Mud baths and piña coladas...

Dear friends:

My apologies for the lengthy delay since my last post. What can I say? Day job is busier than ever, just had a great visit with my parents, and trying to spend as much time with friends as possible. BN has gotten the short end of the stick. This is why the cats like Buddy best and why I should not be allowed to get a dog.

But I digress. What follows is my long-awaited (I suck), much-anticipated (by 3 people) review of the Glen Iva spa near Corona, where I found myself headed several weeks ago with three of my girlfriends.

Glen Ivy Hot Springs
http://www.glenivy.com/

Price: $26 (which is half off the full-day admission) if you get there between 3pm in the summer. At least this is what we paid. Their prices/deals seem to change fairly frequently, so call or check online before you come.

Anyway, the 3pm start (they close at 6) was more than enough time to enjoy all of the pools/free activities. If I had a service tacked on, or wanted to eat a meal, I might want an extra couple of hours. One cool thing is that you can do is start a tab – they give you a wristband or something so that you can use to charge at the restaurants and drink stands. This is the nextbestthing to cabana boys and/or a swim up bar. IMO. And, it means you don’t have to worry about your wallet getting stolen.

We got there early and sat on the pretty lawn to sunbathe and wait for the discount to kick in. There are also picnic tables, but those looked a little crowded. There is a gift shop. I didn’t look in it, but it seemed pretty standard.

Vibe: Busy, but relaxed. All walks of life, everyone seemed pretty chill. No kids under 16, which is nice. My guess is the place could get a bit louder, more high energy, on the weekends. I don’t think this would be a bad thing. Unlimited clean towels and water stations are everywhere. The towels range from ugly brown to uglier orange, but there IS a lot of mud (see below), so I will give them a pass on this.

Locker Rooms: These were great. Highlights included the private rain showers, unlimited towels, nice smelling toiletries, and a bitchin’ steam room.

Mud baths: I’d have to say, this probably wouldn’t become part of my regular routine, should I (as I fully intend) choose to start making this one of my regular haunts. There was a big pool of warm, red, muddy water and a couple of mounds of clay mud that you were supposed to rub, um...everywhere? You could choose to dry the mud onto your skin either on one of the multiple chaise lounges, or in this weird hot room with a few benches. Once dry, you slough the mud off with your hands, which is supposed to exfoliate your business. It worked. Afterwards, we had to take turns soaping the mud off of each other’s backs (that part was fun, actually) and it was generally kind of a pain in the ass to get clean.

Sauna: Nice, co-ed sauna. Not very crowded.

Mineral Baths: small, vaguely smelly hot tubs, with some watery miracle minerals that are supposed to do stuff for you. I don’t know what stuff, but it was warm and felt nice. But it was smelly, so we got out and went to the...

Steam Room: This is in the locker room, so women only. Assume there is one on the gents’ side as well. Nice and steamy, not too hot...

Lounge Pool: At some point, we decided to get an adult beverage and go sit by the lounge pool, which is a warm (like 80 or something) shallow (1.5 feet) pool filled with floating lounge chairs. Lots of land-based lounge chairs too. Great place for sunbathing. (Yes, I know it’s bad for you. I don’t care.)

Drinks: I had a pina colada (delish! Not too overpriced.) and some chips (from a bag), so I can’t comment on the quality of Glen Ivy’s food generally, but it looked good on the menu. I’d LOVE to do a review of their restaurant. (Hint, hint...)

Saline Pool: We headed to this pool toward the end of the day – a giant hot tub filled with salt water, in a neat enclosure. The four of us came in and scared a guy away, so we had it to ourselves. Very relaxing.

Lap Pool: We ended up at the lap pool for a bit to stretch our muscles out and move around a bit. This is supposed to be the “coolest” pool, as far as temperature. It was nice, but still pretty warm – nothing that would shock your system.

And then we headed back to the locker room for a nice shower (bit of a wait/line around closing time) and our day was over.

Grade: 5 Stars. I highly recommend this place (though I’m not qualified to speak to their quality, since I’m too poor to be able to afford them, but there is a fairly vast menu of spa services and add-ons to choose from). Hopefully I’ll be able to check some of them out some time.

Wish List (In case anyone is wondering what to get me for my birthday...):
Massage
Cabana
Grotto (An add-on body wrap or other form of super moisturizing procedure...It’s supposed to complement the mud baths, I think...)
Club 1860 Membership (http://www.glenivy.com/specials/hot-springs-specials/) 1 year unlimited entry to the spa, plus 10% off all spa services. Under $400. Yes, please...

So go check it out – and let me know what you think.

XO,
M