Review: Blue Massage in Pattaya, Thailand

The seaside resort town of Pattaya, Thailand is literally lined from one side to the other with massage parlors. While there are plenty of full service oilies like Dream Teen Massage and full service soapies like Honey Massage around, the “regular” old massage parlors are absolutely ubiquitous. A single street like Soi 13/2 can hold as many as a dozen of these shops which usually have a uniformed staff that offers foot and full body massages for anywhere from 100 to 350 Baht ($3-11 US) an hour.

There are so many of these massage parlors in fact I would say that no individual shop deserves any special mention. I mentioned them all in passing in my post on finding cheap sex in Pattaya and haven’t given a second thought to writing about any of them since. Now things have changed. After receiving hundreds of massages over a period of years I finally came across a shop that deserves to be singled out among the crowd.

Blue Massage is located on Soi 3 between Second Road and Beach Road. Traveling toward the beach the massage shop is on the right hand side about half way down the soi. To get there one has to pass the large Honey Massage 2 complex on the corner of Soi 3 and Second Road along with numerous other small massage shops that line the street.

One could very easily miss Blue Massage in the crowd. With so many shops next to each other and women in front of nearly every one calling on passersby to come inside things can quickly become a blur.

So what is it that makes Blue Massage unique? Several factors combine to put it at the top of my list for standard massage parlors in Pattaya.

First is that the place is clean. This may sound like something standard but sadly it’s not. I can’t count the number of times I’ve wandered into a massage parlor in Pattaya for a for or back rub only to be confronted with stench, moldy floor and walls, dirty shirts and crumbling furniture. None of those things can be found at Blue Massage. It’s clean top to bottom. It even smells clean. The bathroom is nearly spotless and contains a shower area that doesn’t contain even a trace of mildew.

Next is the staff. While most of the regular massage parlors (and increasingly even many of the sex-oriented massage parlors) are staffed by middle aged women who (perhaps understandably) look like they’d rather be any place else in the world, the staff at Blue Massage is vibrant. There are around a half dozen women working at any given time and half of those are in their early 20’s. I doubt there’s a massage therapist at the place who is over 25, though I could be wrong. In any event the staff is warm, welcoming and charming. This is not an act as they continue to be pleasant after the massage has ceased and money has changed hands.

Finally there are all the little extras. They use good quality oil for massages. They offer free wifi and water to customers. They keep the air conditioners running at all times so the room is cool when you enter. They are open late. They actually massage customers for the full hour booked. They have a clean shower area with a constant stream of hot water, which is something even many of the hotels in Pattaya can’t seem to manage.

The only potential downside of Blue is that full body massages are done in curtained off areas of the main floor. This isn’t a big problem in my opinion. The curtains offer a lot of privacy and the place is rather large and uncrowded. I very much doubt that a customer would feel encroached upon here.

A very well done hour long oil massage at Blue runs 300 baht ($9.50 US). This is on the higher end of the average price range in Pattaya but still totally acceptable considering what’s given.

In places like this extra services are secondary if and when they exist at all. Ultimately it comes down to the individual service provider whether or not such things will be offered. Based on what I know most customers who are willing to tip 300 to 500 baht will have their massages end happily. Nothing is guaranteed but that seems to be true more often than not.

I don’t know who owns Blue Massage but whoever it is they deserve to be commended for actually putting some effort in unlike so many others who throw up a massage shop in an attempt at grabbing some easy money and then let the place slowly fall in on itself. Blue is run well enough that any extras can actually be enjoyed as extras, as the standard services themselves even justify a visit.

As probably the best of the many mainstream massage parlors in Pattaya, I give Blue massage a solid four stars. I could see some being surprised by this score but I think it’s quite fair considering what kind of shop this is, the level of service it provides, and similar shops that it competes against. It’s not another PP Body Massage but it doesn’t pretend to be either.

Blue Massage. Soi 3, Pattaya, Thailand. Click here for a map. Open every day from 10:00 AM until 1:00 AM.