Hot Tub & Sauna

Hotels with a hot tub or sauna in Canada: StaysInCanada lists 441 in 73 cities, rated 8.4 on average across more than 337,000 reviews. Banff leads with 27, ahead of Kamloops (19), Saskatoon (17) and Regina (16). In most of these hotels the hot tub is a whirlpool beside the indoor pool, shared with families. A sauna is rarer, and a full Nordic circuit of hot, cold and rest exists at only a handful, which I name below. Banff Upper Hot Springs (Parks Canada), at 1,585 m on Sulphur Mountain, is Canada's highest outdoor hot spring pool. It closes every autumn for maintenance, this year from October 13 to early November, and then the hotels' own pools take over. Of the 27 Banff hotels on the site, the Royal Canadian Lodge has a hot tub, a sauna and a steam room beside its indoor pool, the Moose Hotel and Suites has two rooftop hot pools facing the mountains, and Hotel Canoe and Suites (9.1) pairs rooftop hot tubs with a sauna. Around Toronto, the real Nordic experience is in Caledon, north-west of the city. The Liberty Inn at Cataract, a post office from 1855 that opened as an inn in February 2025, rates 10 from 144 reviews and has a private outdoor circuit: a cedar hot tub, a barrel sauna and a cold plunge, booked one hour at a time for your party alone. In Alton, the Millcroft Inn & Spa (8.4) has two all-season outdoor hot spring pools, a polar plunge pool, a eucalyptus steam room and a cedar sauna. These are the two I would drive out for. On the Prairies, where January nights run far below zero, the hot tub matters most and is almost always indoors. In Edmonton, the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald has a 40-foot saltwater pool, a whirlpool, a sauna and a steam room in its health club, free for hotel guests; the pool and whirlpool close for maintenance on Sunday evenings. Winnipeg has 15 hotels on the site, led by the Hyatt House Winnipeg South (9.2). In Saskatchewan, Saskatoon has 17, led by the Staybridge Suites University (9.0), and in Regina The Hotel Saskatchewan rates highest (9.0). Mississauga, around Pearson airport, answers a different need: a soak after a long-haul flight. Of its 11 hotels on the site, the Residence Inn by Marriott Mississauga-Airport Corporate Centre West rates highest (8.9), and the Sheraton Gateway (8.7 from 2,016 reviews) is the one connected to Terminal 3, so you can reach the whirlpool without a shuttle. In London, Ontario, the Hard Rock Hotel (9.0) is the best-rated of the four hotels on the site; Oakville has three, led by the Sandman and the Hilton Garden Inn Toronto-Oakville, both at 8.3. In Quebec, the winter soak is a Nordic ritual of heat, cold and rest. In Montreal's Old Port, Bota Bota is a spa on a moored boat with saunas, cold plunges and warm pools, and the Eurostars Old Montreal Suites & Apartments (9.1) is in the same historic district. In the Eastern Townships, the Auberge West Brome (9.2) has a Finnish sauna, an outdoor whirlpool and an indoor pool under a glass dome. In Saguenay, Hotel Le Montagnais has an indoor water park with hot pools, a cold waterfall and a hammam. I would go between January and March, when stepping out into the snow is the point. Out west, Kamloops leads with 19 hotels on the site, ahead of Calgary (15), Vancouver and Kelowna (14 each) and Victoria (11). In Victoria, the Fairmont Empress (8.9 from 1,253 reviews) is the one I would book for the soak: its health club has a heated indoor pool, a whirlpool and a children's wading pool, and its spa ritual adds a Finnish dry sauna and a steam room. Kamloops's best-rated is the Fairfield Inn & Suites (8.7), Vancouver's the Loden (9.7). None of Calgary's 15 hotels on the site advertises a hot tub in the room; there, the Residence Inn by Marriott Calgary South (9.2) or Hotel Le Germain Calgary (9.1) offers a shared one. For a tub in your own room, look at three: the Old Mill Toronto Hotel (8.9), where rooms have a whirlpool tub and a fireplace (check the room type), and the Quality Inn & Suites Bay Front in Sault Ste. Marie (7.9; ask for a whirlpool suite) and the Best Western Fireside Inn in Kingston (8.1), where some suites have one. Those two I would pick for the tub, not the score. Who these hotels are for: travellers who want warm water at the end of a cold day, and anyone heading to Banff or Caledon for the soak itself. Who they are not for: anyone after a quiet adult soak in a family hotel on a Saturday evening, when the whirlpool beside the children's pool is at its busiest. Outside Banff and Caledon, I would treat the hot tub as a bonus that tips a choice between two hotels, not as the reason to book.