Massage and spa treatments in Dubai

More than most guests realise, and it is never a code or a voucher: what triggers it is a start time from 10:00 and before 15:00, so the same treatment with the same therapist simply costs less in that window. At Al Barsha and Bur Dubai the Aromatherapy and Swedish massages run at 400 for an hour, 550 for ninety minutes and 700 for two hours. Bur Dubai and DIFC both put the Moroccan Bath on it at 300 rather than 400, and DIFC brings the two hour hammam package with deep tissue or Balinese down from 950 to 725. DIFC runs its own version: Swedish at 470 for an hour and 630 for ninety minutes, the Moroccan Bath at 300, and the Full Body Exfoliation at 250. Every branch page prints its own Early Bird list in full.

Length and what is included, rather than two different baths. The Moroccan Bath on its own is a sixty minute appointment in the heated hammam room: the room warms and softens the skin first, black soap is left on to loosen the outer layer, and only then does the kessa glove do its work, which is why it lifts more while pressing less. The Royal Hammam package is two hours and pairs that same full bath with a full body massage afterwards, so you are not booking two separate visits or paying two separate prices. The package costs 900 at DIFC with a Classical Swedish massage, or 950 with deep tissue or Balinese, against 400 for the bath alone. Both need a real hammam room, so neither runs at Al Barsha. Bur Dubai has a hammam room and sells the bath at the same 400 figure, but with 5% VAT added at the till and without the two hour package, which is printed on the DIFC menu only.

One on our shared menu and two more on the DIFC list, and it is worth separating them from a treatment that only sounds like it. The Four Hands Massage is two therapists working on one person at the same time, not a couple: it costs 800 for an hour at Al Barsha and Bur Dubai. DIFC lists the same idea as the Dual Synergy Massage at 1000 for an hour, and separately a Couple Massage at the same figures, which is the one where two of you are on two tables in the same room. If you want two people booked together at Al Barsha or Bur Dubai, message that reception directly: it needs two therapists free at the same hour, which is worth arranging a day ahead rather than the same evening.

Three on the list work deeper than the aromatherapy and Swedish massages, and they get there by different routes. The Deep Muscle Massage is the direct one: slow, firm pressure worked into the tissue rather than over it, from 600 for an hour at Al Barsha and Bur Dubai. The Hot Stone Massage warms the muscle first with heated basalt so it releases before any real pressure is applied, from 600 at Bur Dubai and DIFC. The Lava Shell Massage does something similar with warmed shells, from 600 at Al Barsha and Bur Dubai. None of these is medical treatment and none of our therapists is a physiotherapist, so if the pain is sharp, recent or the result of an injury, see a doctor before booking rather than after. If the ache is general rather than in one spot, firmer pressure on the Swedish massage is often the better first booking: pressure is agreed at the start and can be changed at any point.

Two separate reasons that are easy to mistake for one. The first is that DIFC prints its prices with the 5% VAT already inside them, where Al Barsha and Bur Dubai add it at reception, so a figure that looks higher is not always higher once both are on the same basis. The second is that DIFC genuinely runs a different menu rather than the same one at different rates: its own treatment names, its own appointment lengths from a thirty minute back and shoulder up to two hours, and its own figures. The Dual Synergy Massage at 1000 for an hour is that branch version of the Four Hands Massage, which is 800 at the other two. Open the DIFC branch page and every number on it is what that reception charges. The place this bites is comparing our own branches against each other, which is why each branch page prints its list in full rather than pointing at a shared table.