Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa

I went for the “Sanctuary”. Based on the name, I imagined something very serene, but it was rather busy, sometimes busier than the general bath. There are multiple pools - bubbly, still, extra salty, but the actual difference felt rather marginal. My favourite - the outdoors one - unfortunately was also the smallest one and therefore filled up rather quickly at times. Apart from one cool-down plunge pool, all others were at roughly the same temperature, rather hot at around 37 degrees, not much variation. Apart from the “salt pool” (presumably, meaning higher concentration of the same, as I could not see any sign explaining it as the other pools; but my sensory experience wasn’t significantly different - I had to focus to possibly note a vague difference in buoyancy and softness, but it could also have been my imagination), there did not seem to be any difference in mineralisation between the pools. The DIY salt scrub for the hamam was a nice touch, though. Otherwise, it was hard to tell whether the mineralisation had a more notable effect compared to the non-mineral baths elsewhere (I’ll update this review if it turns out I got cured of something). According to a friendly staff member, the pools are also chlorinated as required by the applicable regulations. Having a sensitive, eczema-prone skin that tends to get upset after too much contact with chlorinated water, I was a bit worried, but it wasn’t too bad, feeling just a tiny little bit tight and dry afterwards. Maybe the minerals set off each other in that regard. All in all, it was a rather nice experience, but the offering did not feel significantly different from what is sometimes available in better gyms - thus, at the current price it did not come across as great value for money. On the other hand, location in the midst of numerous drinkable springs is amazing, the design is stylish, the venue is clean and feels well looked after, the staff is very welcoming (and happily offer extra towels when yours happens to be taken by someone else while in hamam). But then again, there are no mirrors in the changing area (only in toilets) and my shower cubicle smelled of urine… So, the venue itself and the team are great, but there is room for improvement in terms of the overall experience and value for money.

My partner and I stayed at Hepburn Bath House for two nights and, unfortunately, the experience did not meet expectations, especially given the price. The apartment was not cleaned to an acceptable standard. The balcony in particular was very dirty, and overall the accommodation did not feel well maintained or worth what we paid. More concerning was a serious security issue. We were initially checked into the wrong room, and as a result our access code was given to another guest. This led to a stranger walking into our apartment while I was getting out of the shower, which was extremely distressing. When we raised this, the situation felt brushed over rather than taken seriously. We were offered bathhouse tickets, which felt more like an attempt to quiet the situation than properly address it. When we asked for a new access code, we were told the other guest could simply “forget” the code and return the paper it was written on — an explanation that did not provide any real reassurance. Because of this, we spent much of our stay feeling stressed and anxious about the security of our belongings while we were out. Overall, the lack of cleanliness and the way a significant safety issue was handled left us very disappointed. We would not return and would not recommend staying here.

Pretty disappointed considering the price you pay. We ended up leaving early because the baths are not very relaxing, it's definitely a glorified swimming pool with not much space and not many pools. The scenery is shrubs and weeds. A cold plunge should be maximum 15 degrees for recovery not 19, it wasn't cold at all. Hate the fact it's a mixed changed room too, doesn't make for a comfortable experience. The staff were at least nice..

We were hiking in the area and wanted to experience the hot spring water, so we booked the Bathhouse Mineral Bathing, as we couldn’t find any available times for the Sanctuary Mineral Bathing online. Luckily, once we arrived, we were able to upgrade to the Sanctuary Mineral Bathing. We got to enjoy the Aroma Steam Room, Spa Couches, Salt Therapy Pool, Dry Sauna, Walk-in Cool Down Pool, Creekside Pool, and Mineral Hammam. It was such a rejuvenating experience. We enjoyed the aroma steam room and the hammam the most. A must-try if you’re in the area! Bring water with you, and don’t worry if you forget a towel... they can lend you one.

Had a lovely visit at Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa. The facial was wonderful, and I really enjoyed the range of pools available. The hammam salt sauna room was a highlight, so calming, and my skin felt incredibly smooth afterward. Such a relaxing and rejuvenating experience. Highly recommended for a peaceful getaway.

