Israel 2023. Chapter 3: The Setai Sea of Galilee, Rooms 415 and 416. Part 2.
Ultimately Tzvi won and we all went to dinner. I think my father gave in because he felt bad that Tzvi was still upset about the rooms and thought this might shut him up.
They set up this whole barbeque next to the pool, and once again, Tomahawk steaks! They weren’t giving out whole Tomahawks (they were slicing them tonight), although you could take a full bone-in rib eye. There were also filets, sausages, burgers… it was a meat fest. There was also a giant cauldron of meat soup that was delicious. And then there was everything else and dessert. It was just a lot of food, very good food, and really beautiful. I think this was one of the best buffets we’ve had in Israel.
I should say that for all of the issues here, the people working the buffet were very good. Our favorite was Natan, the man who carved the meats. About 40 years ago my mother was almost engaged to an Israeli paratrooper named Natan. Judging by approximate age, I think it’s just possible it was the same Natan.
After dinner we came back to the room. Hallie was so tired and had a melt down before bed.
Everyone slept well. We got up and went to breakfast, and then the cab came around 10 and drove us about 40 minutes north to the Dalton Winery. The whole area is the Dalton Industrial Park and it’s basically a ton of boutique wineries close together. Dalton is the biggest winery there, and Tzvi says he thinks they’re basically no longer a boutique winery because they’ve grown so large, but they still want to advertise themselves as boutique. We did a wine and cheese tasting. There were a lot of people outside but we were the only ones inside which was good because the girls ran around like crazy. They brought us a big platter of cheese and dips and pesach bread, and we tried four different wines. It was very nice. Everyone liked the sauvignon blanc and the rosè, but only Tzvi liked the two reds (a shiraz and a red blend). The woman spoke English fine, but she had a heavy accent and she kept saying ‘this is from our reserve series,’ except because of her accent it just sounded like the was saying it was from Syria.
We were supposed to be at lunch by 1230 but were already late, so everyone left and Tzvi and I stayed behind to shop. We ended up buying a couple of bottles, and then Tzvi saw one bottle that he’d never seen before. They said it’s a special grape they just discovered in the hills of the Galilee that hasn’t been cultivated for thousands of years, and they made a very limited run of this wine and aged it in clay pots instead of barrels. She said it tastes like the forest and gave us some to try, and sure enough it tasted like the forest. I like when I can clearly discern the taste of wine, no matter what it tastes like. Anyway, we bought a bottle.
Then we headed to the next winery, the Adir Winery, where we had lunch reservations. It was strange, because they had told us we needed to be there by 1230 and couldn’t be late, but then they didn’t seat us for 20 minutes. They told us we could wait by the bar and try wines. We didn’t actually do a tasting but they gave us plenty of wine to try for free, so that was nice. Tzvi was pretty buzzed by the time we actually sat down to lunch. I feel like Tzvi and I have very different recollections of this meal, mainly owing to how much we had drunk at that point.
[Tzvi: Lunch was basically in the vineyard and quite beautiful. The menu was pretty simple, I think because it was Pesach, so we all got eggs and salad and coffees, and I ordered two more glasses of wine – a white and a rosè. There was also a lot of different goat cheeses and goat cheese spreads that they made there, which were all fantastic. It was just a really lovely experience to sit outside in a vineyard, eat lunch and drink wine. I just remember thinking how lucky we all were to be able to share this experience together. And the kids had a great time watching TV on their iPads. At the end we had a goat milk frozen yogurt which was just delightful.]
Um, no. Here’s what really happened: We were finally told that our table was ready, except when we got outside all we saw was a large table with no tablecloth or setups. As we were about to set up the tablecloth ourselves someone finally came over. Our table was in the sun, so we had to beg them to open the umbrella, which they eventually did. We sat down and were given 1 menu. We asked for more, but it didn’t really matter because there were only 2 real options, a meal for two that included bread, salad, egg, cheese, jam, and some dips or a cheese plate. We all got the meal for 2 except for Inbar who got the cheese plate. Everything came with a hot and cold drink for each person. I’m not sure how long it took to order, but it was a while, and of course ordering wasn’t the easiest. When we finished ordering we were in good spirits, looking forward to our nice outdoor meal. That feeling passed after maybe an hour. Lots of servers walking around, but no food. At one point we had Inbar ask where it was except she forgot both her Hebrew and English and just ended up saying “Ha’ochel, Eifo?” which directly translates to “the food, where?” It was pretty hilarious. We were also buzzed and delirious from all the waiting. Our food eventually came, obviously missing a few things, which they brought fairly quickly (comparatively). So, we ate. It was fine. We then asked for our “dessert” portion which was some sort of goat milk frozen yogurt. We waited, and waited. I finally got up and asked what was going on and a woman told me it would be faster if we just paid by the register and got the yogurt to go. As we all got up, a woman showed up with a tray of 10 small frozen yogurts. I just took the tray and kept walking, giving out the yogurts, which no one really wanted anyway because ew. Overall, it was a three hour experience, and we only made it through because the kids had iPads. I don’t need to go back there.
We bought more wine, and then we tried to hit a third winery but it was closed so we headed back to the hotel and got ready for Shabbos. Robyn met us at the hotel and she and Inbar took the girls for ice cream and to play at Robyn’s kibbutz.
Tzvi and I sat by the pool a little and then I went to the gym. We eventually got ready for dinner, which was another meat buffet.
