This page will include reviews of hotels I have stayed at.
We stayed in the Ruth Rimonim in July 2005. It is undeniably the nicest hotel in Tzfat. That being said, I would rate it a 3 star (out of 5 stars) experience and not much more. A number of items bothered me on our stay there.
1) There is no store within the hotel that every hotel in Israel maintains. Looking for a daily newspaper to read? The front desk answer was to go into town.
2) The bathroom has a number of items that need improvement. No tissues - only toilet paper. When we arrived - only 3 large towels (no small towels) - we had to ask for a 4th towel.
3) The minibar comes empty and they have a price list if you wish to order a fixed amount that they will deliver and stock your minibar (starting at 58NIS), What was especially annoying is the statement "If you use the empty minibar, you will be charged a 20NIS fee per day." I guess they don't want guests going to town and buying a can of Coke at 5NIS when you can buy it from them for 58NIS.
4) The food at breakfast and dinner was fine. Nothing to write home about; nothing gourmet and nothing in comparison to the Carmel Spa or Dan Eilat.
5) TV was a cheap Lenco brand that has poor insulation (when you walk by with a cellphone you hear the beeps) and they had HOT cable but no pay-per view.
If you plan to stay in Tzfat, there is no nicer hotel in Tzfat. It is centrally located and a short walking distance to the artist quarter and to the old city of Tzfat.
This hotel was sold to Fattal and then became the Golden Tulip Club and is now known as the Leonardo Club Hotel.
I arranged a workshop for 30 people in February 2005 at this hotel. I rate it 1 star out of 5.
1. I had asked in advance that a certain number of electrical outlets be placed around the tables for notebook connections. When we arrived, nothing was set up.
2. We had asked in advance for wireless access to the Internet and were assured numerous times that access would be provided free of charge. When we arrived we found out that wireless access is run by an external company and that the Magic Nirvana staff had no idea how to use it or provide its access.
3. Bottled water at the tables was provided once at the beginning of the day and not refilled or replaced.
4. The air-conditioning was shut off by a preset clock and even in February, the room became stifling hot. Finding a hotel staff member to turn the A/C back on took an hour.
5. Papers left on the tables during breaks were removed by the hotel staff and thrown in the garbage.
In general the hotel is run-down and looking to cut costs at every chance it has. If you want a cheap weekend at a hotel at the Dead Sea and don't care much about service - then this is the place to go.
I have stayed at the Dan Eilat at least once a year for the past 10 years and there is not much to say other than to go and try it for yourself. The breakfast is the best breakfast served I have yet seen in any hotel, in the world!
Do you wish you could go to a 5 star spa like those in Europe, but you keep kosher? Have no fear - the Carmel Forest Spa is the answer to your prayers. The hotel is a 5 star affair. The meals. The spa. The service. The cleanliness. All top notch.
Breakfast is open till 11:00am and you can come and go as you please any number of times. Lunch and dinner are superb, and the dinner portions have increased in size from year to year so one no longer needs to order 3 mains for a party of two.
The grounds are wonderful, as well as the pool, jacuzzi and spa. My single complaint would be that they do not have pay-per-view and their cable channels are very limited.
Feb 2007 update: The two major changes since last year were that the dining area now has an extra section on the balcony which has been closed off and can seat another 30 people and the spa waiting area that has also been expanded to handle more people sitting and waiting for their treatments.
We stayed in the Carmel Suite which is their most expensive room (we didn't want to, but it was the only type of room available during the period we wanted to stay). Bottom line: not worth the price. The floors are not carpetted - they are wood parquet floors which perhaps to some can be considered luxury but when I go to a hotel I prefer nice plush carpetting. The room and bathroom is slightly larger than the other standard rooms. The bathroom has a non-adjustable showerhead the size of a dinner plate and to some that may be luxurious but once again I did not consider this an upgrade from an adjustable showerhead. Lastly, these suites are on the 4th floor, which is the same floor as the dining room and even though we were the 3rd suite from the end, we heard quite a bit of noise from the dining area inside our room. Fortunately, the noise abated by 10pm. The Tsameret Room (for about 30% less than the Suite) is the best deal there.
Now for nits that need improving:
My two major issues are still cable channels and breakfast coffee.
Isrotel has a major problem providing cable TV for hotel rooms. This problem is not limited to the Carmel Forest Spa. We had about 20 channels, and it was an improvement from previous years since they now had Yes1, Yes2 and Yes4. But the gym's 4 treadmills each had over 100 channels on their Yes boxes, so it is just a matter of the cost of providing the channels to the hotel rooms.
