Massage and Spa in Bur Dubai, Mankhool

On the HC floor of the Grand Excelsior Hotel, Kuwait Street, in Mankhool. Enter through the hotel lobby from Kuwait Street and take the lift up; the spa is signposted from the landing. The pin on our Google listing points at the hotel itself, so navigation brings you to the correct entrance rather than to a loading bay round the back. Coming from the Burjuman area, the hotel sits on the Kuwait Street frontage rather than tucked down a side road. Reception here has its own direct number and its own WhatsApp line, so a message reaches the people in this building rather than a central desk elsewhere. The branch opens at 10:00 and takes guests until midnight, seven days a week including public holidays, and it answers Telegram as well if that suits you better. Access is through the hotel lobby rather than a separate spa door on the street.

Yes, a heated hammam room, which is what makes the Moroccan Bath here a bath rather than a scrub on a treatment bed. The room is hot and humid before you go in, so the skin softens first; black soap is then left on to loosen the outer layer, and only afterwards does the kessa glove go to work. That order is why the glove takes off more while pressing less. Not every Dubai hotel spa selling a Moroccan bath has a room like this, and our own Al Barsha branch does not either, which is why the bath runs only at Bur Dubai and DIFC. The bath costs 400 AED for sixty minutes, or 300 AED when the appointment starts before 15:00, with 5% VAT added at reception. If you want the scrub and a massage in one visit, that is the two hour Royal Hammam package, and it is printed on the DIFC menu rather than here.

One thing, and it comes down to the hammam room: the Moroccan Bath, at 400 AED for sixty minutes or 300 before 15:00. Al Barsha has no such room, so the bath is not on its list at all. The six massages on the core menu are available at Al Barsha too, at the same prices, and DIFC prints its own list, so those are rarely the reason to pick one address over another. If you want the scrub and a massage as a single two hour appointment, that is the Royal Hammam package, and it runs at DIFC rather than here. Everything here carries the Early Bird rate where the treatment has one, meaning a start time between 10:00 and 15:00 rather than a code or a voucher.

From 10:00 until midnight, seven days a week including public holidays. The appointment has to finish by closing rather than begin at it, so a sixty minute massage needs to start by 23:00 and a two hour appointment by 22:00. Our Al Barsha branch runs an hour later and closes at 1 am, which is worth knowing if you are deciding late in the evening and only want a massage. Evenings are the busiest stretch here, so message the branch on its own WhatsApp line before travelling rather than arriving and hoping; reception will tell you what is genuinely free. Hours do not change at weekends, but they can shift during Ramadan, so a short message before travelling is sensible then. The Four Hands Massage needs two therapists free at once, so it is worth arranging a day ahead rather than the same evening.