The Awkward Couples Aqua Spa Treatment

How’s that for a post title?  Boom.  This is going to get heavy.

When Ashley and I booked each of our DR vacation stays we got free Aqua Spa Treatments for all of us…including Josh and Chris.  It was some kind of incentive for booking in January.  We both thought we were getting massages which thoroughly excited both of us.  I have had a handful of massages, so I was super pumped, and Josh has never had one…ever.  I spent the following 5 months talking it up to Josh and telling him how great it would be, etc, etc, etc.

When we finally arrived for vacation Ashley quickly found out that the Aqua Spa Treatment was not a massage.  There was a period of mourning, but Ashley had determined the aqua spa treatment was actually just free access to things like a fancy whirl pool, plunge pool, sauna and other various spa gym like features.  We lifted our grief veils and decided this would be fun after all.  Clearly, it was not going to be a massage, but Ashley loves locker rooms and I do like a good hot tub, so all was right with vacation world again.

Josh and Chris were not down with attending, so they headed to the real gym while Ashley and I checked ourselves into the luxurious spa house.  It was super peaceful and zen and insert any of those other spa-ish words you know.  Lots of trickling water.

Now we were in the Dominican and the spa staff did not speak a whole ton of English and Ashley and I are the same with Spanish.  Needless to say, the communication was quite broken.  We didn’t really care because we were just kind of excited about hanging out and chatting while we spa-ed it up.  As the nice lady is showing us the locker room she points to the gym lockers and says, “1 key?”  And this should have been our warning.  Ashley and I were like “sure”…we didn’t care to share a locker, so we nodded our heads yes.  The chic left and we just kind of stood there for a bit admiring the nice ladies locker room.  Ashley liked that they provided razors and shave gel, you know, just in case she needed to shave.  After standing around for a bit, we realized maybe we should go look for the spa lady, so we walked out and she was outside of the door waiting for us.

Here is where the fun begins.  She walks us into the big spa room and immediately ushers Ashley and I into a private shower stall.  “Go in.”  So we go in.  She closes the door and then we just stand there.

I feel like I need to stop here and clarify that we were not naked…we have on our bathing suits.  Okay, I feel better now with that all cleared up.

We have now realized this is not what we thought it was and we are actually now going to experience what is meant to be a “couples” aqua spa treatment…and Ashley and I are the couple.  We stand there and immediately start to laugh…now thinking back to the “1 key?” question.  We are also so confused about what to do because there is no water running…we’re just hanging out in the shower stall together.  I open the door and go find the lady and tell her we have no idea what to do.  She looks confused…and so do I.  I ask again trying to ask differently and she tells me “middle button, middle button.”  Okay.  I got it.  I go back in and push the middle button and Ashley and I then commence in, what was labeled on the outside of the door as a Tropical Mist Shower.  We are very confused as to how our couples treatment is going to go.  Do we just hang out until the lady comes back for us or do we go on out whenever we are done misting ourselves?  It was all comical and confusing.  Finally after some time in the mist shower, we just decide to go out.

She immediately takes us into another shower stall and I don’t even ask what to do, I just hit the middle button and we then just stand under basically a regular shower.  We hang for a bit and then go out.

We find our lady and she moves us next into a steam room and it was hot.  Like waaaaay hot.  And this is where we run into another couple, except they are actually married…and a couple.  We quickly torched any romantic vibe with our school girl laughter after we slide over the steam room bench and one of our bathing suits makes a very flagellant noise.  Oh the laughter.  The spa lady opens the door after a bit and gives us towels that have a bunch of ice in them and motions for us to place them on our foreheads.  She shuts the door and we follow instructions.  The other couple leaves after a bit, but we are still unsure if we just go on out or stick it out until they give us more instructions.  We stay until we can’t take the heat any longer.  And we continue on in our aqua spa ritual.  We go out, find our spa chic and she ushers us along through the next door.  It became a fun game.

Now it’s time for the sauna.  She hands us new towels stuffed with ice as we walk into the sauna and oh wow…hot to the hotness.  We find our couple friends laying on the hot wood bunkish beds and make some small talk.  The heat is instantly too much.  We’re  getting brain freezes from the ice towel, but you get all smothery, I-can’t-breathe-hot if you don’t put them on your head.  So we let the other couple move on and we quickly leave too…except this time our spa chic is waiting for us and she tells us “no, 10 minutes” and makes us go back in.  As she’s herding us like fine cows back into the sauna Ashley is pleading with her “but I’m so hot” and “we don’t want to do this anymore” and she shuts the door.  We laugh and lay there and sweat some more and pray to God that the sauna part of this couples treatment will be over soon.  Our chic never comes back for us…we figured she left us to sweat it out…or die.

We made our escape again and she moved us on through the next door and into the Primitive Shower.  This is another shower stall with a giant bucket above you and a rope hanging from it.  The door closed behind us and we assumed we just pull the rope.  We did.  And the giant bucket dumped cold water onto us.  It was just as un-spa like as it sounds.  We ditched this part pretty quick and hoped for the giant whirl pool next.  And we got lucky.

Our couple friends were finishing up, so we hung out for just a minute and then Ashley and I moved into the ginormous whirlpool.  This is the only part of the entire experience that is even remotely normal.  We tried to max this time out.  And did until we had to move on.  Next up is the awkward lounge chair treatment.

Our couple friends had disappeared.  Maybe they got a legit massage, so we had no clue what to expect with our lounge chairs.  A new spa lady was now our escort and she placed towels over our eyes.  We laid there…silent…no one else is in the room and I didn’t hear a thing.  After a few minutes I started to whisper, “Ashley”…pause…”Ashley”…pause…”Ashley”.  No answer, so I raised the corner of my towel and looked to my right where Ashley was laying and she was getting a very intense neck/chest massage from our new spa chic.  I covered my eyes and waited for my turn.  Soon my neck and chest were covered in lotion and getting the rub down.  Then it stopped.  We sat silent for a few minutes then I am sprayed in the face with something that smells like Febreeze and then just as I am getting used to the smell I get sprayed in the face with a peppermint smell.  This is all just as strange as it is reading.

Then again with the silence and waiting.  I don’t hear anything at all and begin my “Ashley”…pause…”Ashley”…pause…”Ashley” all over again.  Same thing happens…raised my towel and this time Ashley is getting a very intense scalp massage.  My hair is a hot mess…I mean a hot, hot mess and knotted up tight in a hair band, so I immediately go into self-conscious mode and wait for my scalp love.  Then she begins.  I enjoyed my scalp massage.  My scalp rarely gets love accept when I wash my hair and I never spend much time doing that, so this was nice.  Then she begins to try and take my hair down.  I immediately go into my “I’m so sorry”, “It’s a hot mess”, “Let me help you with that”, but she didn’t want my help.  So she just worked pretty darn hard and finally got my hair down and then she began braiding it.  Yep.  She braided our hair and topped it off with a red hibiscus flower.  She then walked us out into the back yard of the spa house and we laid on a thatched roof bed and drank lemon water.

After she left, we laughed…and laughed and laughed and laughed.  I kind of loved being sprayed in the face with Febreeze and peppermint the best.  Josh and Chris came to find us shortly after and we recanted the whole last hour of our lovely couples aqua spa treatment.  We realized that since each of us got a treatment Josh and Chris could have gone back and enjoyed one together too.  It didn’t happen, but if it did, I bet it would have made for a great blog post.

Happy Wednesday.