Awful hamam experience in Cappadocia--Ladies beware.

A group of friends and I (5 women) visited the Alaaddin Hamam in Cappadocia and left in absolute disgust.

All started off normally, until we saw two male workers enter our area to take out the trash. We had been to hamams in Dubai, Amman, and Istanbul, and even Korean spas in the US and knew this was out of the ordinary. We confirmed with the staff there were no men to be in our area. They assured us: no men.

Things took a turn when the hamam was over. We got up from our treatment and there was a family--a man, woman, and young boy, fully clothed and taking pictures of the hamam area. Beyond that, there were two nude men receiving their hamam treatments, in the open, also in our area.

We immediately raised the issue with the staff who tried a variety of tactics that ranged from 1) you didn't tell us you didn't want to see men (we did); 2) well you received the service so nothing we can do; or 3) oops but it's over now. One of the male staff kept telling me to be quiet and wouldn't look me in the eye even when I asked. I later found out he was the social media manager--if you look at their promo videos this will make sense. Another staff member was filming us arguing in the lobby, and we made her delete the videos. The front desk manager was trying to defuse the situation, but also kept pleading with us not to demand a refund because it might affect his job. Notably, this same manager admitted to mistakenly letting the family in the hamam to take pictures as they were wandering and he lost track.

Eventually we were able to speak with the owner who essentially said men should not have been in our area and that filming was unacceptable. My honest assessment is the hamam figured a group of American women wouldn't care if men were being bathed in the same room, so they put these guys in with us. They were wrong.

The hamam eventually gave us half our money back and tried to offer us a re-do treatment, but we just left in disgust and in tears.

If that weren't enough, the hamam experience itself was pretty mediocre and felt more like a gimmick than a true hamam. The stone slabs aren't heated and they use grocery store soap and scrubs. Better can certainly be found.

TL;DR Stay away from Alaaddin Hamam in Cappadocia.