Why do the office Christmas party differently this year

The office Christmas party is an institution, and like most institutions it runs on a template: a long table in a loud restaurant, a set menu somebody else picked, and a conversation with whoever happens to sit opposite. For a team of two to eight people that template fits badly. The evening is meant to be a thank-you for the year, and it ends with everyone shouting over the playlist and going home unable to remember the main course.

There is another way to spend the same evening. In our private rooms the whole space belongs to your team alone: no strangers at the next table, no waiting to be served, nobody else's birthday song. You settle into a beer bath or a wine bath, and the room is yours for ninety minutes: about twenty of them in water held at 35-38 °C, up to thirty if you feel like staying in, and the rest of the evening stretched out on a heated bed of wheat straw. Talk runs differently when nobody has to out-shout the music and the beer comes from a tap beside the tub.

The second reason is practical. A party like this comes together in one booking. No menu negotiations for the colleague with an allergy, no splitting the bill at midnight. You pay for the room, not per head, so the budget is fixed before anyone arrives - and if someone goes down with flu the day before, nothing collapses, because the booking is for the room and not for a count of chairs.

The third reason is the evening itself. Warm water, the low glow of the electric fire, a room that belongs only to you: it lands somewhere between a social occasion and genuine rest. For a small team that has worked shoulder to shoulder all year, that is a better thank-you than another set menu.

How many people fit, and how to split the team

Start with the headcount, because everything else follows from it. The bathing rooms take eight guests in the same hour: four in the Golden Spring (Zlatý pramen), two in the Emerald Spring (Smaragdový pramen) and two in the Ruby Spring (Rubínový pramen). The Sapphire Spring (Safírový pramen), our salt cave, runs in parallel, so a ninth colleague can be on the massage table while the others are in the water.

Four scenarios cover most small teams:

  • Two people - the Ruby Spring with its single larch tub, or the Emerald Spring, which has a larch tub and the cedar phyto-sauna.
  • Three or four people - the Golden Spring with its two oak tubs, the only room where two tubs run at once.
  • Six people - the Golden Spring for four plus the Ruby Spring for two, both starting at the same time.
  • Eight people - the full house: Golden Spring (4) plus Emerald Spring (2) plus Ruby Spring (2).

If the team is bigger than eight, the answer is not to squeeze people in, it is to stagger the start times. One group comes at 17:00, the second at 19:00, and while the first soaks the second is having a massage or sitting in the salt cave. A team of fifteen works that way without anybody perched elbow to elbow.

One thing to settle early: the V.I.P. packages in the Emerald Spring are for one guest or two, never for a group. Neither V.I.P. Beer SPA nor V.I.P. Wine SPA can be spread across a team - each is built for a pair. Planning for six or eight means thinking in classic baths across several rooms. If you want a particular split and a particular hour confirmed, write to us through the contact page.

What the team can expect on the night

The evening is simple and still holds a lot. A classic beer bath books the room for ninety minutes: about twenty of them in the tub, up to thirty if the water is too good to leave, and all the time that is left resting on the straw bed. The tub is filled by hand in front of you, and into the water go Žatec hops, brewer's yeast, malt and our own craft beer, Petrovické zlato. A whirlpool keeps the water moving and steady at 35-38 °C. The tap beside the tub pours light and dark Petrovické zlato with no limit, and snacks come with it.

If the team would rather have something gentler, the wine bath uses red wine, grape-seed extract, vine leaves, honey, herbs and French lavender, and comes with a bottle of wine and a plate of fruit and cheese served in the room. The shape is the same - the same ninety minutes, a short soak and then the long rest - so both fit into one evening without any juggling.

That is exactly what a mixed group needs. In the Golden Spring you can book the Combo: beer in one tub, wine in the other, both running at the same time. The hop people take one tub, the wine people the other, and nobody has to leave the room to get what they actually wanted.

One detail surprises most first-timers: we ask you not to wash with soap for about two hours afterwards. The beer or wine extract stays on the skin, which is why it feels softer and stays that way for a day or two. Every room has a shower, but in the evening you simply towel off and let your skin keep the rest. For a team heading on somewhere afterwards it is a small bonus - and a story for the office.

V.I.P. in the Emerald Spring: for one guest or two

Some teams have a core of two - two founders, a director and an assistant, a manager and their right hand. For that pair the Emerald Spring holds a package of 150 minutes: a larch tub with a whirlpool, the Siberian-cedar phyto-sauna, an electric fire and a heated straw bed.

V.I.P. Beer SPA opens with fifteen minutes in the phyto-sauna, a small upright barrel of Siberian cedar you sit in up to the neck, with your head staying out in the open air, so the herbal steam never reaches your face. Then comes a thirty-minute relaxation massage or a scrub, then the beer bath itself, then the rest on the straw. Light and dark Petrovické zlato from the tap with no limit, snacks included. From 293 EUR per room for one or two guests.

V.I.P. Wine SPA follows the same shape with the wine bath, a bottle of wine and a fruit and cheese plate: from 326 EUR per room for one or two guests. Delux Wine SPA is a solo programme - a wine scrub, a wine wrap, a full-body massage with grape-seed oil and a rest by the fire with a glass of wine and a cheese plate - from 326 EUR for one guest, and the only package that comes with a bathrobe.

None of the three is a group option. Book one for the pair at the centre of the team and send everyone else into classic baths in the rooms next door at the same hour: the two sit together neatly in one evening. The full list of treatments is the easiest place to assemble the programme.

