Terra Spa – Alamo Heights

Scheduled an appointment for ¹¹⁄₁₃ and I was called that afternoon to be told the therapist had an emergency. That’s fine I understand things happen. I rescheduled for ¹¹⁄₂₃ and was called that morning a few hours before my appointment to let me know it was cancelled because they had no power. This seems to be a pattern because May of this year I scheduled a couples massage. We show up on time for our appointment only to wait an hour because one of their therapists was running late… and the massage was mediocre at best. I will never use Terra Spa again nor will I ever recommend them to anyone!

Wonderful service — informative step by step. Beautiful environment. Sunny was extremely cautious and gentle thru my treatment.

Mr. K,
My name is GARY Davidson. I’m an Air force captain here in San Antonio. I have a fitness test on Tuesday and needed a Body Wrap to reduce my waist measurement. I looked online for a Body Wrap shop and decided to go to your’s.
Deborah did my wrap and massage. She was outstanding, Friendly, Professional, and very Effective. she explained everything very carefully and measured me expertly. The «Painting» and «Wrapping» went very well and I enjoyed relaxing in the peaceful room (accompanied by soothing music). Finally, Deborah gave me a Terrific Massage (Deep Tissue).I’m tall (7ft) and muscular, but she really used her strength to smooth out my «knots».
I’m very grateful to Deborah for doing such an outstanding work… and I wanted you to know this. I wasn’t able to add this online myself so she was kind enough to do so.
GARY Davidson

Debra, the massage therapist, smelled like smoke which made the whole experience very unpleasant. She started 12 minutes late and ended about 10 minutes early. The atmosphere is not relaxing like most massage spas – you can hear everything and the people are not very professional (looking or acting). Very poor customer service, in my opinion.

I had an amazing massage with Debra today. I got my full hour (60min) of a deep tissue massage and it was amazing, the pressure that she applied was great, she asked me how the pressure was, if it was to much, to little or bearable. The room temperature was good, the lighting in the room was perfect. She applied hot towels on my feet and started with my legs then worked her way to my back. She explained where I had tension and what she was doing and what her next step was. I will definitely be back to see her. If you are in need of a massage, deep tissue she is the one to see.

This review is in response to the service my pregnant wife received. My wife scheduled and paid for a 2-​hr session and only received about 70 – 80 minutes of service. They cut short because of being pregnant which I am okay with but at least offer the remaining time or charge appropriately and be upfront about the service and expectations. To top it off, my wife told them she would not return and employee or owner replied, «That is fine». Well you know what, that is okay because you just lost a potential repeat customer, not a gift card client, but a person who gets messages 3 – 4 times a month. «That’s fine with me!»

So let me begin by saying upon arrival I experienced a warm and friendly welcome. I was offered a bottled water or hot tea, and seated in a cute little waiting area. So why the low rating? It took the estitician 1.5 hours to wax a «partial» Brazilian. If this experience wasn’t nearly as horrific I wouldn’t be discussing my nether region on Unilocal… however I feel the need to warn others before experiencing what I went through. Anyway… It was only a «partial» because I had to stop her and ask that we not continue. She literally took strips the size of a fingerprint off each time. It was excruciating and to make matters worse, she slowly picked the wax off… there was no ripping. My regular place does a full Brazilian in under 20 minutes. This was horrific and more painful than necessary. The place was nice and very clean, and again the staff was wonderful in terms of friendly and personable… but they are obviously very inexperienced. Worst of all, they still charged me a full price, for a partial job. I will not return.

