Grand Velas All Suites & Spa Resort Riviera Maya represents the latest and most sophisticated iteration of the ultra-luxury, all-inclusive resort experience.
This Leading Hotels of the World designated resort is the preeminent one of its class boasting 493 suites, each more than 1,000 square-feet, embraced by the flora and fauna of the Yucatan Peninsula’s jungle.
If you are ever there, try the Riviera Maya Spa experience…
Guests enter on the spa’s top floor, at the Balinese-inspired lobby. They are then led through a plant-filled courtyard to amply staffed lounges and changing areas, where they are given slippers, robes, and herbal tea.
A wooden bridge that overlooks the Water Lounge below leads to the forty spa treatment rooms and marks the transition from public to private spa-going areas. Dark hardwood furnishings, shallow water-filled bowls that float deep red hibiscus flowers, and colorful Mexican and Balinese wall stencils, art and accessories give the spa a modern international feel.
Specialty spa treatment
Specialty spa treatment rooms include a suite for couples with a double Jacuzzi tub and another with a small pool for Jansu water-massage treatments. All rooms are generously sized and have floor-to-ceiling windows, as well as natural light.
The spa treatment rooms are designed to capitalize on the feeling of expansiveness, and provide views of the organic features and Water Lounge, while offering complete privacy to guests during their services.
After their treatments, guests relax with a cup of herbal tea and a warm buckwheat neck pillow in the tea lounge or on a Balinese carved-wood chaise lounge in the hydrotherapy area.
Guided water journeys
The natural subterranean level is the center of the spa and is entirely dedicated to relaxation and the restorative facilities that comprise the Water Journey. Almost 40,000-square feet are given to men’s and women’s sides, each with custom-designed amenities including a Clay Room, a circular glass-tile-lined steam room with a fiber-optic “star light” ceiling, an Ice Room with floor-to-ceiling window, and hot-and-cold Experience Showers.
A central infinity pool has powerful massaging faucets throughout and carved-stone chaises with jets set just underneath the surface of the water on which guests recline. Two stunning slate-grey stone-tiled walls bisect the central hydrotherapy pool, dividing the equally spacious and especially private men’s and women’s sides.
Each treatment (of 50 minutes or more) includes the hour-long Water Journey, a relaxation ritual built around the use of the eight, specially designed water-based facilities.
A personal spa valet is assigned to each guest to provide bottled water and towels but most importantly to provide guidance.
Spa treatment menu of seven international journeys
World-renowned spa consultant Diana Mestre conceptualized the international spa menu, which features Seven Journeys, each one a flight of signature treatments, which include:
- Mediterranean Voyage,
- Travels through India,
- Nature’s Aromatherapy Trail,
- World Travels,
- Men’s Journey,
- Inner Journey,
- Rainbow Journey for teens,
- Journey through Native Mexico.
Customized treatments created exclusively for the Grand Velas Riviera Maya Spa include luxurious facials by Natura Bisse, a high-end skin-care range from Spain, and one-of-a-kind Mayan rituals that use energy work and massage techniques that draw on Mayan history and lore.