In June and July of 2023 we had a number of scorching hot weeks with temperatures above 30 degrees in Belgium and the Netherlands. My boyfriend and I really would like to go swimming somewhere to cool down a bit. Unfortunately all public pools where overcrowded and we didn´t feel like squeezing ourselves in. I than stumbled across Sanadome in Nijmegen (the Netherlands), a hotel with its own attached wellness centre. It used to be a hospital for water based treatments but has since been spun off as its own separate wellness hotel. They offered a nice sleep and dine offer and the relatively high entry fee would likely make sure it didn’t get swamped by hordes of people.

We travelled by train from Antwerp to Nijmegen as the hotel is located only a 15 minute walk from Nijmegen Goffert station and thus avoided the slow 100 km/h Dutch motorway network and the hefty €9 per day parking fees. The hotel is located in the middle of a forest, after walking through the forest along a nice shaded entry road you open up onto an open area in the middle of the woods where you find the remarkable semi-circular shape of the building.

The front had the driveway as well as the outside terrace of the café and restaurant. The backside had the entire wellness centre. Check-in was only a short wait after which we swiftly received our room keys and pool wristbands. The wristbands where used to open and close your lockers as well as charge any food and drinks while in the pool area.

When booking the room we had two options the basic room with an outside balcony and no air-conditioning and the superior room without balcony but with air-conditioning. Due to the high temperatures we opted for the air-conditioned room to have a better sleep.

The room was extremely spacious with two seats near the window, a big double bed (with one big double duvet, very rare for the Netherlands!) in the centre and a desk area with a TV at the opposite side. The closet space was located in the entrance hall. The room provided no tea and coffee facilities nor any complimentary water (quite stingy as the hotel pride itself on having its own water source) but it did come with a fully stocked minibar. The room featured both inside and outside shutters to keep the sun out, which did a very effective job.

The real marble of the room was the gigantic bathroom with a big double sink vanity and boht the the toilet and walk-in rainfall shower next to each other in separate glass cubicle’s. while the bathroom clearly used to be a separate room, they wanted to ride on the modern trend (annoying) trend of open bathrooms, so they just removed the door and leaving an open bathroom entrance, in my opinion it would have been better to just leave in the door because this set-up didn’t have any advantages.

The products used where typical multi use soap dispensers as you would find in most Dutch hotels. It would have been nicer to have separate body wash, shampoo and conditioner tubes in the shower instead of the all-in-one one, as this always gives off a cheap impression. The scent of the products however was nice.

The main event we came for was the wellness complex on the bottom level of the building, this consisted of both an indoor and an outdoor section. With several types of baths including fresh and salt water pools, smaller pools with pine scent and extra oxygen and every other imaginable special water.

Of course they also offered steam baths and saunas and if you wished you could get massages and other special treatments at an additional cost.

Both inside and outside you had restaurants and bars with seating to enjoy drinks and basic food items. We enjoyed some snacks on the outside terrace which was a nice spot to relax in between plunging in the different baths.

We had a very enjoyable time there, while it certainly wasn’t the best or largest wellness or waterpark we have been to (Aquacity in Poprad and the baths in Františkovy Lázně where better) it still was a very good outing relatively close to home and much better than for example the baths of Spa.

It was also much less crowded than we anticipated, which was enjoyable, probably thanks to the relatively high entrance fees (which are probably set taking into account the wish of keeping a calm and serene environment). The use of phones and cameras was strictly forbidden in the wellness area, so we adhered to that and didn’t make any pictures ourselves.

Dinner

In the evening the sleep and dine offer we booked included dinner. In advance we had to make a dinner reservation at a certain time and choose between the buffet, the 3-course set Chef’s menu of a voucher of €45 for the a la carte dining.

We opted to have the set 3-course chef’s menu which proved to be a good value for money. Sam did find the portion sizes a bit small considering he is used of receiving bigger portions in the Netherlands. When we had a look at the a la carte menu prices they were clearly over the top and too expensive for the offering.

In the morning we had breakfast at the buffet which was good but standard hotel buffet offering. With both hot and cold items. Nothing special to remark about it, but also nothing bad.

The bottom line is that it was a nice weekend away to enjoy some water fun without being crushed by the crowds. If it suits your plans it most definably is not a bad place for a weekend getaway.