Therme Bucharest: Budget Breakdown for a Weekend Spa Break Getaway | Romania

Disclosure: This posts may contain affiliate links. I may make a small commission on purchases made after clicking the link. I do my best to try and keep information up-to-date but please check direct with businesses for current opening times and prices. For more information visit the Privacy & Disclosure Policy. Thank you for your support!

Spa breaks in the UK are EXPENSIVE. For example, a full-day package to a spa in Essex UK, on a weekend is £190 WITHOUT accommodation. So is it cheaper to fly to a different country, stay in a hotel and have a spa day in Romania instead? Quick answer. Yes. It’s a win-win! So here’s how you can do it too!

Weekend Spa Break To Therme Bucharest

Quick Budget Breakdown

• ✈️Flights with Ryanair: £125.11
• 🛏️Hotel (solo occupancy): £46.78
• 🍽️Dinner at hotel: £9.57
• 🚌Bus to and from Therme: £1.06
• 👙Therme ‘One Day Holiday’ (to all 3 areas): £30.82
• 💆🏻‍♀️Extra spend at the spa: £19.49
• 🍽️Dinner at airport: £7.35
• 💰TOTAL = £220.69 (£95.58 without flights)

Flights

Flights can obviously vary depending on when and where you fly.

I flew from London Stansted to Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport in Romania with Ryanair. I wanted to travel on a weekend, so I wouldn’t need to take any time off from my ‘regular’ (self-employed, totally flexible 🙈) job.

Flying Saturday afternoon put me into Bucharest just before 7pm. My return flight was 9pm on Sunday, giving me almost a full day at Therme (9 hours) and still landing back in the UK before 11pm that night.

I also wanted to go when the weather was nice. So I chose the month of June, just before the expensive peak summer season, but outside of the cheaper low season.

Flying with just a free under-seat bag, my return flights cost £125.11.

Otopeni Airport was honestly a little bit hectic on the way home. There was a fight at security, my gate changed with literally a 2-minute warning and there was nowhere to sit. Most of the food places were more like takeaway sandwich-type shops. I ended up spending £7.35 on a hot dog and a can of sparkling water for dinner.

Hotel Casa Romaneasca

I arrived fairly late in to Romania. The airport is a 10-minute drive away from Therme, I wanted to stay close by, rather than heading in the ‘wrong’ direction towards the centre of Bucharest. The airport is located in Otopeni.

Hotel Casa Romaneasca was PERFECT. It was a 10-minute WALK from the airport, sitting right opposite the airport approach road. There was a path alongside the road and a pedestrian footbridge up and over the main DN1 road.

It’s such a cute-looking hotel…yes it was one of those things where I ‘judged a book by its cover’, and booked it because of the images on booking.com!

As I was travelling by myself, I paid £46 for my room for one night. It was basic but did the job. I had a complimentary bottle of water, 2x shower gel sachets and a bar of soap. Breakfast wasn’t included in the room rate and the restaurant opened for breakfast at 9am, which was a bit late for me.

Casa Romaneasca Restaurant

I did however go to the restaurant for dinner. It is open daily until midnight, which was perfect arriving at 7pm. Travelling in the summer, I was able to sit outside in the courtyard. The menu was HUGE. They serve both traditional Romanian dishes as well as a wide choice of different meats and other dishes.

I had a Romanian Bukur beer and baked garlic cream soup in a homemade bread bowl, which came to £9.57. It was delicious, and I ended up eating the whole bread bowl too…even though it took me an hour to eat it! You can view the Casa Romaneasca menu here. They have a second location in Bucharest city centre too.

Therme Bucharest

How To Get To And From Therme

The easiest and cheapest way to get to Therme Bucharest is by taking the local STB bus. Bus 442 goes from Bucharest city centre to Therme and stops at Henri Coandă Airport en route. The website is good as you can also track the live locations of the buses.

I could have picked it up from the main road, but I decided to walk back to the airport as I thought it would be easier to spot! It’s important to know that going TO Therme, the bus only picks up from DEPARTURES. There’s a small bus stop sign just outside the terminal. The time of the bus varies, but it leaves every 30 minutes.