I think it’s very impressive how they really mix it up and serve different foods at each meal. Tonight there was a whole sushi station – like regular sushi with white rice – which Inbar said tasted weird. There was a delicious filet mignon with mashed potatoes. Another impressive thing here is that they have all of these carving stations but they don’t just throw food onto your plate – there are a bunch of stations that have like composed dishes and you get like a nicely composed dish with meat and potatoes and sauces and it’s like beautifully plated. Dessert was fine, nothing noteworthy. And then we went to sleep!
The girls woke us up Saturday around 9, which was great. We went to breakfast, same as usual, minus the omelet station. I also think they took away the orange juice machine for shabbat (as opposed to yuntiv). We didn’t do much. Inbar left to go hang out with Robyn. We hung around in my mom’s super spacious Kineret Villa, walked Madeleine around for a nap, and all of a sudden it was 1:30 and time for lunch! As opposed to yuntiv, they actually had a set lunch in the dining room. It was funny though because some people actually went to the dining area and sat down, and other people were just walking in and out of the buffet in bathing suits and eating their food by the pool. They had a nice array of food. There was delicious Asado but the guy carving it seemed nervous because his hands were shaky and I thought he was going to cut off a finger.
After lunch we left the girls with Inbar. They were going to swim in their pool but eventually wound up in my mom’s hot tub. Tzvi and I headed to our spa appointments. This was a strange experience. We got there to check in and asked where to get robes and they told us we were supposed to bring our robes from our room. How would we know this? Also, who wants to wear their robes that they wear after the shower to the spa? Anyway, we kind of looked at them like ‘what are you talking about’ and the woman said she would look for robes, but there were none. She sent us to reception to ask for robes, which we did, and they thought we were crazy but told us robes were coming. Ten minutes later and there were no robes so we resigned ourselves to just walking naked robeless in the spa. Fortunately, when we got back they said they just got a delivery of some robes. Crisis averted.
We went upstairs and the masseuses brought us to the room. They didn’t introduce themselves or anything, but just told us to lay down. Problem was, apparently we were supposed to wear underwear. Now, I think the only other place where we had to wear underwear was France, so we weren’t prepared. Thankfully I had some underwear in my bag but Tzvi had to wear this large paper underwear. Shame I don’t have a picture of that. Then they came back in and just started the massage. It was actually pretty good. After 50 minutes, they said thank you and goodbye. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but everywhere else in the world they at least talk to you, ask you how it was, give you some water. Maybe we expect too much. The important thing is that the massage was good.
We all hung out at the pool for a while. At some point Madeleine took off her clothes and was running around naked. At this point I just say do as the Israelis do. Robyn showed up at some point to hang out, and we waited for shabbat to end.
For dinner we went to the dairy lounge. Tzvi had asked earlier if they were serving dinner and they said no, and that dinner was in the main restaurant (another big meat buffet). Then Tzvi asked how late they were open and they said 11pm. Then he asked if they had a menu with food, and they said yes. It was like they were open and serving food but didn’t actually want people to come eat there. Strange interaction. Everyone ate a whole bunch of dairy things and I ate nothing. I later had snacks.
So many weird quirks at this hotel. Also, Tzvi is very upset about the furniture. Let me explain. Some of the rooms here are bigger than others, but every room has the exact same furniture. So the furniture feels too big for our smaller rooms are it’s kind of cramped, but in my parents room the furniture is too small and there’s too much open space. It’s just kind of like they didn’t put enough thought into anything here.
After dinner we got the girls to bed, then packed up a bit and went to sleep. We slept pretty well. Apparently there were jets flying over on their way to bomb Syria at 5am which woke up some people, but not us!
We woke up and had breakfast. Interestingly, I asked for decaf coffee but they told me they didn’t have decaf for Pesach. I asked why they didn’t have the Café Haag that they had the first few days, and was told that wasn’t kosher for Pesach. Was it kosher for Pesach when they served it on days 1-3?
We had a little time before the 12pm checkout. The girls decided they wanted to swim so Tzvi took them to the room to change, at which point they ran into the housekeeping staff who told them they needed to get out. Apparently checkout was 11, not 12. Who knew? I went to reception to get new keys just so we could get back in to our rooms. I also asked for the bills etc. and then completed the checkout. Then we packed up everything. Funny enough, when we asked for a golf cart this time they came in 2 seconds. They took our stuff and we just left it on the curb. De ja vue from day 1. The girls swam a bit, we took some final photos, saw a little Israeli boy pee and poop on the grass, and headed out!
My parents drove back their own car and we got a van with Austin and Rachel and Kira. Apparently when my parents tried to leave the hotel, two golf carts stopped them and said they hadn’t paid. They asked what they were talking about, but apparently they had to go back into the lobby and give their credit card again. I’m not sure why they don’t just charge the card on file like every other hotel. Also, I really thought I had already finished the check out earlier!
Anyway, the plan was for us to drop off Austin and Rachel in Tiberias so they could get a rental car to drive to meet their friends in Caesarea. When we had made this plan a couple of days earlier, we were told the Caesarea stop would only add 10 or so minutes onto our total drive time. I do believe that it’s possible to do this drive at some time of day, at some time of year, and only add 10 minutes. However, on this day (Sunday of chol hamoed Pesach), in the middle of the day, that wasn’t the case. The drive to Tiberias took about 40 minutes. We dropped off Austin and Rachel and Kira, and then went to Aroma because there was no way we could wait until later to find lunch. Then we started our drive to Jerusalem; the later it got the more traffic built up, so ultimately a drive that should have taken 3 hours took about 5 hours. We ended up on Highway 90 through the West Bank (and through Arab villages), which we kind of wanted to avoid after the violence of the past few days. We also stopped at some Arab rest stop where we had to pay 2 shekels to use the bathroom and Inbar was all nervous, but eventually we made it!
And that’s when the real nightmare began.