I was truly puzzled why the reviews of this place were inconsistently either fantastic or horrible…until we experienced it for ourselves. My husband and I chose this hotel for a two-night stay (without kids) as a birthday getaway. We read on the website that we could get lunch before check-in as part of the all-inclusive feature of the hotel, so we timed our driving to get there exactly at 1:30 pm. After asking the security guy where to park, we quickly discovered that he didn’t speak one word of English — odd for a tourist hotel — but we eventually found the parking ourselves and walked right in while he was playing on his phone. I really liked the self-check-in: pay online in advance and then just tell the machine you’ve arrived and they send you a text when your room is ready and the machine spits out your room key. We spent a good 15 minutes after that searching for a working bathroom (and when we did, we found that it had no toilet paper or soap; subsequent visits to the same bathroom throughout our stay consistently revealed the same and proof that it was not cleaned at regular intervals). We walked right into the dining hall for lunch, nobody bothering to check whether we were actually guests of the hotel. Lunch was very basic and mediocre: soup, rolls, chicken, rice, fries, salads, fish, and fruit. The best part was beer and wine on tap, which I could already tell we were going to need copious amounts of in order to survive this vacation. We got a text that our room was ready half an hour before official check-in time, which was good considering they started closing up the dining hall half an hour early, too. We were impressed by the virtual room service accessible on the texts — just press a button, and they’ll bring you more towels or soap, get your room cleaned, even baby care! (I wonder if you can use it to request toilet paper and soap in the lobby bathroom, too…) The room was truly a dump, and they gave us twin beds when we requested a king. In addition, the mirpeset door would not open, so we couldn’t see the view — but it didn’t matter much considering the view was of the roof below us. My husband went down to complain, and to their credit, the hotel workers came quickly to fix the mirpeset door (but the view was even uglier outside than what we could see from the inside) and the bed (by putting a king-sized topper on top of the twin beds). There were no hooks in the bathroom to hang up towels, and we didn’t get hand towels until the second day, plus the hair dryer was broken; the only good thing about the bathroom was fantastic water pressure in the shower (but that clogged the drain). We went for a walk after that — the pool looked nice, though the waterslides only work for a few hours of the day. The Dead Sea is only steps away from the pool exit and the boardwalk goes all the way up to the water, which is nice if you don’t like getting your feet sandy (or salty, as the case may be). No working bathrooms on the beach. We checked out the spa after that — we didn’t do treatments because they were really expensive, but we enjoyed the Dead Sea water pool, the jacuzzi, and the wet and dry saunas. Dinner was definitely better than lunch, but not the best I’ve ever had. My husband reported that the hotel synagogue was nice. He had to work at night, but there was no wifi in the room. In the morning, we realized that I’d left my jacket in the dining hall the night before, but there was no lost & found, and asking at the front desk and dining hall was only met with puzzled looks. The breakfast was pretty standard — most of the offerings weren’t labeled, so we had to guess. After breakfast, we went back to the spa — there really isn’t much else to do here besides water activities (unless you want to pay extra for video games). We noticed that half of the guests were wearing robes, but the hotel really doesn’t make it easy to get one — after asking around in the spa (which, after finding that there were no robes in the rooms, would logically be the next place to look for a robe), they sent us to the reception desk, where they said that housekeeping had the robes and we would have to wait until one was sent to our room. (So why not SAY that on the automated check-in machine, or the texts that offer more towels?!?) We eventually gave up on waiting for a robe (which never arrived) and went to check out the “solarium,” which consisted of a few beach chairs on the roof. Then we went to relax by the pool, which was nice. The workers handed out popsicles to anyone who wanted and went around taking music requests, and there was a snack stand set up in the lobby with cookies, fruit, and drinks (which we noticed had different snacks in the afternoon) — another area nearby has drinks on tap all day and night: beer, wine, coffee, ice coffee, slushies, and soda. For lunch, we had a choice of either pizza served by the pool or going to the dining hall, but that was super crowded with no available tables (much more elaborate than lunch the day before), so we went back to the pizza stand and then to hang out at the beach, which was much more quiet than the pool — there are a lot of chairs and recliners plus a large shaded area by the water. Dinner the second night was great, and in the evening, we randomly got wine and peanuts sent to our room. Breakfast the last morning was good, and we went to the spa and for a walk one more time before checking out. All in all, I wouldn’t say it was all bad, but there were enough unpleasant aspects of this trip that would prevent us from coming here again.
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