Therme is the end of the line, so it will be written on the front of the bus. Going back to the airport from Therme, the bus stop is a short walk from the main entrance, the front of the bus will say ‘442 Piata Presei’. When it gets to the airport, it then only drops off at ARRIVALS. The bus leaves Therme on :00 and :30.

The easiest way to pay for the bus is with a contactless card (the sign on the bus says Mastercard or Visa are accepted). I found that the onboard terminal rejected my Mastercard Credit Card, however, my Visa Revolut worked with no problems.

A single journey costs 3lei which works out to be 53p (£1.06 return).

Therme ‘One Day Holiday’

Therme Bucharest is said to be the largest spa in Europe! It is absolutely giant and such good value for money. HOWEVER, when visiting on a weekend during the summer season, it’s not exactly the same ‘zen’ feeling you may experience during a UK spa break. It was EXTREMELY busy. It’s best to think of it a bit like a water park.

I decided to buy a ‘One Day Holiday’ ticket, which was valid for the whole day (9am until Midnight), and gave me access to all 3 Therme ‘zones’. This cost me £30.82. You can also get cheaper tickets that just cover individual areas.

The Palm

If you’ve seen Therme Bucharest on social media, you’ve probably seen pictures of The Palm. This is the main pool area inside a giant greenhouse-looking building. Various Aqua Gym classes take place here.

There’s a swim-up bar, serving a range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. The pool is both indoors and outdoors and has several jacuzzi areas. The Palm has a large restaurant too.

In the summer months, the Sands of Therme Beach is the largest urban beach in Europe with volleyball and sun loungers. You’ll also find another outdoor pool and several bars.

The Galaxy

The Galaxy is mostly an indoor water park. There are 19 water slides altogether, with around 9 that are suitable for adults. And from a theme park lover, they are GOOD slides. Some use inflatable rings, and others are body slides. This area is very popular with families and children, so it can be a bit crazy.

There’s even a slide on the ROOF, although this one is extreme. It’s only open during the summer months and is more like a river rapids, so it is deep and makes you feel like you’re in a washing machine. I also got trapped in a whirlpool and thought I was going to be stuck on the roof forever!

Along with the slides, there are hydro-massage beds (additional cost), 3 wet saunas (the Oriental Garden sauna was my favourite), a couple of swim-up bars (indoors and outdoors) and a restaurant.

Elysium

If you want to visit Elysium, you automatically get entrance to all 3 areas, as it’s accessed through The Palm on the upper floor. There are a range of different dry saunas with various temperatures.

The Hollywood sauna is cool, it’s the only cinema sauna in Romania and shows BBC documentaries among other things. The Bavaria sauna had me questioning my life choices…it was HOT.

This is the most peaceful spa-like area in Therme Bucharest, I spent most of the afternoon here.

There is a whole timetable of daily rituals that take place in the different saunas. I enjoyed the Liquid Gold honey scrub ritual in the Provence sauna and the Aufguss rituals. This is where they will have ice balls with different essential oils and then use towels and rhythmic movements, often to music, to distribute the scent and heat around the sauna. It’s beautiful, relaxing and I loved them.

Other paid traditional massage services are available in this area, but they book up FAST.

The Palm and Elysium has a minimum age of 14 years old.

Tips For Visiting

When at Therme Bucharest, you are given a bracelet that opens the locker and it is also used as a cashless payment device, that you pay for by card when you leave. I spent an extra £19.49 which included:

• Green Apple mocktail at the swim-up bar
• a bottle of vitamin water
• a smoothie bowl for lunch
• 2x hydro massages (15 minutes and 10 minutes)

1. Book Online In Advance

Self-explanatory, book online in advance. You get a QR code, can go straight to the desk in a separate line, get your bracelet and be on your way.

2. Get There For Opening Time

This is one of the reasons that I wanted to stay the night before. By lunchtime, it was SO BUSY. So much so the line to get in was all the way out into the car park.

