If you’re traveling on business, there’s a good chance you’ll end up in the San Francisco area at some point. And if you are planning business meetings for your company, there are many good reasons to consider the San Francisco area. In either case, a trip to the nearby Napa Valley may be the solution.
Napa Valley, which is an hour and a half north of San Francisco, makes it a great destination for business travelers who want to extend a business trip to San Francisco with a few days of rest and relaxation in California’s best wine region. But Napa Valley is also a great place for corporate events, both because of the incredible setting, as well as the wide range of extracurricular activities available, such as winery tours, hiking, and more.
If you are a meeting planner or business traveler planning a trip to Napa, you may want to consider a stay at the Indian Springs Resort & Spa in Calistoga, California. Calistoga is near the upper end of the Napa Valley, about half an hour from the city of Napa. Like most areas in Napa, Calistoga is close to many great wineries, but it’s also a cute little town with great restaurants and shops and a nice downtown area for walking.
Indian Springs Resort is located within walking distance of downtown Calistoga and offers a great location for corporate events, as well as a great destination for a vacation after a business trip. The resort is famous for its large and unique geyser-fed thermal pool and on-site mud baths. Calistoga and the Indian Springs Resort are excellent destinations for any business traveler.
Hotel description
Calistoga is located about 75 miles north of San Francisco. The Indian Springs Resort is within walking distance of large downtown Calistoga.
While there has been a resort on the same site since the 1800s, the Indian Springs Resort is a modern, all-encompassing resort with plenty of activities, an on-site restaurant, and beautiful gardens.
Bedrooms
The Indian Spring Resort has a variety of room types available to guests, from standard hotel rooms to cabins and bungalows.
The Lodge is a Spanish style building from the 1930s (renovated in 2005) with modern rooms with queen beds. View Rooms were built in 2014 and offer a mix of queen and king room options. The cabins are small historic cabins that line the driveway. The cabins come in studios and two-bedroom units, with living rooms and porches. Despite being historic, the cabins have been fully updated with modern interiors and amenities. The resort’s bungalows were new in 2014 and feature large floor plans (1,200 square feet) with two bedrooms and private gardens.
And last but not least, the houses in the complex are freestanding houses with lots of space and great views.
During my visit, I stayed in one of the cabins. Although they were built in the 1940s, they are completely modern and updated on the inside, with nice living rooms, refrigerators, and more. The units are surrounded by palm and olive trees and have nice front porches for relaxing in the afternoon or morning.
My two bedroom cabin was spacious and well furnished. Since it was designed in the 1940s, the bathroom is quite small, but completely usable. The shower was great. Both rooms were medium in size, but well furnished and decorated. While the resort’s regular rooms are very nice, it was wonderful to have the extra space and extra bedroom that the cabins provide. The cabanas are also located in the center of the complex’s huge heated pool, which is right across the entrance.
While I was very impressed with the resort as a whole, I ended up having two small issues with my room. When I first checked into the cabin, it was very hot (it’s California, after all!). While the room has three air conditions (great!), They were controlled by a remote control and needed to be turned on in a certain order for them to work properly. The hotel provided a one page how-to guide, I couldn’t understand it. Fortunately, a call to maintenance resulted in a very friendly and helpful maintenance man who was able to get the ACs pumping cool air in just a few minutes.
I had no further problems with the air conditioners for the rest of my stay, and I really appreciated the fact that the unit had three of them. The second ‘problem’ I had with the accommodation was the water saving faucet in the bathroom sink: it forced the water out in a blast that resulted in splashing every time I turned it on. I think they will work to adjust that
My two-bedroom cabin had two medium-sized rooms, one with a queen bed and one with a bunk bed, a nice living room, and a porch with chairs.
While the room was nice, the real reason to visit Indian Springs Resort is the resort’s huge heated pool (more on that later) and the surrounding area. It was wonderful to relax in the Adirondack chairs in front of the spa in the late afternoon with a glass of wine. And it was really unique to take a dip in the pool at 10 pm at night, with the stars and the moon overhead.
Business Traveler Perspective
There is Wi-Fi service at the Indian Springs Resort. I found it excellent, but your mileage may vary.
Of course, the complex has full laundry services. Free self parking available, either in a central lot or in front of your cabin.
There is no place to buy small snacks or soft drinks in the complex (apart from the pool), but the town is very close, with many small shops and supermarkets.
The resort does not have an exercise room, but it does have many other ways to exercise, starting with the Olympic-sized main pool. If you’ve grown tired of swimming, or just prefer something dry, there are pleasant hiking trails that wind through the property’s 17 acres. There is also a small and little-used hiking trail that takes hikers to the top of the little hill (known as Mount Lincoln) behind Sam’s Social Club. Just pass the restaurant and the trail will be on your right. The top of the hill has nice views of the complex and its surroundings.
For more leisurely activities, guests can play bocce, shuffleboard, croquet, giant checkers, or grab one of the free bikes found throughout the property and ride into town or wherever they want.