My other major problem is more specific to the Carmel Forest Spa. It existed last year and hasn't gotten better this year. I call it the Breakfast Coffee Wait. The 1st day we waited 12 minutes from time of order until the coffee was delivered and on the 2nd day we waited 20 minutes. The problem is caused by a number of factors. The first is that the person taking the order is not the person bringing the coffee to the table and it often happens that the coffee is delivered to the wrong table. The other problem is that they have one machine and the orders get backed up. So we then tried to order hot water and a Nescafe packet. That took 8 minutes. Our neighoring table waited 12 minutes for their coffee - and we were there at a quiet time - not a jam-packed madhouse.
Many hotels have people walking around pouring filter coffee. Perhaps one day the Carmel Spa will implement an alternate coffee system as well.
My last recommendation is to always take out the 2 year membership for 400NIS (350NIS to renew). On a typical 2600NIS 2-night stay, one can easily save 300NIS, since all treatments are 10% off, all room stays are 10% off, and if you are there on a birthday, you get one free treatment and if you stay on an anniversary you get 25% off the room rate and one free treatment as well. Just going twice during the course of 24 months saves you money.
Feb 2008 update: This year we stayed in the standard Tsameret Room and we found out that most of the hotel has switched to parquet floors. I think someone in Isrotel fell on their head on this one. I have been to countless hotels throughout the world and have never seen a hotel with wood parquet floors. It makes the room cold and not homey feeling. I noticed that very few rooms still have carpetting.
Most has not changed. Same lousy cable channels. Breakfast coffee has improved slightly and only once in 3 times did they totally forget about the coffee. As usual this has to do with the fact that the person taking the order doesn't bring the coffee so it "tends to get lost on the way".
I have decided to drop a star from the Carmel Spa due to the lousy cable
channels, the morning coffee wait (both problems that have existed for
years and appear Isrotel has interest in fixing) and now for changing
carpetting to parquet floors.
Nov 2011 update: One first needs to realize that the Carmel Spa is one of the highest ranked hotels in Israel and justifiably so. The criticism you are about to read might be considered nit-picking but when you are a 5 star hotel and charge one of the highest rates per night in Israel, then the bar is raised and the hotel has to answer to a totally different criteria than standard hotels.
I have stayed at the Carmel Spa about a dozen times (I am a member) and have not missed a year yet. I usually complain about the poor cable TV station selection, but that has improved and is no longer an issue.
I will instead discuss two topics - slightly less than perfection in regards to room maintenance and nouvelle cuisine in the dining room.
Lets start with my biggest complaint – the pillow covers. The hotel has purchased new pillow covers from a company called Arliktex.co.il and it would appear they purchased the cheapest quality. The label stated 50% cotton, 50% Darlain which must be some synthetic fiber. Looking at their web site – this is the cheapest quality available. To me it felt like 100 percale, pimply and scrappy. I found one older pillow cover in the closet, which was the previous 450 percale – super satin quality – which is what I used. Shame on a 5 star hotel for buying such poor quality pillow covers. Incidentally the sheets and blanket covers were all fine.
Since the fire, they installed personal LED lights by each bed. Mine did not work so I left a note on it and it was fixed. But shouldn’t the cleaning staff check that all the lights are working?
Lastly, I took a bath both days and on the second day I found after entering the bath that the bathtub had not been cleaned – just rinsed down and therefore there was a layer of soapy grime attached to the walls. Not the level of maintenance one would expect from a 5 star hotel and spa.
The food at both lunch and dinner has become more nouvelle cuisine. For lunch I took the gnocchi. I have ordered it in other places and it usually comes with about 30-40 pieces of gnocchi. Here I got 8 pieces. Very tasty but not what I consider a portion. Same for dinner – the entrecote was 100-150gm and the spring chickens (pullets) were minuscule. It would be nice if they at least indicated the size of the portion. I guess they assume everyone will fill up on salads.
Due to all the items above, I would have to take off a star from their rating this year and only give them a 4 star rating. Room Tip: Floors 6 & 7 - the cheaper rooms - have carpeting. All other rooms have parquet floors.
I would term the Royal Beach the 2nd best hotel in Israel.
The Royal Beach is always ranked as one of the two best hotels in Israel (the other being its next door neighbor - the Dan Eilat). I have stayed about 15 times at the Dan Eilat and this was my first stay at the Royal Beach. We stayed two nights and we got a fantastic price via the Internet - $136/night (Israeli price for B&B for 2 - foreigner price was significantly higher via Isrotel site).
