Tag: Spa Day

Day Trip from Zurich to St. Moritz: Train Rides and Feeling Broke

You ever felt broke just breathing the same air as certain people?

Welcome to St. Moritz. To say this was the most luxurious place I have seen in my life would be understating the significance of it. It was like being in St. Bart’s again except with snow and nicer people surrounding me. I loved every minute of getting to this place and being in this place. Although I loved ALL parts of my eight countries in 12 days trip, this is still the highlight and most memorable piece of it.

First let’s start with (what probably lead many of you here via SEO) – How to get from Zurich to St. Moritz? Train from Zurich to St. Moritz? Day trip from Zurich to St. Moritz?

I know how this works. I know you’re either here trying to find out about the famous train ride to St. Moritz or see pictures. I have both!

The train ride for me began very early in the morning because to get from Zurich to St. Moritz takes SIX HOURS+ ROUND TRIP. That is the part you will have to mentally and physically prepare yourself for. Of course, the awesomeness of this trip is worth the time, especially on the way to St. Moritz because it is daytime and you’ll have these incredible views but the night? Not so great. It gets pitch black by like 5pm so the ride home will be darkness throughout the whole journey.

I purchased my train ticket ahead of time on the SBB Site and the cost came to about $80.00 Canadian for a day-pass (in first class) that I could use for 24hrs to continuously take rides to wherever I wanted to in Switzerland. The nice thing about that was I didn’t have to specify where I was going or what time, so it was really up to me how early I wanted to leave Zurich and how late I’d want to come back from St. Moritz. CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE! I love Goosebumps.

So I was of. I chose to take the 630am departure going Zurich to Chur – quick connection – Chur to St. Moritz. This is where I will tell you:

THIS IS THE CONNECTION YOU WANT TO TAKE IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE COOL ENTRANCE INTO THE MOUNTAINS.

I had to put that so extravagantly into the post because I know when I was trying to find information on which route to take to St. Moritz, it wasn’t this clear. I basically took a chance. There were different connection options when I was looking for my train, so I am here to tell you to ensure you take the CHUR option and to make sure you sit on the right side of the train because that is the side facing the entry into/through the mountains. If you want to see proof of WHY you should sit on the right side, click here. My video of it will solidify why you should listen to my suggestions.

There is NO WiFi on the trains so I would suggest that if you bring a laptop or cellphone to maybe download anything you want to watch onto it before embarking on this trip. The train ride itself was calm, peaceful and insanely picturesque. But I’ll let the pictures below speak for themselves.

I made it to St. Moritz at around 930ish. If you take the train and are just going to be walking there on foot you will go through a very nice corridor to enter into the city and it also takes you up three flights of escalators. There are old posters from the 1920s-1950s along the walls and also many items commemorating when St. Moritz held the winter Olympics in 1928. I hope your luck is better than mine because when I arrived they were working on fixing the escalators so it was a LONNGGG three flights of stairs up to get to the main street for me.

Once above I just decided to wander around. I really didn’t have anything particular planned except for I wanted to visit St. Moritz and hit a certain fancy pants spa while there.

Speaking of pants, I was wearing leggings. As I trotted down one of the streets going towards the frozen lake I managed to fall flat on my face. Yep. Right in the middle of one of the fanciest places in the world, my clumsiness took over and there I was on the ground with a bruised/bloody knee because I got too caught up looking at all the Bentley’s driving by me. So embarrassing.

After regaining what was left of my dignity I ended up taking a walk throughout the city, getting some food (best panna cotta I’ve ever eaten), journeying over the frozen lake and seeing clothes I could never afford – it was time to do the ONE thing I did dream of for St. Moritz……

It was spa time.

I had done my research and looked at hundreds of Instagram posts in and around St. Moritz. I know I wanted one of the places that had an outdoor hot tub/pool because, well, stunting for IG and the blog, duh.

This is how I found Badrutt’s Palace Luxury Hotel. To be clear, spending the night IN this hotel is over $1000.00 Canadian per night, and that is the cheapest room. Obviously, I can’t afford that kind of stuff (yet) but I really wanted to visit their spa.

Wellnesshotel & Spa inside Badrutt’s is located in the basement of the hotel. I did not opt to get any of the actual spa services booked, but instead I just wanted to spend the day lounging and getting good photos for the blog. Luckily, they have a day pass you can purchase just to enjoy the facilities, pool and outdoor hot tub. The cost was approximately $143.00 Canadian and I could spent the whole day there. I figured since this is Switzerland and everything is already expensive, and now I’m in the most luxurious part of Switzerland – this price was on par. If you were ever thinking of going and wanted to actually book any of the services at the spa, you can find the options here listed in CHF currency, which is why everything is so darn expensive. FYI: 100CHF = 131.30CAD so when I was there the 100CHF was $143 CAD. Lame.