This was the worst experience at a spa I have ever had. First, I arrived at their location 10 minutes early only to find the door locked and a sign that stated «ring bell for service», which I did. I waited in the courtyard area in the 103 degree temperature then decided that despite the sign there may be another entrance because there is no possible way that a spa would have such an odd set up of making customers wait out in the heat until their massage began. Well, that apparently is exactly how they do things here. After approximately 5 minutes and ringing the bell again without an answer I call the place and the door is finally opened by a therapist who tells me that she was doing a treatment. Oddly, the only other person in the place was the woman who would be doing my massage. After filling out my paperwork I waited for another 10 minutes for my massage to begin, even though, as I stated before, I was the customer there. During the entire wait I had the misfortune of having to listen to receptionist/​therapist loudly argue with her manager on the phone about her schedule, time off requests, the manager not returning her calls, her lack of clarity regarding chain of command when requesting vacation time… etc…etc…etc…
The massage itself was fair but I could not relax because the walls are so thin and it had not been impressed upon the other employee that laughing and talking loudly on your cellphone is unprofessional when you work in a day spa. Even though my massage started 15 minutes late, my therapist still finished at the end of the hour.
In summary: Terrible set up, poor customer service, unprofessional staff, so-​so massage and about as relaxing as being stuck in traffic when you have to pee.
I am so sad that I wasted a gift certificate from a dear friend at this horrible place.

Place looked a little out dated and dirty. The person working the front desk was the masseuse. I went in for the extended lashes. The esthetician was nice but was ready to get down to business so I didn’t ask any questions about the lashes she was going to put on me (since I’d had them done at other places I really didn’t have questions, just wondering about her skill set.). But I was excited to get my lashes so I was ready to get down to business too! I should have known that I was getting what I was paying for when she used scotch tape on my lower lashes instead of the cucumber coolants I usually get at a high end salon. Then she put the adhesive on my eyelashes and it burned, the fumes were extremely painful and I couldn’t keep my eyes open for more than a second or two. Was told that everyone getting lashes done leave with tears… doesn’t sound normal and I don’t recommend anyone to this cheap looking place.

I’ve had a few massages, a body wrap, and a foot treatment here and found that the services vary greatly depending on WHO is providing the service. They don’t seem to do any continuous training of the staff. My first massage here was the best I have EVER had. Unfortunately, I can not remember the name of the girl who gave it to me and have been coming back a few times, hoping that I would get her again. I can’t seem to find her. After getting a pansy rub down from a muscular gal (sooo not what I expected! A one year old would have done a better job working out knots), I decided to give the search up. I could not take the disappointment any longer.
The body wrap was a waste of time. They brushed a seaweed solution on me that gets stinky when it heats up (they tried to pretend the smell was due to toxins released from my body as a result of the procedure but I have a keen sense of smell and could smell it when it was being brushed on.) We were also disappointed that the procedure was nothing like the website video. One of my bestfriends came down to visit me from California and the sole reason we did the body wrap was for the photo opps. They had a video of some gal wrapped up like a mummy, jumping on a trampoline. We thought it would be hilarious to do that together and take photos of ourselves. We laughed about how funny it would be to post pics of us wrapped up like mummies, jumping on trampolines while making stupid poses in midair. But, instead, we were wrapped with saran wrap and told to lie in bed while they played sounds of the ocean. As soon as we were locked in, I jumped up and performed the running man as my friend snapped several photos of me. But, alas, the photos are unsharable (hello! I was completely naked and wrapped in saran wrap! It’s very see-​through, you know) and therefore not the photo opp we hoped for.
The foot treatment sucked since I got the same pansy experience. In fact, most of the services tend to feel like an at home treatment (complete with the same tools you’d find at home such as the Dr. Scholl’s foot bath) from a a non-​experienced friend. I will no longer do anything other than the massage because of the at home feeling of all the other services.
But there are several things about this place that I love. For one, they allow for «couple» activities (such as couple massages and so on). I usually like to treat my girlfriends to spa days when they come down to visit me and it’s nice for us to be in the same room.
The staff has always provided me with friendly, above-​par service. For example, I had planned, booked, and prepaid for a night out for my sister and her fiancé where they were supposed to go on a 6 hour limo-​ride wine tour then get dropped off at Terra Spa for a couples massage (the limo ride was something I seperately arranged and coordinated — it was not something offered by Terra Spa). My sister talked the limo driver into extending the trip and missed the Terra Spa appointment. I was concerned that I forfeited my money due to the no show but Terra Spa kindly offered a credit towards services at a later time — something I greatly appreciated.
Terra Spa also offers low-​priced packages and has the massage therapist of my dreams floating around there somewhere.