not get the time or day you want.  I usually prebook one massage and then evaluate what's on offer once I get on board to see if I want to book more.  You can use the OBC either way.

 

Along the same lines, do you know if you can just book the Thermal spa for one day (not whole week) and how much that usually is?

We are on the Royal in a few weeks and the first sea day happens to be my birthday so I was hoping to have a nice relaxing day to myself. 🙂 Thanks!

[jeromep]

My experience has been that you get the best on board pricing on port days.  We rarely spend the whole day in port, so we find ourselves being able to take advantage of port day specials.  And some ports we just aren't that interested in, which makes taking advantage of port day specials even easier

 

If the spa isn't being utilized as much on a cruise as they would like, your massage therapist or service provider will often offer a significant discount on a return visit to them for a similar service or different combination of services that they individually offer.  A few cruises back we got a really great deal (even by local day spa pricing standards) for a 90 minute couples massage on a port day.  It was a very good massage, BTW.  After we were done and we'd signed for the bill, the practitioners offered us another visit at 30% off if we came back again the next day, which was a sea day.  So, we did book another session with them and got another couples massage with another treatment tacked on for good measure (I think it was a mud or scrub or something) for a great price.

 

Admittedly, the spa was underutilized on this particular cruise because of the type of cruisers we had on board, but most cruises we have been on we've at least gotten really good pricing on spa services by following the specials, booking on port days and doing a little bit of negotiating with the spa manager.

Edited May 4, 2023 by jeromep