We got our rooms at 11:30am pretty soon after landing. Rooms and hotel are EXTREMELY similar in style and architecture to Dan Eilat.
I can see why Dan Eilat gets higher ratings than the Royal Beach, though. Even though the breakfast was wonderful and far better than anything available in Europe, it still doesn't measure up to the Dan Eilat breakfast. But we did not go hungry.
The cable channels were terrible. The cable company in Israel, HOT, must have sold some stripped down below basic package because some standard basic channels were missing like StarWorld, Hallmark, National Geographic, History, etc. Of the 22 channels, most were non-English, sports or news. That left 9 channels for Hebrew+English entertainment. A 5-star hotel should have better cable channels than what they offered.
My last complaint would be the staff at the Lookout Bar. The tables were filthy, and even after I requested that our table be cleaned, it was done quickly and left a number of sticky and oily spots. The manager was more busy telling the staff what to do than letting them do what they should do. I blame the 1st line manager and not the staff themselves.
The pool chairs were wonderful and plentiful as were the pool towels, the service, the cleanliness, the quiet, etc.
I would rate the hotel a 4.75 (not quite 5 stars), but if the Dan is $250/night and the RoyalBeach has a special for $136, jump on it.
Probably one of the most overlooked hotels in Jersusalem is the Mt Zion Hotel which is located on Derech Hebron, very near the old city, with probably as good a view as the King David Hotel. From the road, one can't tell that there are 6 floors with 134 rooms because when one enters from Hebron Road, one is entering from the 6th floor.
The hotel is quaint, with much charm and small touches in the hallways as well as many small sitting areas in the gardens that are available. One wouldn't know a full size pool was located there nor that there was an outdoor jacuzzi with probably the best view of the Old City of Jerusalem.
The rooms and grounds are clean, if not spotless. The food was slightly above average. The bath towels are large, although not as large and sumptuous as the towels at the Carmel Forest Spa. Checkout on Saturday is noon, and one has to pay for two full days (Friday night and Saturday nighht) if one wants to stay past noon on Saturday. Cable TV was wonderful, with StarWorld and AXN and a host of other channels, that the Isrotel chain of 20 hotels in Israel could learn from.
Beware of parking across the street in the lot. There are signs posted in the parking lot by the hotel about car breakins and by the amount of broken glass on the floor, they were not joking. Best to park on the street, right next to the hotel if you can find a spot.
This is a clean, centrally located hotel right off the beach. If you prefer the noisy end of Netanya, there are other options, but if you prefer the quiet end, there are only two hotels to choose from - The Seasons and the King Solomon. The Blue Bay is too far a walk as well to the center of the town.
We stayed one night and were on the first floor facing the ocean. Great view. Breakfast was standard 3 star quality (out of 5). Checkout was Saturday night due to shabbat and they did not charge for a 2nd night as some hotels often do.
Bath and face towels were small. Room comes with empty minbar, so bring drinks.
We went for shabbat to the Kind David for a special event. I did the order through the Internet via the Dan Hotel site.
It pays to be an e-Dan member (and it costs nothing).
We ordered the Deluxe room facing the Old City but got upgraded to an Executive room facing the old city on the 6th floor. The room was fantastic. Large bedroom with a heavy drape that separates the sleeping area from the very large living room. We left the lights on in the living room and couldn't tell they were on with the drape closed. The living room had a couch and two armchairs. Each room had its own plasma TV. Cable TV was via HOT with plenty of channels to choose from.
The bathroom was large as well, with two sinks and a heated towel rack and a bidet. Large white terry robes were available as well in the bathroom.
The meals were sumptuous with nothing missing. The Friday night meal was not as wonderful as the shabbat buffet, but that is standard in all hotels. Shabbat breakfast was great as well with a 5 star menu including white fish, lox and capers.
The things to look out for is the fact that the Dan Hotel site lists only prices for bed and breakfast whereas for meals one has to call Dan reservations and change the order. I was told the price per meal would be 160NIS but when I checked-in the price was listed differently. I had a printed copy of the hotel reservation but didn't think of asking Dan reservations for a written confirmation about the cost of full board. Make sure to do that as well as asking if the price includes VAT. In the end they gave me the price I was quoted by phone but not without checking it out thoroughly.
The last thing to look out for, if you are a religious Jew, is to call and request that checkout be after sundown (motzei shabbat). When we checked in they said checkout was 14:00 but we were again able to get them to extend it to 17:30. Best to have all that arranged in advance.
