C-Hotel Neve Illan

The rooms are spacious and very clean, with strong shower pressure, and the service was great. Breakfast is included and excellent. The lobby is staffed around the clock, and there’s a community pool shared with homeowners in the nearby community. It’s on a hill among the beautiful Jerusalem hills, just a few minutes by car from Jerusalem’s bustle.

We were there for a family Bar Mitzva over Shabbat, and that part was very nice. The grounds and lobby looked lovely. But our second-floor room was much smaller than everyone else’s and directly across from the stairs. There was so little space that we couldn’t get our suitcases past the bed and the fixed table against the wall. Our hosts had paid through the end of Shabbat at 8:30. We stayed Saturday night because we had an early flight back to the US the next morning, and were charged 719.99 NIS for a small room for 12 hours. We were also charged VAT, which as tourists we shouldn’t have had to pay. On Sunday, breakfast was exactly the same as the Saturday night dinner, and the dining room floor was so sticky it was hard to walk. The only person who was kind was a woman at the front desk, whose name I unfortunately can’t remember. She tried to get the cost reduced and spoke to the manager in Arabic, but he said no, claiming that was the arrangement he’d made with the Bar Mitzva host, which is hard to believe. I emailed him with questions about the charge and haven’t received a reply. Definitely not worth the money.

The price is far too high for the cleanliness of the rooms, the food, the pool, which in reality doesn’t exist, and the reception staff’s attitude, including the manager. The rooms weren’t clean to begin with, then went uncleaned for two days, and even the garbage wasn’t taken out. I can’t come back to a place like this.

It’s a pleasant, large modern hotel for conferences in the hills near Jerusalem. The buffet meals were excellent, and the rooms were clean and comfortable with all the facilities you need, though the hotel doesn’t have much character. Service was hit or miss. At our first dinner, for instance, I couldn’t get the wine I wanted. Guests can use a nearby swimming pool, and the front desk gave us directions. It was explained as if the pool would be easy to find, but it wasn’t that obvious. When we arrived after a five-minute walk, we found out we had to get towels from the hotel desk, which they hadn’t told us.