Ontario Cottages With a Sauna: A Renter's Checklist

You want an Ontario cottage, cabin or chalet with a sauna, for a winter weekend, a ski trip or a quiet getaway with friends, and the listings use the word for very different things. This checklist is for that renter: how to read the wording, what to ask, and what a sauna rental should come with. If the Blue Mountains suit the trip, the Blue View chalets with a sauna are four neighbouring houses: Corona and Stella with dry saunas, Luna and Prima with steam rooms.

Dry sauna, steam room or steam shower: decoding the Ontario cottage listing

Five different things turn up under the same "sauna" filter:

• A dry sauna is a wood-lined room heated to hot, dry air.
• A steam room is a sealed room filled with moist heat.
• A steam shower is a shower enclosure with a steam generator, part of a bathroom.
• An infrared cabin warms the body with heat panels rather than heating the air.
• A wood-fired sauna, often a separate cabin or barrel outside, needs someone to light and tend the stove.

Each is a fine thing to have, but they are not interchangeable, and a group that pictured a cedar room for six can arrive to a steam shower for one. At Blue View, Corona and Stella have private wood-lined dry saunas indoors, Luna and Prima have private steam rooms, and Aqua Villa on Georgian Bay has an indoor steam shower, listed as a steam shower/sauna.

Questions to ask before booking an Ontario cottage with a sauna

1. Private or shared? A sauna in a common building with a booking sheet is a different thing from one inside your rental.
2. Indoors or outside? An outdoor sauna means a walk across the snow in January; an indoor one is a staircase from the bedrooms.
3. How is it heated, and who runs it? Electric heaters switch on; wood stoves need tending. Ask how long it takes to come up to heat.
4. How many fit at once? A small cabin in a house of twelve means a queue, so ask for the bench count.
5. Is it included? Ask whether sauna use, firewood or extra towels cost anything.
6. What are the rules? Children, glassware, alcohol and any hours.
7. What happens if it breaks? A good operator answers in writing before you book.
8. Where do you cool down? A shower, a balcony, a hot tub, the snow or a lake.

Cooling down at a sauna cottage: hot tub, balcony and snow

The cool-down is half of a sauna evening, and the property decides what it can be. Every Blue View chalet has a private outdoor hot tub, so the sauna chalets give two kinds of heat under one roof, with the winter air on the balcony in between. No cold plunge is listed at any chalet, so the cool-down is a shower or the outdoors. Keep the clock in mind: the Town's licence conditions for short-term rentals in The Blue Mountains allow outdoor hot tub use from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., and the indoor saunas, while outside that clause, still sit under the same noise rules as the rest of the house.

Sharing one sauna across a cottage group

A sauna for a group of twelve needs the same planning as a hot tub for fourteen. Agree a rota at dinner on the first night: early risers before breakfast, the ski crew straight after the hill, everyone else after dinner. Put a towel on the bench for every sitting, keep glass out of the hot room and close the door between sittings so the heat holds. Children go in with an adult, and anyone who feels unwell steps out. Every sauna and steam room runs a little differently, so ask the operator for the house instructions before you arrive if the listing does not include them.

The four Blue View sauna chalets, house by house

All four are Mountain-cluster chalets at 104 Brooker Boulevard, units 5 to 8 in the western half of the row, each a 10-minute walk from Blue Mountain Village and each with its own hot tub as well as the sauna.

• The Corona, unit 5: a dry sauna, five bedrooms sleeping 14, two gas fireplaces and a kitchen island.
• The Stella, unit 6: a dry sauna, sleeps 12, with a fifth bedroom of two single beds and wine glasses in the kitchen inventory.
• The Luna, unit 7: a steam room, sleeps 14, two gas fireplaces and room-darkening shades.
• The Prima, unit 8: a steam room, sleeps 14, at the far west end of the row.

Because they stand side by side, two, three or all four can be booked together when the dates are free. Corona and Stella pair the two dry saunas, Luna and Prima the two steam rooms, and the four-chalet Corona, Stella, Luna and Prima page covers the whole set, up to 54 guests in four separate houses.

Sauna and steam room rules that come with a Blue View stay

Our policies set out the rules that apply to the sauna rooms. Smoking in the chalets, hot tubs or steam rooms forfeits the security deposit. Pets may not use the hot tubs or steam rooms. The noise policy covers every room in the house at every hour. The policies also set a fixed reimbursement if a hot tub or sauna has a technical malfunction during the stay, and guests report any deficiency within one hour of check-in. Children's use of the sauna is a question to ask us before booking, along with anything else the listing does not answer.

When an Ontario sauna cottage earns the trip

Winter is the obvious season: a ski day, the walk back from the Village, the sauna before dinner and the hot tub after it. It also suits a quiet weekend for a small group of friends who would rather stay in than go out. For professional treatments as well, Iwa Spa in Blue Mountain Village is 1.5 km from the cluster, and the chalets near Scandinave Spa page covers the Nordic spa nearby. In summer the four sauna chalets also share the heated outdoor pool at 104 Brooker Boulevard, open from May to mid-September. There are only four sauna chalets, so book January and February weekends early.