This is not really a hotel, but rather it calls itself a boutique spa. It is located outside of Amirim and has 17 rooms. We took a mini-suite. The hotel has no pool so if you want to use the pool, you have to get vouchers from the front desk, go in your car and travel up the hill to the Amirim community pool.
There is an outdoor jacuzzi but it is broken - there is only the indoor jacuzzi which has warmish water and too much chlorine. The robes provided are nice and plush, but the towels are not - they are just average.
The room we took, a mini-suite is large as well as the bathroom, but in quality it doesn't come close in quality when comparing to places like the Carmel spa, although the Carmel spa could learn two lessons from Amirim: stock the minibar with free milk and juice and provide full cable channels. The room we had no blackout drapes - just heavy curtains.
The dinner there is excellent - probably the best part of being there. It costs 120NIS/person but it is worth it. Excellent food and well presented and tasty.
Which makes absolutely no sense when you compare it to the breakfast at Amirey Hagalil which has to be the worst breakfast I have ever had in any hotel in Israel or abroad. No hard cheese, no fish, no cereal, no bread. They have jams, olives, soft white cheese, salad, and other things that to me do not represent a breakfast. They come around and offer scrambled eggs with onions - no choice - take it or leave it. And it wasn't that good. I was starved after breakfast and was happy to go to my room and eat some Oreos.
The Beresheet hotel is part of the Isrotel Exclusive Collection hotel group. It is a new hotel which opened in 2011 and is located in Mitzpe Ramon which is a 3 hour car ride down south from Tel Aviv. When driving to Mitzpe Ramon one gets to the main traffic circle on route #40, and one does not turn right into Mitzpe Ramon but rather you go around the traffic circle and look for a gas station and service road which leads to the gate which is on the left side of route #40 when coming from the north. The reason I mention all this is because there are no signs, and the Isrotel site does not work when providing a map - both via IE and FF. There is a sign about the hotel, only once you are on the service road to the hotel itself.
One parks and an electric cart willl take you from your car to the front desk. I walked it which takes all of 2 minutes which was not a big deal in March, but I can imagine that in August it would be much hotter to walk rather than take a cart.
The meals are 5 star quality. Lunch mains had 3 different meat options - veal hamburgers, chorizo and sliced brisket. All were top quality. The food and style (salads, deserts) reminded me of the Isrotel Carmel Spa.
The rooms are not attached to the main building. They are made up of 4 unit buildings - 2 on top and 2 on bottom. The top ones have a wooden sitting porch and the bottom two have an infinity pool. The rooms are large and very well equiped. The sheets are soft and smooth and probably 300-400 percale. The views of the crater are spectacular. The beds face the crater and one can go to sleep facing 30 km of nothingness.
But they have some problems.
1. The minibar is the touch sensitive kind. I find hotels that use that kind of minibar show a distrust for their customers. It is a poor indication of what they think of their clients. Classy hotels never use touch sensitive minibars.
2. The writing table nook has no electrical outlet. Kind of stupid in this day and age where people use a notebook and not a pen and paper to write.
3. The rooms are distant from the main building which has the dining areas, indoor pool, jacuzzi and treatment rooms. In March with temperatures in the afternoon around 12c, one doesn't want to venture outdoors in a robe to go to the pool. That was just poor planning and lacking in some forethought. The idea on paper sounds nice, but in the winter people will not leave their rooms and in the summer when temperatures hit 40c, again people will not want to leave their rooms. From the main building to my room - 323 - was 90 stairs.
I would not be shocked that in 2-3 years they build covered, temperature controlled walkways to and from the main building. Otherwise, once the novelty wears off, this hotel will not do as well as the Carmel Spa.
4. While lunch was excellent, dinner was a disaster. I was part of a group of about 100 hi-tech people invited for the night. They told everyone to come to dinner at 8pm. There were 15 minute lines for the salads and the place was packed, crowded and noisy and one could not even hear the waitress tell us what she had just brought to the table. The hotel management should have either served us in their conference rooms or they should have staggered the meals by 15 minutes.
5. There is no shul for prayers. And I checked in their hotel guide. Every hotel I have been to in Israel has at least some small closet or bomb shelter allocated to be a shul. For some reason, Beresheet decided no shul is needed here.
6. There is no ice machine. In this environment that is hard to understand.
7. No wash cloth. There are large towels and hand towels, but what is standard at all 5 star hotels is a wash cloth is not available here.
8. Mold on the grouting in the shower. And this is a hotel less than a year old!
This hotel in no way matches the Carmel Spa in elegence and serenity. It tries and is a notch higher than other hotels but basic design flaws by the architect has ruined what could have been a Michelin 3 star hotel.