Israel. Pesach 2022. Day 1. The Long Journey Home.
I don’t even know where to begin. I guess to really begin at the beginning, we need to go back a year.
April 25, 2021: My mother makes a reservation for a trip to Israel for Sukkot 2021. The travel agent emails my mother to confirm:
“Here is what we are holding as of now at the Orient: ORIENT Jerusalem; On request- room connectors. check in sep 20, check out sep 29”
September 2021: Israel remains closed to tourists. The sukkot trip is cancelled and all reservations are switched to Pesach 2022.
Monday, April 11, 2022: My mother sends Tzvi the email confirmation from the travel agent for the upcoming Pesach trip. There is no mention of connecting rooms. Tzvi expresses concern.
Tuesday, April 12, 2022: Avery and Gabriella arrive in Israel, two days ahead of the rest of the family. They check into the Orient Hotel in Jerusalem and inquire about the rest of our reservations. They are told that the Kaplans will not have connecting rooms, as all of the hotel’s connecting rooms have been filled, despite us having made the request back in November and having been told we would have connecting rooms.
Tzvi expresses grave concern, followed by losing his shit.
Wednesday, April 13, 2022: Tzvi spends hours agonizing over the room situation.
“So basically Steph and Robyn and Madeleine will be in one room, and me and Hallie will be in another room, and I have to spend 12 days sleeping apart from my wife. Great. That’s just great.”
Later in the day, the travel agent sends an email, which makes very little sense, and reads (in part):
Ok- got down to the bottom of the rooms..
They had rooms next to each other but not connecting as there weren’t any of those on the different level rooms.
So, if it has to be connecting rooms- it would mean the heritage house building- that’s the building next to the main building… Now, the manager told me that this would be an additional $6000 but I told him we can’t pay that kind of money but we can’t have the current situation either for everyone to be comfortable. He got the chain manager on the phone and we discussed it again. He said that he would be willing to charge a supplement of $3000. It’s a much larger unit/ complex than the regular rooms.
We decide two separate rooms is untenable and that the Heritage building is the only option. Tzvi looks it up online. The Isrotel website provides that “The two heritage buildings grant guests an exceptional hospitality experience surrounded by a truly unique ambiance, alongside many exclusive benefits: personal concierge from the moment of arrival, special chef's gift, daily newspaper delivered to the room, complimentary access to the deluxe business lounge (8th floor of the main hotel building), welcome cocktail in the room or at the Khan restaurant, tour of Jerusalem, and bicycles available for complimentary use.” The website shows spacious rooms with oversized clawfoot tubs.
Lisa is bitter that we now have the better rooms. “Enjoy your amenities.”
Tzvi is now relaxed. A weight has been lifted. He is excited.
Thursday, April 14, 2022: The day was crazy but our cab arrived at 8:30pm. Our driver’s name was Hez and he was Israeli from the Five Towns.
Every single time we travel we have the same issue. We tell the driver that we have a lot of bags and make sure they bring a big enough car. Of course, Hez showed up in a minivan to take 5 people, a stroller, 7 large suitcases, 2 carry on suitcases and a half a dozen other small bags. He was nervous that he wouldn’t have enough room for all the bags, but we managed to fit. I don’t know why they don’t just send a larger car.
When we got to the El Al terminal we saw this massive steel security truck, and when you walked in there were two soldiers with machine guns. I guess they knew the airport would be full of Jews. My parents had already arrived at the airport and told us that they paid one of the luggage porters to take their bags. They’re just supposed to get you on line, but for some reason this porter took them to the business class check-in line, which saved a ton of time. We initially got on the regular line, but then my parents sent their guy to us and he took us to the business class line. Worth the money.
Check in went smoothly. We had to pay for one extra bag which was $130 dollars. It’s really crazy because an overweight bag is $110, so you may as well just pay an extra $20 for the extra bag. Then we went to the security line, but when we got there the agent sent us to the left instead of the right, basically having us cut off the entire line, “because we had kids with us.” We met up with my parents who were standing with Koby, the guy who owns the computer store on Spruce.
We made it to the gate and waited around for a little. The kids were doing great and eventually they announced boarding for families with small children. Well, I guess we weren’t moving fast enough because someone actually came over to us to tell us to board. So, we boarded the plane and had pretty good “economy plus” seats (which just means an extra inch of legroom). The problem was we took off almost an hour late because apparently there was someone who checked in their bags but didn’t get on the plane, so for security reasons they needed to find his bag and offload it from the plane.
On flight days we wear grey.
