This is a wonderful hotel. Situated across the roa...

This is a wonderful hotel. Situated across the road from the sea, almost all of the rooms have a full sea view. We had a wonderful stay here and hope to come back. There was a single reason why I didn t give this a 5 star rating so let me share that now, and then tell you about how wonderful this place was.

Waiting 25 minutes for the checkout, when we already had a copy of the bill was waaay too long. Please can we have a fast track checkout next time?

OK, now onto the great points about the hotel.

Location - situated almost halfway between Old Joffa and new Tel Aviv, you can walk to either in about 20 minutes (a wonderful walk along the sea front.) Despite overlooking a busy road, the hotel soundproofing means your stay is nice and peaceful!

The sea view rooms give you floor to ceiling views of the sea. Your view will be out towards Old Joffa (if you are looking left facing the sea) or up towards Tel Aviv (if you are looking right towards the sea.) Our view was right giving us sight of windsurfers off the beach and down to the Hassan Bed Mosque.

Despite being a city hotel, this is a large and spacious building. The lobby area opens onto a vast atrium combining the bar and two restaurants. The Jaffa Court restaurant has indoor and outdoor seating (covered for the Sukkot) which hosts buffet breakfast and dinner. The fancier Aubergine restaurant was not open on the Shabbat so I didn t try it. The food was good here. We dined on the penultimate night of Simchat Torra and enjoyed wonderfully fresh local food. The service was attentive. The bar had a good range of local and international drinks including some great wine from the Golan Heights. The local Gin was not to my taste but I appreciated the bar staff recommendations.

On the lobby floor is also a cigar lounge, the IHG club - two galleries, car rental, kids s shop and concierge. We booked a few restaurants through the concierge which was super helpful as we found our feet in the new city.

The rooms were very large and clean. They were well appointed modern amenities like USB chargers on the desk and next to the bed. They even had high power USB connections meaning I didn t once have to pull out my plugs to charge various devices.

A floor to ceiling window took up almost all of the external wall offering a true sea view and flooding the room with light. A small sofa looking out onto the sea was a great place to while away a few hours.

The beds were comfortable and there was plenty of space to hang your clothes. We slept fantastically for the whole week.

Poolside was plenty of space to find get your good spot. The pool was big and warm, a smaller kids pool was permanently shaded. A lifeguard was on duty for most of the day and the pool staff were around to help you wrestle with the parasol. A good selection of salads and burgers were available from the pool bar with service to your lounger. The pool location was a floor above street level which meant it was windy and noisy when we were there. (not sure about the wind, the building site across the road and the traffic accounted for the noise ) Despite the noise (this was a bustling city after all, the poolside was very pleasant.

Overall, this was a great hotel and a great stay. It served as an excellent base for our time in Tel Aviv and travels further afield. We d have no hesitation of staying here again.