Mount of Olives Hotel

Location: Proximity to Mount of Olives, Garden of Gethsemane, Church of the Ascension, and Old City Jerusalem .

They kindly changed us to a room with a better view (Temple Mount). They also called a taxi for us to join an early morning tour, at a very reasonable price. We declined breakfast because we were joining an early morning tour, but they gave us a boxed breakfast to take home. You can't find a more accommodating hotel!! You can see the Temple Mount from the window. The atmosphere of the Church of the Ascension next door was great. The breakfast was delicious, with mint tea, hummus, vegetables, pita bread, cheese, yogurt, etc. Thank you very much.

We stayed here as part of a tour group, so we had many meals here. The food was good, but day to day there was not much variety. Our room was excellent - air conditioning worked well, the bathroom was remodeled, lots of storage space, mattress on the bed was nice and firm (not like the soft, unsupportive mattresses in the US hotels). At night, the neighborhood appears to be rough. It was recommended that women in our group do not venture out of the hotel without a male escort (even during the day). Also, be aware that all tourist shops prefer to receive dollars or euros, not the new Israeli shekels (NIS) - in fact, in many tourist shops the prices are in dollars or euros. If you pay in NIS, then the exchange rate from dollars to shekels will not be favorable to you. At the airport, the exchange rate was 3.6 NIS for 1 USD, but in tourist shops for an item costing 1 USD, they will want 4 shekels. Only exchange USD for shekels if you plan to go to regular Arab or Israeli stores.