I went in with a game plan:

• If you want a proper massage, book that first. Otherwise, go on the hydro massage beds (I used the ones in The Galaxy), these massages last 10-15 minutes, so if they are all full you’ll need to wait.
• Go on the slides in The Galaxy while all the lines are short. The Andromeda Slide always had a long line, so do that one first.
• I then went to the Aqua Gym class at 12.30pm in The Palm, followed by lunch at the restaurant.
• I spent most of the afternoon in the Elysium area doing the rituals in the saunas.
• If you want to do a body scrub, you will need to try a get a place INSIDE one of the wet saunas at least 10 minutes before the start time. There are limited seats in the wet saunas.

3. Elysium Is The Quietest Area

The Galaxy was the loudest and busiest area, along with The Palm. I was a little disappointed with the amount of toilets available compared to the number of visitors. There were only a handful and the lines were always huge. If you head up to Elysium, these toilets never had a line.

Just like a lot of European resorts, Therme is horrendous for sun bed saving. Every single bed was reserved both inside and outside and yet 95% of the time they were completely empty. A little frustrating as there is literally nowhere to sit.

Thankfully because the weather was nice, I was able to sit out on the Elysium sun terrace. I always managed to find a sun bed and umbrella in this area.

4. You Need To Take Flip Flops & A Towel

It states on the Therme website that you HAVE to take flip flops (that are not currently on your feet) and a towel. If you don’t have them, you will need to rent a towel or a dressing gown and buy flip flops.

You don’t need to walk around covered in a towel, but you will need to wear flip flops. At the bottom of the slides and at the edge of the pools, there are HUNDREDS of flip flops, so it’s best to take some that are easy to spot.

In the dry saunas, you HAVE to have every part of your body on a towel. They are very strict on this, including having to either sit cross-legged or have your feet on a towel too. (Swimwear is also a MUST in the saunas).

If you plan on sun bed saving, but want to go in the saunas, a second towel may be useful. I took my own travel towel, (I had to try and dry it off before I needed to get on my flight), but just like the flip flops, I knew which one was mine.

(There are a few hairdryers in the locker room but they aren’t very powerful).

I did consider renting a towel but then you have the problem of other visitors potentially picking up your towel by mistake…(you get fined if you don’t return it when leaving).

5. A Waterproof Watch Is Useful

Despite having a big timetable of activities, there were a lack of clocks. Other than the Therme bracelet, all other watches and jewellery are not allowed on The Galaxy slides.

I have a very robust Garmin Instinct fitness tracker, so once I did all the slides, I wore this for the rest of the time. When in the saunas, I did take it off and wrap it in the corner of my wet towel to keep it cool.

It was also handy because I needed to know when I had to leave to catch my plane home! I spent 9 hours at Therme Bucharest, this was a good amount of time. I got everything done that I wanted to do and by the time I left, I was starting to get a little dehydrated from being in the saunas for so long!

6. The Lockers Are Huge

Because Therme Bucharest is so close to the airport, they know that people might visit before or after a flight. The regular lockers are huge. I could easily fit my hand luggage backpack in it along with all my clothes. Some people had small cabin cases in them too. For larger luggage, they have a bigger storage area.

As I was travelling solo and not sun bed saving, I decided to keep my phone and water bottle in the locker. My locker was miles from anything though.

In hindsight, I wish I had my sunglasses in The Palm because of the glass roof. But I got to the point where I couldn’t be bothered to keep walking backwards and forwards to it, so just went without.

Outside of the saunas, there are places to leave phones and glasses, but it’s up to you if you trust leaving them unattended while you are inside. Some people were leaving their phones in the rented robe pockets, just so they weren’t on display and in the other areas, some people were using waterproof pouches/cases.

Final Words

I absolutely loved my weekend spa break, it was so easy and hassle-free! Although it wasn’t totally relaxing, I did like that there was so much to do. I never got bored, even though I was travelling by myself! The rituals and hydro massage beds were highlights.

I was very happy with my choice of hotel and I loved the restaurant.

I was able to pay for everything on card, so I didn’t need to worry about getting physical cash. Even though Romania is in the EU, it still has its own currency. I have free data roaming, so could use my phone as normal. I probably could have done the trip without data, but if this is something you might need, check out Airalo eSims.

Found This Post Useful? Pin It For Later!