Cloud 9 Float Club is the home of flotation therapy in Canterbury and the region's original float club, helping people escape, beat stress, reduce anxiety and build resilience since April 2016. Its core purpose is simple: to facilitate a space for retreat and wellbeing. In a world of non-stop technology and pressure at work and home, the club offers a safe, immersive haven where you can truly rest, relieve and improve — whether you are after short-term relief or long-term resilience.
A float involves lying effortlessly for just under an hour in a concentrated solution of magnesium and Epsom salt and pure water, set at skin temperature, inside a large pod designed to restrict light and sound. Weightless in silence and darkness, your nervous, skeletal and muscular systems surrender to profound relaxation: muscles release fully, circulation improves, heart rate lowers, and pain and inflammation reduce. Many people slide naturally into a deep, open meditation — a state ideal for planning, reflecting and calmly problem-solving.
The club was born from lived experience. Founder Laura Bateman was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2012 and was recommended flotation therapy in Singapore as the perfect way to prepare for and recover from her stem cell transplant. It became part of who she is, and on returning to New Zealand she wanted to share the tool that helped her most — especially in Christchurch, where stress has sat high since the earthquakes. Husband Tim, a professional rugby player with the Crusaders and a former Maori All Blacks captain, has floated in five different countries.
Whatever your age, lifestyle or reason for floating, the club says there is space for you here — from mums and dads to professionals, business people and athletes. A Restore Plan membership supports regular floating, gift vouchers make it easy to share, and doors stay open late most nights.
Step off Mandeville Street in Riccarton and into one of the quietest rooms in Christchurch. Cloud 9 Float Club is Canterbury's original float club — the home of flotation therapy in the region since April 2016 — built around a simple idea: give people a safe, immersive haven where they can truly rest, relieve and improve.
Cloud 9 exists because its founder needed it herself. Laura Bateman was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2012 and spent years with 'more bad days than good' before travelling to Singapore for a stem cell transplant in the hope of halting the disease. While preparing for chemotherapy there, flotation therapy was recommended to her as the perfect way to prepare and recover. She took the advice — and never looked back.
From that very first float, Laura and her husband Tim couldn't stop thinking and talking about it. Back in New Zealand, she wanted to share the tool that had helped her most, especially in a city where stress has sat at an all-time high since the earthquakes. At the time of writing she is three years post transplant, yet to relapse, back running and active in her daughters' lives, with what she calls 'way less bad days than good'.
Tim brings his own perspective: a professional rugby player of 12 years still battling away with the Crusaders, and a former captain of the Maori All Blacks. He has floated in five different countries — first for recovery and visualisation, now for the creativity, clarity and calm he carries into his day. Together, Laura says, they make a pretty good team.
Flotation is disarmingly simple. You lie effortlessly for just under an hour in a concentrated solution of magnesium and Epsom salt and pure water, set at skin temperature, inside a large pod designed to restrict light and sound. The buoyancy alone is an enjoyable sensation — you quite literally cannot sink.
What follows is the point. Freed from gravity, noise and light, your nervous, skeletal and muscular systems surrender to profound relaxation. Muscles release fully, blood circulation improves, heart rate lowers, and pain and inflammation are reduced. Shielded from the external stress factors that constantly bombard our senses, the body recognises there is no threat and enters recovery mode. The mind often slides into a deep, open meditation — a state many floaters find ideal for planning, reflecting and calmly problem-solving their way to real insights.
The club's answer is refreshingly broad: mums and dads, professionals, business people and athletes — whatever your age, lifestyle or reason for floating, there is space for you here. Floating regularly has been shown to alleviate chronic pain disorders, improve muscle recovery after workouts, help prevent burnout and reduce anxiety. Some come for short-term relief after a brutal week; others treat it as long-term training for resilience in the modern world.
Visitors tend to notice the atmosphere before the float itself. Reviewers describe a beautiful, peaceful environment and a team that makes it feel, from the moment you walk in, like the experience is entirely about you. 'I'd float everyday if I could,' one regular writes. 'Best. Feeling. Ever!'
One float rarely tells the whole story, and Cloud 9 is set up for regulars. The Restore Plan membership delivers four magnesium floats a month at the club's recommended therapeutic dose, with unused floats rolling over and extra floats available to members at a reduced rate — and memberships can even be gifted. Float gift vouchers cover everyone else, and workplaces can arrange bulk gift cards for staff by phone or email.
Hours are generous: 9am to 10pm Monday to Thursday, 9am to 11pm on Fridays, and 8am to 10pm on weekends, so an after-work or early-weekend float is easy to fit in. Book online, arrive, and let just under an hour of weightlessness do the rest. As the club puts it: float to feel the difference.