We stayed two nights at Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa and left feeling frustrated, largely because what should have been a premium, relaxing experience was undermined by poor organisation and a lack of attention to detail. Accommodation check-in was unnecessarily confusing. We were sent to the wrong location, then told to find “Villa 6” without being informed there are two Villa 6s on opposite sides of the road. We ended up walking into an occupied villa, which is an obvious and avoidable failure that could easily be solved with unique numbering. The following morning continued the pattern. We went to the Pavilion Café for breakfast as directed at check-in, only to be told there was no food because the chef hadn’t arrived. Staff didn’t know when that might happen and appeared just as confused as we were. Spa check-in was abrupt and clinical, with staff demanding our booking id. Staff came across as transactional rather than attentive. The massage was excellent, and the bathhouse experience was genuinely enjoyable. Maintenance and presentation also fell short of a premium standard. The accommodation had several broken item including the balcony. In the bathhouse, large cobwebs were visible and the glass was dirty. These are small details, but at this price point, they matter. The setting is beautiful and the potential is clearly there, but there’s little sense of ownership of the end-to-end experience. With stronger management and better attention to detail, this could be exceptional. As it stands, it falls short of expectations.

I would just like to say my partner and my kids (aged 10 & 8) went here for the first time ever! Thank you for making us feel welcome. We told the kids before; this is a relaxing place. Not a public pool. From the moment we walked in. The staff were already expecting us and made us feel more than welcome. I had already pre booked and the staff mentioned us all by name, offered us a locker for an extra $7.50. For our clothes and phones. We had a lovely staff member/ life guard give us the run down of the bath house and spa. Which was very helpful. YES it’s unisexes pools, spa and change rooms. Everyone in our experience was very respectful & patient. And most of the people did not mind the kids being there. We had 90 minutes from the moment we got into the water. Thank you to the staff and the fellow patrons ( who didn’t mind a with us chat with the kids) you relaxed us all. Can’t wait to come back again and just float in that gorgeous water

Disappointing experience. I have been wanting to come here for years and it was such a let down. The communal space is too small for the volume of people they allow in at a given time. It's advertised as a relaxation haven, but instead it had more of a local pool feel. There were too many children splashing around and jumping in. We visited off peak too. I'm a mother myself and am positive towards allowing children in, but perhaps have an adults only section that doesn't cost double the price. The staff assume you have been before and were vague and disinterested. There were no cups at the hydrating station and no lifeguards/staff to be seen to ask if they could refill them. The only positives are the tranquil setting, nestled deep in Hepburn and the bathrooms are clean and well stocked with essentials. Save your money and go to Peninsula Hot Springs instead. Same price and way better value for money.

Hepburn Bathhouse is definitely a waste of money. For one thing, your purchase only gets you two hours in the spas. This isn't obvious anywhere on their website. We assumed it would be like the Peninsula Hot Springs down in Mornington where you book in with your arrival time, and are then welcome to stay as long as you like (two hours, five hours, whatever) until they close. Here, you are limited to two hours, no matter when you arrive. For a weekend bathing session, the price starts at $44. This gets you access to "The Bathhouse," which consists of two mineral pools, both of which are very noisy, small, and crowded. One is lukewarm and the other is hotter, but neither are HOT hot. If you go mid-week, the price is cheaper at $34. But it's still not very good value for money when you consider that you can only stay for two hours and only visit two mediocre, crowded pools. If you want something a little more satisfying, and you have money to burn, you can book in for The Bathhouse + The Sanctuary ($94 weekend, $74 mid-week, again for only two hours), which gives you access to a separate area with better, less-crowded pools -- but these still did not wow us by any means. The Sanctuary experience includes a pool with ill-fitting "relaxation couches," a salt water pool, two steam rooms (one a Turkish hamam), and an outdoor deck with lounge chairs, a very hot pool, and a cold plunge pool. As for the pool with the so-called "relaxation couches," well, it's not that relaxing. You lay back in these uncomfortable metal chair thingies and powerful jets pound you with water from all sides. If you're too short, like me, the jets go straight up the wrong part of your body, if you catch my meaning. Felt more like a medical procedure than a relaxing experience, ha! Also, the fabric that's supposed to hold back your head and neck actually fell OFF my metal chair thingie and I had to stick my hand down among the jets and dig around in the dark water to try and find it. Not awesome. The Sanctuary also includes a salt water pool and "monsoon showers" in a dark room with aging Brutalist architecture -- not very relaxing at all, and it didn't even seem all that salty -- better to just take a dip in the bay for free if you're looking for saltwater! The outdoor deck with the hot pool and cold plunge pool was Hepburn Bathhouse's only saving grace. The deck is made of dark wood and has a pleasant, onsen-like ambience. There's a tiny hot pool that overlooks a peaceful scene with a tiny burbling creek and gum trees, and it's hot enough that you FINALLY feel like you're in a mineral hot spring. I spent most of my allotted two hours in this pool, alternating with the cold plunge right next to it. Hepburn Bathhouse certainly tries to give you the "luxe" experience, with your own bathrobes, slippers, lockers, and plenty of free water and apples. But it just falls short. The service was especially bad: the lady at reception was very strange and airy-fairy, and the guys downstairs who give you your towels and robes are very brusque and act like they couldn't care less. Bottom line: this place is NOT worth the money if you can only stay two hours. Hepburn Bathhouse either needs to lower their prices, OR they need to let you stay as long as you like. Otherwise, this place is highway robbery. Much better to spend the $40 and head down to Mornington Peninsula, where you get to experience 20 different pools and stay as long as you like. As it is now, I wouldn't recommend you waste your money here.

