My daughter and I went to Faina last week to celebrate a momentous occasion for her and to enable her to unwind from a long and arduous academic and professional schedule. What she needed, above all else, was a totally relaxing spa immersion experience. Our time there was anything but relaxing. There is no way that a spa should be set up physically like this one is. The acoustics are terrible; the music has to be turned up to an extremely high volume in order to drown out the unprofessional noise from the hall, reception area, and adjoining treatment rooms. The owner hovers and feels free to open the doors to the treatment rooms to speak to her staff mid-treatment. Between treatments, clients are asked to put their clothes back on or to wait either in the reception area in robes or in the cramped hallway so that equipment can be moved and tiny treatment rooms can be converted from one kind of treatment area to another. It is impossible to evaluate the treatment quality or even imagine luxuriating in an atmosphere so fraught with noise, exposure and interruptions. And the "champagne and chocolate" featured in the package we signed up for was a joke: 3 small, flat pieces of Ghiradelli wrapped chocolate (looked like samples that the factory gives away) and two small glasses of non-bubbly, warm liquid that might have been champagne but certainly didn't taste fresh or appealing. And, to top it all off, this "special end of spa experience" took place in the crowded hallway where the noise from the surrounding treatment rooms was ever-present, and "privacy" was supposed to be ensured by a folding screen that made the tight area seem like a makeshift closet, at best. Even the best massage therapists and facialists (which these clearly weren't) couldn't begin to compensate for the inadequate and distracting surroundings.
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