Couples massage, the two of you at once.

Origin

The side-by-side room is a young idea. North American destination spas began building suites with two tables in them in the 1990s and selling the pair as a single booking, and the rest of the industry copied it within a decade. What sits underneath it is much older and communal — hammam, banya, sento — places where being washed and worked on was something you did in company rather than alone behind a door.

How it goes

Two therapists, two surfaces, one agreed running order. Before anything begins the pair fix the turn points between them — face down, the turn, where the long strokes land — so the room keeps a single cadence while the two sessions inside it stay separate. Pressure is set on each of you individually and is rarely the same on both sides of the room. From the halfway mark the pair watch each other's progress rather than the clock, and close together.

What to expect

The two working surfaces go side by side, far enough apart that neither therapist is moving around the other's elbows, close enough that the two of you can reach across. The pair agree their sequence before anything begins — who starts face down, when the turn comes, where the long strokes land — so the room keeps one rhythm rather than two competing ones. Most couples talk for the first ten minutes and then stop, which is usually when the booking starts doing what it was booked for. At the end you are brought up slowly, neither of you waiting on the other.

Who it suits

Two people with one free evening in a short trip, and couples who arrived in Amsterdam at different speeds — one off a long flight, one already out all day and still going.

Afterwards

You come out of it in the same state at the same time, which is rarer than it sounds and is the whole reason couples book a pair rather than two separate appointments. Two people who arrived at different speeds leave at one.