The staff was amazing and so were the facilities. You get your own bathrobe and slippers, along with a plethora of towels available in every book and cranny of the spa. Before even getting to the pool and hot tub area they have: a massage shower, ladies only sauna, mixed sauna, salt steam room, aroma steam room, rain shower, mist room and ice room. I felt important.

Once you arrive to the pool area you will have to take a moment and take in your surroundings. No pictures will do it justice because it just doesn’t make sense how you are swimming/standing in/by this beautiful pool and looking at the Swiss Alps at the same damn time. When you pick your lounge chair for the day, one of the workers will come by with your own personal button to press if you want to order any food or beverages for them to bring to where you are sitting.

I think I ended up spending about four hours in the spa relaxing. They had this awesome contraption where you would enter the water inside the spa and then when you press a button these glass doors would open so you could exit to the outdoors while still under water. At this point you are outside, in winter, while in 38 degree water and snow is falling on your head. A feeling and view like no other. Highly recommend taking the time out of your day in St. Moritz to have this experience.

I felt relaxed, refreshed and ready to take on this 3hr + train ride back to Zurich.

I’d say I got back into the city a little after 830pm. This part of the trip did seem MUCH longer than earlier because it was so dark and you’re tired from your day so your only option is to watch movies on your laptop or sleep. Nothing to see outside.

Overall, YOU SHOULD VISIT HERE!!!! Take time out of your week or whatever in Switzerland and make your way to St. Moritz. You will NOT be disappointed. I don’t think I would do the trip in summer, although I’m sure it must be beautiful during that season as well. But the lure of snow-covered Alps while in a hot tub is too good to miss.

  • Mirna

Review of Aqoral Spa, Cartagena

I’m really not a person who is big on spas. I don’t particularly like massages because they hurt and I’m here for a good time, not a painful time. However, there are two things I do absolutely love at a spa – head massages and body scrubs. Since I opted not to do any massages for this visit, the body scrub was my #1 choice.

Preparation to visit this spa started WAAAY ahead because I didn’t know how busy this place would be. Also, one of the main reasons I am writing this blog is because there’s literally NO information about this spa on the internet. Any reviews regarding it are just a part of peoples visits to the Hyatt Regency Cartagena so it’s mostly ‘good spa!’ or ‘my wife went and really liked it’ – that just isn’t good enough for me. I want to know more details about places so I figured I would write out my experience at Aqoral so that other people wouldn’t have to deep dive into Tripadvisor reviews that give you no information about it.

First let’s start with, no, there is no information about this spa. When you do go to the aforementioned website there is only this:

That is literally it for the information you have on the spa. If you click on the picture, it takes you right back to the front page of the Hyatt’s website. You get nowhere. What I did was message the hotel directly through the website I booked it on. From this, I received an e-mail with a PDF attached that showed all of the services available at the spa. (listed in COP currency, also note this was as of October 1st, 2018 – just in case anything changes.)

I opted to go for a (mid) smoothing scrub and 30min of the hydrotherapy and my travel partner chose the signature treatment called ‘Canarelief’. Hot tubs aren’t really my thing, but it was the pictures of the views from that damn hot tub that had me hooked on wanting to come here so badly.

Finally, on October 6th at 2pm I got my comfiest clothes on and made my way over to Aqoral Spa. Once you arrive you get to wait in this nice and relaxing lobby area and the staff will have you sign a waiver with your room # etc. on it.

Because I chose to have the hydrotherapy included, I was able to have this HUGE spa room to myself. It had its own shower, bathrobes, slippers, huge vanity, the massage table itself, the hot tub and even two chairs to lounge in one of the corners. Along with that, the incredible view overlooking Bocagrande and the pools below. Wow.

When you walk in the blinds are closed and it is nice and dark in the room, aside from a couple of candles. For the scrub I was given a disposable set of panties and a bra to put on. The scrub lasted thirty minutes and I truly could have laid there for a whole hour. I perhaps should have gone for the ‘deep’ option instead of the mid, I was worried I’d be sunburned by the time I got to the spa (I wasn’t) and the deep would have scrubbed it just a little deeper. Still great.

After the scrub I went and took a shower to get all the remnants of it off of me and during that time the lady doing my service prepared the hot tub and opened up the blinds so that I could have that kick-ass view.

For the first 20-minutes of the hydrotherapy I just took everything in. I was loving the view and my body felt so relaxed and nice in the hot tub after a long day of travel the day before and the scrub I had just gotten. For the final 10-minutes I set up my tripod and used my bluetooth shutter to take some fancy pants pictures. I did my best impression of a real travel blogger.

The total spent (with tip and taxes) was $140.00 Canadian. Although that isn’t as good as the prices in Bali for living luxuriously in a spa, I think it was still worth it. My friend also did enjoy her signature treatment, for anyone who wants to be rubbed down with cannabis oil.

Happy relaxing!

  • Mirna