Have you ever been to the Manitou Springs Resort and Mineral Spa?
I hadn't either until today :)
When I was in my program of Recreation and Community Development my classmates and I were all given a voucher of a free one nights stay the the Manitou Springs Resort and Mineral Spa. I happened to keep it for the longest time because I never knew when I was going to use it. I don't really ever treat myself to manis or pedis or things like spas very much. After covid and working two jobs day in and day out I became very exhausted and figured it was time to take a break.
The voucher I had was only in use from Sunday-Thursday. So I picked a Sunday-Tuesday adventure. My mother and sister and I stayed two nights at the Spa along with our little puppers (they are pet friendly my friends).
The drive up was very nice and you get to see a little bit of Watrous on the way in. The beach was right in walking distance of the Resort (like 5 feet away) and everything else that was recommended to see was also in short walking distance.
I even got picked up by this very old man who took me for a ride in this super old car. People were so friendly! Manitou also has a ice cream shop with a lot of items for tasty treats!
When we were adventuring around as artsy as I am I spotted an Art Gallery ...
The Little Manitou Art Gallery was the cutest little place with all these hidden features inside.
The lawn/garden wind mills were my favourite as they were made out of glass.
The man who took me for a ride in his awesome get up mentioned that my girlies and I should see the Wellington Park.
I would highly recommend walking through as they had a little river running through it and awesome trees with roots flowing into it. My sister and I saw a trail running up this massive hill and we thought there would be maybe something awesome on top of the rock climb.
When we got to the top there was thee most gorgeous view of the entire lake. We also could see massive cabins/houses that looked like something out of a movie.
The hilltop had a trail which led back down to the trail we were starting on. So if you walk the full length of the trail it goes all the way up to the hill top views. My sister and I just felt adventurous so you don't have to rock climb ;)
On the way back down there is a forest and campgrounds, along with little bridges over the river and a meditation circle garden.
The Wellington Park was one of my favourites.
For eats there were a couple places to eat however, this was the part that was not the greatest highlight of our trip. I would not recommend going to Manitou on a Monday or Tuesday as that is their weekend. Sunday was packed. But our days on Monday and Tuesday were quiet as most places were closed. We wanted to try out the golf course restaurant or the ODA wine bar. So we spent majority of our time at the Water's Edge restaurant inside the spa. It has a lovely patio outside.
Manitou Springs was a nice little get away from Saskatoon however, as much as I love beaches I can say the water was not the nicest to swim in, and you need to call the spa before you go as they do not tell you that they are booked up if you want to treat yourself. The mineral spa is quite refreshing as my sister and I did a lot of soaking up as we could not get our pedicures like we wanted. The food was great and the servers were exceptionally nice. Most of the servers had the same tricks up their sleeves so sometimes the jokes were a little too much from time to time.
All in all it was nice to travel somewhere new and my family and I can say we had an 'experience'.