The salt cave and massages to round out the evening

Nobody has to spend the whole evening in a tub. The Sapphire Spring (Safírový pramen) is a salt cave rather than a bathing room: ten tonnes of salt in three kinds - rock, Dead Sea and Himalayan - with salt walls, salt lamps and the sort of quiet that makes people lower their voices without being asked.

Three massages are given there, and unlike the baths they are priced per guest: a full-body relaxation massage of thirty minutes from 33 EUR, the same massage over sixty minutes from 50 EUR, and a sixty-minute sports massage from 75 EUR for the colleagues who train, or who have spent the year folded over a laptop. Order them together with the room - a massage is arranged in advance, not decided on the night.

For an organiser the salt cave is mostly about rhythm. While four people are in the beer bath in the Golden Spring, two more can take a massage in the Sapphire Spring, and afterwards they swap. Nobody sits waiting for a turn, the evening keeps moving, and a team with different ideas of relaxation - one wants beer and a whirlpool, another wants silence and a therapist - gets both under one roof, two minutes from Hradčanská.

What it costs and how to work out the budget

The budget side is refreshingly simple: the baths are priced per booking, which means per room, not per person. Once you know how many tubs run and for how many guests, you know the figure. Massages are the one exception - those are per guest.

Starting prices for the scenarios a small team actually books:

  • Beer bath, one tub, one or two guests - from 148 EUR per room.
  • Wine bath, one tub, one or two guests, bottle of wine and a fruit and cheese plate included - from 201 EUR per room.
  • Two beer tubs at once in the Golden Spring - from 190 EUR for two guests, 242 EUR for three, 283 EUR for four.
  • Two wine tubs at once in the Golden Spring - from 268 EUR for two guests, 354 EUR for three, 367 EUR for four.
  • Combo in the Golden Spring, one beer tub and one wine tub - from 238 EUR for two guests, 278 EUR for three, 307 EUR for four.
  • V.I.P. Beer SPA in the Emerald Spring, one or two guests - from 293 EUR; V.I.P. Wine SPA, one or two guests - from 326 EUR; Delux Wine SPA, one guest - from 326 EUR.
  • Massages, per guest - 33 EUR for thirty minutes, 50 EUR for sixty, 75 EUR for the sports massage.

Two worked examples. A team of four in the Golden Spring on the Combo starts at 307 EUR for the room: ninety minutes, beer in one tub, wine in the other, drinks and the rest on the straw included, and that is the whole bill unless you add massages. A team of six takes the Golden Spring with two beer tubs for four, from 283 EUR, plus the Ruby Spring for the other two, from 148 EUR: from 431 EUR for the evening.

Add a thirty-minute massage for all six and that is 198 EUR more, at 33 EUR a head. Whichever way you build it, the number is on screen before you confirm anything: the reservations page shows live prices and free slots.

Logistics, getting there and planning the evening

A party stands or falls on its logistics. We are at Dejvická 255/18, Prague 6 - Dejvice, two minutes from the Hradčanská metro station. For a team converging from different corners of the city that matters more than anything on a menu: nobody circles the block hunting for a parking space. We are open Monday to Friday from 10:00 to 22:00 and at weekends from 10:00 to 23:00, so the evening can start straight after work or later on.

You book through the widget on the site or the reservations page. If the evening needs shaping - a particular split between rooms, one shared start time for three rooms, baths and massages running side by side - send it through the contact page and we will put it together with you.

A short list for whoever is organising:

  • Agree in advance who goes in which room, so nobody is deciding it in the corridor.
  • Ask everyone to arrive a few minutes early - the ninety minutes start on time.
  • Nobody needs to pack a towel: towels, sheets and slippers are ready for every guest. Swimwear is optional in a private room, and a bathrobe comes only with Delux Wine SPA.
  • Order the massages when you book the room, not on the evening itself.
  • Remind the team about the two hours without soap afterwards.
  • For more than eight people, plan staggered start times instead of one big slot.

The best part for a small team is that the whole evening happens in one place. No shuttling between a restaurant, a bar and somewhere quiet. You arrive, change, bathe, rest and leave with your shoulders down. And if the night carries on, Hradčanská puts you minutes from anywhere in Prague 1.

Before you book: drinks, ages and vouchers

A word about the beer and the wine, because somebody always asks. The tap is there to sip from while you soak, not to race through: this is a bath, not a drinking contest. There is water in the room, and it is worth reaching for between glasses: a tub at 35-38 °C and alcohol together go to the head faster than anyone expects. The pace that works is a slow one, and nobody should be driving home afterwards. If a colleague would rather not get into a tub, or does not drink at all, they are not left watching: they can take the salt cave and a massage while the rest of the team is in the water.

Ages, so the invitation can say the right thing. Our services are for guests aged 18 and over. Guests aged 15 to 17 may come only in the company of a legal guardian, and guests under 15 are not admitted to the wellness area at all (art. 10 of our terms).

For the colleague who cannot make the date - a business trip, parental leave, a cold on the day - a digital gift voucher solves it neatly. The recipient picks the treatment and the date themselves, so the person who missed the party still gets the evening, just at a time that suits them.

One last piece of advice: settle the date in September or October. The hard part is never the booking; it is getting eight people with families, deadlines and December travel to agree on one evening at short notice. Fix the date first, book it, and then spend December looking forward to it. Before the visit, ask everyone to read the health restrictions in art. 9 of our terms and conditions.