Hotele niedaleko Underwater Observatory Park, Eilat

PROS: Very clean Very friendly staff Nice location: sea view from the room, quiet an relaxed location far away from all the noise and the crowds of the main hotel area Nice and very clean pool Great breakfast CONS: Parking: small parking lot of only 14 cars of which 3 are handicap spots. There are 3 more spots in front of the main door and if all is full you need to park on a white/blue spot (of which there are plenty) and pay city parking of 25 NIS a day. The beach: they have a pretty large shaded area with beach beds and chairs which is free for the guests but there is no hotel supervision and there are people from other hotels using it and it can get busy. Also there is a kite gliding Center near by and when they are active if you in the water you’re afraid if you get one of those huge kites on your head it will not end well. One afternoon those guys from the kite place decided to have a bbq party under the hotel shaded area and they had a boom box with “music” so loud we had to leave and go to the pool. Nobody from the hotel was there to tell them they are bothering us. Bottom line: we’ll go again. We enjoyed the stay. All the cons above will be nice if they can fix but they were not a deal breaker for us.

It is good to know that Custo Club owners should be informed in advance, at what time you arrive, so that they can meet and greet you personally. Beside a message just after the booking, I received a text message a day before arrival with a question, when we arrive in order to be at the apartment and hand over the keys. As communicated, we came at around 1 p.m. and were greeted by Kirill, who explained us a bit about the city itself, where to buy food on weekdays and which shops are open at the weekend. You can also get discounts for instance for the sunbeds. Just ask and he will explain you everything! It is important to know that Custo Club is like a villa with apartments, where you have a fridge and all facilities to cook, if you want to. If you like to chill at the hotel, they have a lot of things - a pool and table tennis, dumbells, etc. The motto of Custo Club is ”may all who enter as a guest leave as a friend”. The only disadvantage is that you have to check out at 11 a.m. The beach is reachible within 15 minutes walking.

In short hotel is fine... just fine... But those looking for a real review, there are highs and lows. Highs: The staff is friendly and they are everywhere, cleaning the pool, the buffet area and the rooms (our housekeeper on the 11th floor, I think his name was Mohamed, was amazing!!) The pool is big and towels are plentiful even when it is busy. Drink and food prices by the pool are reasonable for a resort. High but reasonable. There is a small convenience store just to the side of the hotel where you can buy cold drinks to take to the room. The AC works well, except when you are asleep and the motion detector clicks the AC off and you wake up sweating and need to wave your arms around for the AC to kick back on. Towels were fresh and clean. Lows: The food is just not good. It is pretty and plentiful but has no taste. (there were 2 items in 4 days that we loved. The spicy fish on Friday and the Bahn rolls with Asado on Saturday). Besides that everything needed salt and flavor. The ”chef” who cut the salad was super nice and made everything fresh. The hotel is old, old, old... Hot in the elevators, much of the old areas that used to be cool are closed down, even when it was packed. The floors are clean but look old. Rooms are again, old but clean. The buffet area, again, old and clean. You just can't keep the old and clean for 25 years, hotels need renovation. Check-in takes forever. Most people come in on Thursday or Sunday. Put another few people on the check-in for the busy hours... come on people...service!! Lifeguards - there are 3 that I saw but only 1 actually did anything. One of the guards was 100% sleeping while on duty. And one guard for 2 pools is never enough. All of it could be so much better if the food was good. We would even overlook the old rooms and public areas. But eating there breakfast and dinner for 3 days, we just felt that we had to leave on the forth night for dinner. Couldn't take the blah anymore. If you are looking for a great restaurant try La Cucina, just down the boardwalk. Oh - one more thing. We had 90+ people in our group and the hotel wouldn't set us all up in one area for Shabbat dinner on Friday. So much of the benefit of being together is doing Shabbat together. What's the big deal? You have a company paying so much to bring their people and you can't find us a corner to reserve for one evening? That's just bad business. For that reason, more than anything else, we will not return to Herods. if a company doesn't want our business we will take it elsewhere.

The hotel itself is decent enough and in a good area and all the major areas of Eilat are accessible, with shops and restaurants well within walking distance of the hotel. The room was decent and fairly sized and all the in room amenities were good. The breakfast was also nice with a wide variety and well presented. Where did the hotel fall short. When our room was serviced the beside were not made the duvets were just thrown out over the maters not at all remade. The main thing and it’s simple to fix , the staff were rude , disinterested and barely smiled. I would say they scowled more then anything. The front desk staff were the nicest of the lot but the lady that requested your room number for breakfast was literally so rude I was shocked. The other negative was the parking area for the hotel and the reception area outside of the hotel were filthy. Litter everywhere and no care that it’s the hotel grounds. For what you are paying I thought it was genuinely average.