The spa
The Indian Springs Resort’s spa is located in the heart of the resort, right next to the main pool. While the pool has a retro / throwback feel to it, the spa is thoroughly modern (though very well designed, too). The spa offers a wide range of standard treatments (massages, facials, and mineral baths), but the specialty here is the unique mud baths.
The mud baths at the Indian Spring Resort are a mixture of water and pure volcanic ash, obtained on site. If you’ve never bathed in mud before, they are completely unique. Basically, you soak in a large bathtub filled with hot volcanic ash mud. It takes a bit of getting used to and a good hose when you go out, but it’s an experience unlike any other spa experience you’ve ever had.
The pools
Since the 19th century, the heart of the complex has been its swimming pool (or more exactly, swimming pools). Since the resort was founded, visitors have come to Indian Springs to partake of its geyser-fed pool.
The complex’s main pool is an Olympic-size pool filled with hot mineral water fed by geysers. The hotel also recently added a single adult pool, which is located across from the main pool. Pools are generally kept at around 82-102 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the season.
I highly recommend that any visit to Indian Springs Resort use the main pool at night, under the stars or the moon. The pool is open until midnight, and it is incredibly peaceful to float in the very warm mineral water with the cool night air and the stars above.
The water for the pools comes from the four thermal geysers located on the property. You will even see that the steam comes from the source of the geysers, where the water collects in a pond of geysers and holding tanks, where it is cooled before being sent to swimming pools, steam rooms and heating systems.
For the bottom, the thermal water comes from deep in the earth, about 4,000 feet deep, where it comes in contact with magma that seeps through a fracture in the plate below the ground. The water overheats and surges through the earth, escaping in the form of geysers at a temperature of 230 degrees Fahrenheit.
The resort’s Olympic-sized main mineral pool was built in 1913 (and renovated in 2016) and has a great classic feel. But not too classic: there are noodles and floats to float around, and loungers and loungers to relax by the pool. Nearby is a thermal steam room and a cabin with an outdoor fireplace.
Food
The Indian Springs Resort and Spa has an on-site restaurant, called Sam’s Social Club. The restaurant is named after the founder of the original resort, Sam Brannan.
Sam’s Social Club is located on the other side of the main pool, at the foot of the entrance. It is open for breakfast, brunch (on weekends), lunch, and dinner. There is also a happy hour Monday through Thursday from 3:30 to 6:30, with discounted drinks and pizza. In addition to the indoor seating, there is a nice lounge area near the bar.
Sam’s offers “rustic” American cuisine, local wines (of course), craft cocktails and craft beer brewed on site. It also has a pleasant outdoor setting at the foot of Mount Lincoln. There is a very nice (and large) outdoor patio and seating area, complete with a fire pit and a geyser-fed water ‘feature’.
During my stay, I was able to enjoy dinner on Sam’s patio, and it was wonderful. The weather (even though it was April) was perfect (although the restaurant has plenty of heaters, if needed). I had a table at the foot of the nearby mountain (more like a hill, actually), and I enjoyed the serenity of the place. The food was good and the service excellent.
Meetings and events
Indian Springs Resort and Spa is an excellent place for meetings and corporate events. The resort itself has many great activities and areas for gathering and relaxing, and the cute and exclusive town of Calistoga is within walking distance of the Indian Springs Resort.
Many of the resort’s meeting rooms and function areas are new or recently updated as part of the complex’s expansion in 2014, such as the Barn and Garden Retreat Center. Sam’s Social Club, the resort’s restaurant, also offers catering services and additional feature area options.
The community features indoor and outdoor function spaces for a variety of corporate needs, totaling 3,500 square feet.
Businesses or groups interested in hosting a function at the Indian Springs Resort and Spa should contact the hotel’s sales department at (707) 709-2433 or [email protected] .
Functional spaces include:
- The barn. The Indian Springs Resort Barn is a new 1,200 square foot Revival style barn located on the corner of the resort. The barn overlooks the nearby mountains and hills, and has a large patio. The Barn is equipped with up-to-date audiovisual equipment and high-speed internet access. The barn can hold about a hundred people.
- Room with terrace and patio. The resort’s 400-square-foot Terrace Room is located right next to the Lodge. The living room has a large wood burning fireplace. Outside is a patio with another fireplace and fountain, and a bocce ball court. The terrace room can accommodate about eighty people for a standing reception, or twenty in theater style.
- The winery. Located below the resort’s newest restaurant, Sam’s Social Club, The Cellar is a functional 580-square-foot space ideal for smaller gatherings or dinners. To balance the ambience of all Napa Valley wineries, the room features views of the restaurant’s (working) beer tanks. The cellar can hold about forty people for a standing reception, or thirty in theater style.
- Agave garden. The Agave Garden offers a pleasant outdoor setting for functions, with a waterfall, gardens and lots of natural stone. It has a capacity of eighty.
Hotel Information
Indian Springs Resort and Spa
1712 Lincoln Ave
Calistoga, CA 94515
Teléfono: 707-942-4913
As is common in the travel industry, the writer received some discounted services for review purposes. While you have not influenced this review, About.com believes in full disclosure of all potential conflicts of interest. For more information, see our Ethics Policy.
