Taman Sari Spa At Jakarta Airport

I made the most amazing discovery during my quickie trip to Jakarta last Thursday — a spa right inside Jakarta’s Cengkareng Airport!

It’s called the Taman Sari Royal Heritage Spa.

The place is located at the very end of the Departures level of the airport (level 2), right after Gate F, past the small Starbucks outlet. Mind you, this place is ‘outside’, i.e. before the check-in counters.

They have individual treatment rooms, hence you are assured of privacy. There are rooms for couples, as well.

This was my room:-

They provide slippers, sarong (inside the small cabinet that you see in the photo), disposable underwear and towels.

The shower, which is conveniently located inside the treatment room itself, has hot water and (free) liquid soap.

The airconditioner was centralised, which I found a wee bit too cold that day. But when I mentioned it to my therapist, she quickly ran out and took a hot air blower. It wasn’t that effective but I think it was a very thoughtful gesture on her part.

The prices of the services are pretty cheap, considering that the spa is in an airport. And they’re definitely a lot cheaper than KL rates. For example, my 30-minute mandi lulur (Javanese scrub) cost a very reasonable Rp150,000 (approximately RM50 or USD15). A 30-minute head, neck and shoulder massage would set you back Rp120,000. Other services include manicures, pedicures, hair treatments, foot massage, underwater massage, reflexology, facial treatments. The sessions take anywhere between 30 minutes (mandi lulur, underwater massage, herbal body mask) to 60 minutes (Javanese massage) to 2 hours (body exfoliating and milk bath).

And how was the service, you may ask? I found it to be very good indeed.

(1) The therapist only talked when talked to. I don’t know about you but I personally detest chatty therapists — I think they spoil the mood.

(2) She was very thorough and had very strong firm hands — essential for rubbing in the scrub — so even though it was a mandi lulur, it felt almost like a full body massage.

(3) She was also very polite, asking me if it was okay to include my, um, chest (!). Apparently, a lot of people do it but I turned down her offer ;) She also asked me if she could scrub my underarms (!). I’ve never done it before, I was intrigued, so I gave it a go. It didn’t feel ticklish at all because of the pressure and the long, fast strokes that she applied.

It wasn’t as good as the Angsana Resort & Spa in Bintan Island but it was still very good and was much, much cheaper than Angsana.

The mandi lulur was supposed to take only 30 minutes but my therapist was so thorough, it took about 45 minutes in the end. Good thing I had already checked in earlier.

By the way, a mandi lulur is basically a good scrubbing down from the tips of your toes all the way to your neck using a special blend of natural ingredients — turmeric, rice powder, pandan (screw pine) leaves and temugiring. It would feel weird and quite uncomfortable, considering that your skin is dry. At the same time, it’s almost like a massage as well, due to the pressure that the therapist must exert in order to exfoliate away dead skin.

In some places, they’d apply some sort of cream/yogurt mixture on your skin after the scrub. In this case, there was none. But my skin still came out unbelievably soft and silky smooth after I showered away the scrub… and smelling deliciously like chocolate! I think the scrub had some chocolate powder mixed in, as well, even though it wasn’t listed as an the ingredient.

So if your flight out of Jakarta is delayed or you have checked in early, having nothing to do other than browse golf training aids reviews and need to kill time and/or want to finish off your last Rupiah notes, you now know where to go.

No Rupiah? No problem. They take Visa and Mastercard without any surcharge.

Click here and here to see the complete price list. All prices are subject to 10% VAT.

Taman Sari Royal Heritage Spa
Lobby Keberangkatan Terminal 2F
Bandar Soekarno-Hatta, Cengkareng
Tel: +62 21 559 4362