What will 2 hours and $83 buy you? A one way ticket to relaxation-ville that's what! Sure it's going to seem like a lot of money beforehand, but just hand over your plastic, collect your goodie bag filled with fluffy robe and towel and then get your swimmers on before you can think if the dollars make sense... Trust me, 20 minutes floating in the large pool, complete with chilled out music and views of the outside gum trees and flowing stream and you will have long forgotten the financial aspect. Move your way around to the different pools - all with different temperatures, pummeling jets, mineral properties and the like. After two hours your fingers will be pruny and your worries a million miles away. Pro tips: - Bring thongs/flip-flops because the stones around the pools are a bit stabby. - Don't plan anything requiring much energy afterwards because you're going to feel sleepy and spacy. - Pack a small snack or visit the tea rooms afterwards. All that relaxation gets the hunger going!

I was very disappointed by my visit to Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa. I'm glad that I was able to attend on a week day & at an off-peak time as I dread to imagine how cramped it would feel if they had the maximum capacity of people attending. The Bathhouse itself consists of just one small relaxation pool & an even smaller spa pool. I opted to pay the extra fee and not only access the Bathhouse but also the "Sanctuary", which provided access to a salt therapy pool, steam room & spa couches. The word sanctuary conjured up a place where you would be able to relax & unwind. Indeed the images online suggest that this is what awaits you. I found the spa couches to be very uncomfortable to recline on as they were a metal frame with thin pieces of material strung across, my height was not a good match to these seats. The jets were then so powerful that you pretty much had to cling on for dear life and it was impossible to relax due to the excessive noise that said jets produced. I headed to the salt pool only to be confronted a by a couple who were inappropriately canoodling & for whom perhaps the private couples spa would have been more appropriate!!! Again this did not make for a relaxing experience. Perhaps the quietest place was the steam room but I can only tolerate this for a short amount of time & it would have benefited from some eucalyptus or other essential oil being added into the steam. The website spoke of a relaxation deck, this adjoined the spa couches & did not look very appealing on the day that I was there as the environment was cold & as previously mentioned the sheer noise in the place was not conducive to relaxing. In other spas that I have been to these kind of areas normally have some soothing music playing to which you then recline & possibly take a mini power nap to. The package you purchase provides two hours of access, which I initially thought would be nowhere near enough time. As it was I'd had enough after just an hour!!! The best part of the day was the discounted cream tea that I enjoyed after the spa in the Hepburn Pavilion Cafe

I didn't by any means dislike the Bathhouse - I enjoyed myself. It's a pretty setting, it's relaxing and a good way to de-stress. However it is WAY too expensive for what it is. I paid something like $55 (it goes up to $79 on Fri/weekends) for full access to the shared facilities. It's not that $55 is a "lot" of money - but it's poor value for what you get in return, which is time-limited (2 hrs) access to essentially just a few not-so-large facilities. I couldn't help but think back to my days in Budapest, Hungary where I paid just A$12 for a full day's access to the Szechenyi spa with its 20 or 30 different spas. For sure, life in Hungary is much cheaper than in Australia...but not 5x cheaper! You will have a pretty good time if you come to the Bathhouse, but you won't walk away feeling like you got good value for money at all.

