Transportation and Accommodation Included

When I travel, more often than not, I spend some time looking at hotels and finding the cheapest flight. I don't really care what time a flight takes off or lands, as long as it does not have too many stops and does not cost a fortune. For hotels, I might spend a little extra for a better location. Your hotel's neighborhood can make a huge difference, especially if it is your first visit to that place. A bad hotel far away from everything you want to do can make you think less of even the best cities, while a great hotel within walking distance of everything can make even a mediocre city more enjoyable.

For my trip to Jerusalem, all of that was done for me. Only one airline has direct flights from Hong Kong to Tel Aviv, and they only have one flight per day, so I doubt anyone spent much time thinking about what flight I should take. You can get from here to there on other airlines, but they mostly fly a few hours out of the way to Europe before turning around and heading to Israel. Those flights take a lot longer and cost more.

I don't know anything about the hotel. They have a website, but it is not very informative. It looks like someone put it together in less than an hour and then forgot to finish it. I know where the hotel is on a map and they have a few pictures, but the website tells you nothing about different room sizes and what might actually be in each room. The pictures look nice, but most hotels look better on their website than they do in person.

One of the great things about East Asian hotels is that they all come with refrigerators. You can go to the cheapest hotel in the dirtiest slum and you will still have a refrigerator in your room. In any other part of the world I have ever been to, you have to check to make sure. This hotel website tells me nothing.

Having a refrigerator in the room might not be the most important thing in the world, but I like being able to get a cold drink without going out, especially in a new city. In a place like Hong Kong, where every hotel has a refrigerator, you don't really need one. You can get a drink by walking less than a block from your hotel in any direction. In Jerusalem, I have no idea. Maybe there is a 7-11 next door. Or maybe the nearest place is on the other side of town. I don't know.

The two main hotel deal breakers for me are cleanliness and smoking. I don't need a room to be white glove test spotless, but I want it to be clean enough that I am not scratching myself for a week afterward. Maybe not Japan clean. That might be asking for too much. But definitely better than China clean. I don't know where Jerusalem hotels stand on that scale.

Smoking is a big deal to me. I can't stand the smell of it. I would rather be in a room that smells like vomit and dog shit. If I walk into a hotel room and it smells like cigarettes, I will immediately ask for a new room. I assume I would do the same if it smelled like vomit and dog shit, but I have never actually had that happen. I have walked into smoke rooms too many times. If they cannot or will not give me one that does not smell like cigarettes, I will leave. There are bound to be other hotels somewhere.

Smokers say that makes me demanding or high maintenance, but that is really the only time I will storm out of a hotel. Maybe if the room has rats eating dead hookers, but I almost never see that sort of thing. Smoking rooms, unfortunately, are entirely too realistic. And I have seen more than a few smokers make unrealistic demands while they stink up the place without any consideration for anyone else. From housekeeping's point of view, smokers are far higher maintenance. That stench will not simply dissipate like old cabbage and onion sandwiches. It lingers worse than dead fish and soiled diapers stuck behind the radiator.

And it is pure poison. Vomit, dog shit, cabbage, onions, fish, diapers and dead hookers might all smell unpleasant, but cigarette smoke is poisonous. Onions are good for you. Cigarette smoke will literally kill you.

I read somewhere that Israelis are big smokers. The hotel website says that it is an entirely non-smoking hotel. We will have to wait and see about that. I have been to several non-smoking hotels that smelled worse than those supposedly non-smoking train station restrooms. The Chinese system is to spray disinfectant in the room and call it non-smoking right after the latest smoker checks out. That way, it smells like disinfectant and cigarettes. I'm hoping Jerusalem has a better system.