A Luxury Austin Staycation
The recent travel changes with COVID has brought us to look closer when it comes to vacations and long weekends. With countries and states requiring mandatory quarantining, we looked at what is available in our backyard for an Austin staycation. We didn’t want to fly anywhere, keeping our health top of mind, so I did a little research on what was nearby. To my surprise and delight, this Austin staycation was only a 30-minute drive from home.
Peter and I live in Austin, Texas. We love this city! But truth be told, we have not explored the beauty that is right in our backyard! We researched the best Austin staycation and Austin Getaways and discovered Lake Austin Spa Resort.
Once I found Lake Austin Spa Resort, I dug deeper and reviewed awards, photos, philosophy, and online reviews. I decided to book this resort for my birthday celebration and recharge staycation.
If you’re looking for the best staycation in Austin or need a spa weekend for your body and mind, then I think you’ll enjoy this resort.
If you’re looking to stay at the Lake Austin Spa Resort, I know you are wondering if it’s worth the money. I was wondering the same thing too! Which is why I spent weeks researching this location and going back and forth deliberating about it.
This Austin staycation was a nice luxury splurge for my birthday, and we took some of the budgets we had set aside for our summer trip to France and allocated it to this lovely luxury staycation. And let me tell you it was 100% worth it!
Here is everything that we experienced and beautiful pictures to go along with it if you are thinking about staying at this resort!
Note: This blog post is not sponsored; we booked our stay at this resort. This review has all our honest opinions about the location, food, spa, and activities.
Lake Austin Spa Resort Location
Lake Austin Resort and Spa is located about 35 minutes away from downtown Austin at 1705 S. Quinlan Park Road. When writing this post, we live downtown, so we know what to expect if you’re driving from Austin city center.
The resort is at the end of Quinlan Park Road, right next to it is a Quinlan Park, where you’ll see a lot of people pulling up their boats to enter the lake. You’ll drive through Steiner Ranch and all of the home development in the area.
The resort is in front of a vast nature preserve, no homes or commercial properties, just beautiful hillside covered in lush green trees and other greenery. It was one of my favorite things about this location, the relaxing view!
There are only 40 rooms on the property and gorgeous areas throughout the resort. A garden library, treehouse room (which had my favorite decor), living room, yoga deck, and arbor, boat deck, and the beautiful spa! You could relax in any of these rooms and enjoy the view or sounds of nature.
My parents-in-law sent me a bottle of my favorite champagne for my birthday, so we enjoyed it on the boat deck and took in the view. In the summer, it is also the coolest place outdoors at the resort, and if you ever get too hot, you can jump right in the lake and cool off. This boat deck was also one of my favorite spots on the property.
Lake Austin Spa
Since this was both a birthday celebration and a body and mind staycation, we booked the package, which came with spa credit for each guest. We took full advantage of the spa! We have a spa service each day we are there. My husband and I booked our services around the same time so we could enjoy other activities together.
And since I stayed at the resort on my actual birthday, I also enjoyed a free massage. When booking our stay over the phone, the lady helping us gave us the Monarch Club’s tip and the birthday perk that came along with it!
I had two body scrubs, a facial, and two massages. I wanted a variety of spa services since I’ve never quite pampered myself in this way. The scrubs were terrific, and my skin was baby-soft after the service. I had the Fresh Citrus Squeeze and LakeHouse Lavender Scrub. If I had to pick one, I would recommend the LakeHouse Lavender.
My husband had all deep tissue massages. He had nothing but positive reviews.
Before and after each spa treatment, you can relax in the blue room, which is a large and beautiful room for relaxing your mind before the spa appointment.
There is also a spa pool that we each enjoyed before our appointment one of the days. Again there are so many little areas that you can call your own at this resort. It’s something that I love about unique resorts and hotels, how they take the time to decorate the entire location, outdoors and in.
Lake Austin Resort Activities
Along with enjoying the location, there are various activities you can book during your stay included in the price. Some have an added fee, but that is activities such as wakeboarding and the like.
You have the option for hiking, cardio, water yoga in the pool or on the lake, nature outings, strength workouts, various types of yoga workouts, AquaFitness, scenic boat rides, cooking demos, creative art, and other teachings for the mind, body, and soul.
If there is something you want to do health-wise, they most likely have it. These activities will help take life stresses away. The activities was another main reason for booking our Austin staycation here.
We booked and experienced yoga on the deck, cardio, water yoga, mandala drawing. We tried every type of water activity they had, such as kayaking, stand up paddleboarding, a water bicycle, and a water stair stepper (a paddleboard and a stair stepper combo).
See the photos of these below!!
One of my favorite takeaways had to be the creative mandala drawing class for meditation. This form of drawing and meditation was something that I didn’t know about before. I love drawing, so this is something I will continue to do.
Lake Austin Resort Food
The Austin Resort and Spa is an all-inclusive resort. This includes most of the activities I mentioned above and breakfast, lunch, dinner, and some treats and snacks in between.
My husband and I like to consider ourselves food connoisseurs. We love a good meal and always search out the best restaurants when traveling. So all-inclusive resorts are something I question. Happily to my delightful surprise, the food was fantastic!
Since this is a health and wellness-focused resort, the meals are health-focused and not oversized portions.
For breakfast, I enjoyed a fruit smoothie every morning with either vegan pancakes (which were amazing!), Migas, superfood muffin, or a blend of greens and scrambled eggs. All delicious.
Lunch is a blend of bowls, salads, and small plates. My favorite was the good karma bowl, I had it twice!
Lastly, dinner! Dinner was my favorite meal here. The was specials every night, and each night the dinner was delicious! Everything was fresh and also healthy. With a different dessert every night as well. Not only that! They always had two options for desserts!
Along with the main meals, they have little mid-day snacks and delicious fro-yo anytime you pleased. And they also had different flavors of fro-yo every day! Talk about a way to your heart! Well, if you love fro-yo, that is.
AND you get to order room service when you want as well. I was very skeptical about the food, not going to lie, but we were delighted with what we experienced.
Room
Lastly, the rooms! We booked the Premier Hot Tub Cottage. It was a little stand-alone cottage with a front patio and backyard with a hot tub! Yes, a hot tub all for ourselves!
They provide you with resort sandals upon check-in that you can wear around the property and keep! The toiletries are no-fragrance or lavender! And their lavender body lotion is pretty fantastic and smells amazing.
The bed was comfy. They did have the biggest pillow I’ve ever seen! Like ginormous, it was so big I had to mention it in this post! 🙂
Focus on Yourself with a Staycation
There you have it! If you are looking for a relaxing and reenergizing Austin staycation, then this resort is at the top of the list.
Especially during these troubling and challenging times, it’s especially important to focus on your body and mind. Take a mental break for yourself and truly relax.
Enjoy the sun, water, and sounds of nature to reset your body and mind. Have you booked a staycation in your city before?
Stay Stylish,
-V