What a great little place this is! I headed here on a trip with my room mate and his boyfriend for a little getaway. Thinking that I might be a third wheel I was very careful to giving the couple some quiet time together while I paddled around the pool. Very important to book if you want to secure a private setting!

Staff are inflexible, snobbish and do ZERO to entice you to spend $37 on what is essentially a noisy swimming pool. If you are looking to replicate an Onsen or Zen experience.....this is not the place to do it.

What a setting. The bathhouse is set deep in beautiful secluded bush surrounds. It is an architects dream. With glass everywhere and pitched ceilings, it is stunning. There are several options in the way of water play! From a large pool adjoining spa to the more private "Sanctuary" where adults can escape the squeals of kids. Once you have spent some time soaking in the pools you can robe up and make you way towards the pampering of your choice! We had a one hour massage that will leave you so relaxed, the drive back to Melbourne will seem impossible. So perhaps seek out one of the many beautiful buildings that house countless B & B's, again any architects dream. So if you were in need of some zen time AND happened to be an architect, you just might never leave!

Before you begin to read note - I have contact Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa twice prior to posting this and got no response. The kicker is I also posted up on there facebook page asking to have someone contact me and they have deleted my post and block me from the page. So professional. My partner and I attended the Hotsprings on the 29th Dec 2015. We wanted to have a bit more privacy and relaxation so we paid the extra for the Sanctuary, total $138. Didn't know that I was also paying for a skin infection as part of the package. Within a few hours of leaving the Bathhouse and Spa the back of my right thigh, lumber and the right side of my torso started to come up with red, raised splotches. Something that I have never had before. This continued for several days and when I went to the doctor he informed me that I had contracted a tinea infection all along my body. The kicker is I didnt get it on my feet which is where people normally get it. So in addition to the $138 I now had a $20 doctors appointment and $20 worth of medication. Joy. Now at first I was annoyed but hey a quick chat with the team at the HotSprings should clear any issue up in terms of customer satisfaction so I dropped them an email and jumped on their facebook to get them to contact me. Well my email has gone unanswered and they not only deleted my facebook post off there page but have restricted my access to their page to read only. Really? Now i'm just p*ssed off. Thanks for ruining an otherwise perfectly nice escape to the country Hepburn Springs Bathhouse & Spa. Now for a general review: 1. The only thing stopping people who pay for general area to the 2 pools and those who pay the extra for the Sanctuary are colours wrist bands and no staff to monitor this. We had people coming and going into the Sanctuary with KIDS on several occasions and paying customers had to take it upon themselves to actually tell these people that kids were not allowed in that section. 2. The general area consists of two pools, a hot pool which is pretty small and a larger cold pool with families use as a swimming pool, no relaxation to be had here. 3. The actual sanctuary is pretty small too, only 2 pools, a steam room and a waterfall shower. If you want to go to a real hotspring/mineral spring and actually enjoy yourself, save the 3 hour drive out to Hepburn and make your way down to the Mornington Peninsula Hot Springs and enjoy some real R&R. Never going back here - will be telling everyone about this experience & maybe one day I might here back from these guys.

After being blown away by the springs at the Mornington Peninsula, I had high expectations and was much anticipating my trip to Hepurn Springs. Considering the entry fee I paid was higher than that at the peninsula I gathered it would be just as good if not better. What I got was a lack lustre public pool with the ''Sanctuary" being quite a modest name for what I found was just a big spa with some metal couches bunged in it. I am seriously disappointed for what I thought was going to be a relaxing & soothing day of bathing turned into a public spa for anyone over the age of 18. Won't be going back in a hurry.