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A huge new wellness resort is coming to Manchester – here’s a peek inside the Bucharest version
- May 27
- 5 min read
As the first ‘Therme’ is being built in the UK, Claire Spreadbury finds out what to expect.
A wellbeing resort, which developers claim will be the ‘world’s largest’ of its kind, is set to open in Manchester in 2028.
Building is underway at the 65,000 square-metre site for Theme Manchester – which will cost an estimated £500 million to complete.
The spa and water park will include more than 20 saunas and almost two kilometres of water slides, as well as hot and cold pools, lagoons, botanical gardens and treatments – with the aim of it being affordably priced.
Similar sites are planned in the UK for Glasgow, Cardiff and London in the future.
“Nobody has ever created a project like this in the UK,” said Professor David Russell, CEO of Therme UK.
The plans are absolutely huge, and Therme is a tried-and-tested brand, built on the long traditions of thermal and mineral bathing.
Originating in Germany, Therme Erding first opened in 1999, followed by a further three in the country and one in Romania. Therme Bucharest was built in 2016 and has been a huge success – but Manchester will be double the size.
Manchester has been chosen as the first UK site because of the “glorious site with huge transportation links”, says Russell. It’s smack bang next door to the Trafford Centre – the shopping and leisure complex already attracting over 30 million people every year.
Eventually, “90% of the population will be within a 90-minute drive of a UK Therme – that’s the plan,” says Russell.
“We want to bring wellbeing to all.”
What to expect from Therme Manchester
It’s really hard to imagine what’s coming. Think about Center Parcs’ Subtropical Swimming Paradise spliced with The Eden Project in Cornwall and the Thermae Bath Spa in Somerset. And even if you picked up and moved those three destinations together, Therme Manchester will still be twice as big.
Plus, it will be accessible. The average customer might pay around £50 to spend half a day there – a bargain compared to many spas. But there will also be discounts for off-peak visits, seniors, under-privileged families and more.
There will be three ‘zones’. Play is set to be a year-round space for families, with top-of-the-range water slides, a wave pool, red-light therapy lounging, warm water lagoons and steam rooms, and can be accessed both inside and outside. There will also be family dining.
The Relax zone will be adults-only. Indoor and outdoor pools, mineral baths, steam rooms, waterfall showers and seasonal food options. And then Restore – also adults-only – will include saunas like you’ve never experienced before (more on that later), volcanic sulphur baths, cold plunge pools, spa treatments, steam rooms, wellbeing therapies and more indulgent dining.
There will be vast numbers of trees (1,500 palms have already been ordered), a garden of wellbeing, ‘WellTech’ experiences like a snow room, multi-sensory showers, cryotherapy and oxygen rooms. Oh – and if you’re worried about Manchester being too chilly for all of this, the indoor space will be a constantly balmy 33 degrees, so any outdoor temperature drops and rain will be welcome.
And did I mention the beach? Man-made, of course, but lots of fun.
Therme Bucharest – what’s it like?
To try and get a feel for the space in Manchester, I head to Therme Bucharest.
Huge and expansive, it’s not like any spa I’ve ever been to before – and not just because of the water park.
It’s big enough for me to get lost wandering around, but with 1.7 million visitors a year, the space is important. There are people everywhere you go, but at no point does it feel crowded. It is a weekday, but it’s also the Herbarium Festival – a two-week period at Therme when more than 70 international herbalists, phytotherapists and aromatherapy experts guide guests through rituals that merge traditional and modern relaxation.
Everything feels unique at here, but the sauna rituals are next level. Unlike its German counterparts, there are no textile-free (read: naked) saunas in Bucharest, and none are planned for Manchester. However, there are ‘sauna masters’.
If you’ve ever found yourself in a very hot wooden room – or even on a sunbed – struggling to breathe or concentrate after about four minutes, the sauna ritual is for you.
We all know saunas are good for us, but some find it easier than others to hush their minds. So, what if the sauna contained some form of entertainment? Welcome the aufguss – or sauna master. Someone who takes the sauna experience to the next level and makes it not only bearable, but enjoyable.
I watch a sauna master waddle towards the ‘A Terra’ sauna with two buckets of banya venik – carefully assembled bunches of oak leaves and branches in water – his grey felt sauna hat pulled firmly on to his head.
A crowd gathers outside before we pile in. The sauna master is welcomed with a rapturous applause and the traditional music starts to play.
He dunks the oak, splattering the huge hot coals with water and topping with ice. He raises the branches and swirls them in the air to distribute the heat.
Everyone starts clapping along to the music as he travels around the room and beats our backs, one-by-one, with the branches.
I sit in 70-degree heat, droplets of sweat rolling down my legs, braced for my turn. It’s not unpleasant, though it does feel like everyone is smiling through gritted teeth as they await their slaps – a traditional ritual popular said to improve circulation.
I try the German Herbarium experience next, this time led by a female aufguss.
We take our seats as she splashes the coals with wooden ladles full of water, followed by crushed ice and aromatic essences. As the music starts, so does the smoke ritual, where she wafts smoky essential oils around the room.
The traditional Czech music starts slow as she picks up a towel and dances wistfully in front of us, whipping pockets of hot, scented air right into our faces.
She is applauded for her dancing, the towel seemingly representing a cape in a much less aggressive paso doble.
My final ritual takes place in the Hollywood sauna – a slightly cooler 60 degrees, led by a male master, also incorporating the energetic towel wafting. Less balletic but no less impressive, he starts by telling us a story.
The huge screen in front of us shows the scene of a scorching hot desert. “It’s 60 degrees,” he tells us. “We have no food or water, but we have hope.”
He splats snowballs of ice on to the coals and throws buckets more on top, dousing it all in cold water as a sizzle fills the room. He adds smoke and essential oils – sage, menthol, fir – before whipping his towel around the room, continuing the story while the screen remains unchanged.
All the rituals last around 15 minutes, so long enough to reap the sauna benefits, but not so long it becomes unbearable – though I do have a moment in the 75-degree heat where I think I may have to leave.
But there is so much more here than saunas. Romania’s biggest botanical garden houses almost a million plants, there are fitness classes for young and old, late-night DJs on a Saturday, when the Ibiza pool party vibes kick in, lakes with spinning fountains dancing in the breeze, massage treatments you’ve never heard of, hydro beds and mud masks.
The UK is in the midst of a wellness crisis. One in four of us will experience a mental health problem each year, according to registered charity Mind. And while so many suffer silently with burnout, stress and general overload, Therme Manchester couldn’t be more welcome.
Ian Brown – lead singer of The Stone Roses and Mancunian hero – once famously said Manchester has everything except a beach. Not for much longer.