The flight went smoothly. Madeleine slept in her car seat for maybe 4 hours and then she wanted to get out, but then she slept on me for another couple of hours. Hallie slept on me for a few hours also. It was just difficult that I couldn’t move or pee. Amazing I didn’t develop a blood clot. The food was awful and no one ordered kids meals for our kids. Thanks Joe travel agent. Also, they never came around to serve drinks or snacks; apparently you had to get them yourself in the galley, but they never actually announced that. Finally we landed and had to go through a whole other process.
We got off the plane and were quickly met by Einav, who used to do Sheirut Leumi at HAFTR and was friends with Ofek (our first au pair). The wait for the stroller was really long. I think we actually waited a full half hour, but finally it came and then we headed to passport control where we found another long wait. Thankfully, Einav just walked over to one of her colleagues and asked if they could just send us through, and they did! Solid amount of time saved. She said goodbye at baggage claim and we took a few photos. At baggage claim we tried about 20 times to get luggage carts because the stupid machines don’t work well.
Thankfully we had all of our luggage and headed over to our covid tests (which we pre-paid for)! Once again, because we had kids, they sent us to a separate area with no line or wait. The tests were fine. Madeleine was just upset she couldn’t do it herself. I will say on this trip, both in America and Israel, they were trying to cater to families with young children. Then we were off!
We headed outside to the van to meet the driver we ordered from Avner. We don’t really know what Avner’s business is (whether he owns the cabs or contracts with drivers, or what), but basically we call him and he sends a Russian man with a big van. As my mother says, he’s a “cab pimp,” Well, surprise surprise, we had too much luggage for the van he sent. Our driver was pacing back and forth and muttering in Russian trying to fit everything into the car, but it just didn’t work. (Not surprising since my parents brought 5 suitcases). At one point another van driver came over and was surveying the situation and just kept saying it wouldn’t fit and we needed another car. We thought he was trying to get us to go with him, but it turned out he was waiting for someone and he also worked for Avner! (I think my parents ended up tipping him.) Anyway, my parents had to take a separate taxi. I don’t understand why people don’t just take us seriously when we say we have more luggage than people.
We were excited to get to the Orient and relax, but of course it’s never that easy. We started checking in and they confirmed that we were in the Heritage House and had connecting rooms – really it was two adjoining rooms with a connecting hallway (you could close a door to close off the hallway leading to our two rooms from the outer hallway leading to other rooms). Tzvi started asking about what amenities were available as guests of the Heritage Building, but Fadi, the assistant manager, explained that since we were not paying for the Heritage Building but had been upgraded, we weren’t getting any perks. As my mother said, “if you want to pay $6000 you can have perks.” I think she was feeling a little better at that point.
Well, apparently not only do you get no perks, you get the worst rooms in the building. First off, the Heritage Building is actually a separate building, so the easiest way to get there is to go out the front door of the hotel and walk into the Heritage Building. Then you need to go up a flight of stairs to get to our room (there’s no elevator that goes there directly from the ground floor). There is a way to get there without leaving the main hotel building but that entails going down to Level -1, walking down two long hallways and then up three different flights of stairs. So in short, yes, it’s great for a family with small kids and a stroller.
All of that aside, we must have gotten the smallest rooms in the building. They were really tiny and cramped and had small bathrooms with no bathtubs. Also, I get the aesthetic they were going for – old building, boutique hotel, but it just didn’t feel luxurious. We went to see my parents room and it was huge in comparison – it had a balcony and a big bathroom with a bathtub and a window into the bedroom. It was also just very modern and bright and did feel luxurious.
So Tzvi and my mother went to the front desk to talk to Fadi. I think Tzvi basically just went up to him and a said “I don’t get it.” It turned out they weren’t even planning to charge us the $3000 for the Heritage Building, but Tzvi said it was ridiculous to have all those stairs when we have a stroller, and we need the bathtub for the kids, and by the way, these rooms suck compared to the main building and how can you possibly bill this as being better. Interestingly, Fadi didn’t even argue or even seem surprised. He basically just said ‘yep, I get it’ and then started making phone calls. Eventually he said the hotel is totally booked for the weekend but he could move us into a similar room (adjoining with connecting hallway) in the main building on Sunday.
We were starving at that point so we ordered some room service. They kept making mistakes and forgetting things. Then Hallie ate all of Robyn’s chicken nuggets and still wanted more so we ordered that. Then Hallie needed more ketchup and made Tzvi call again. Tzvi really didn’t want to call again but Hallie looked at him with big sad eyes and said, “Do you want your daughter to go to bed hungry?” Finally it was pretty late, maybe 11, and I put Madeleine to bed. Oh, there was also an air conditioning issue because the air wouldn’t go on if the door to the room is open, but the point of these rooms is to have the door open, so it makes no sense. So, a maintenance guy came and did something. Finally we sent Hallie to bed and showered. Except around 1am Madeleine woke up.
I guess that’s as good a place as any to end Day 1.