Manara Lodge — Hotel in Galil Elyon Regional Council

It is a pity that we did not read the reviews before our stay... We have arrived in the afternoon. There were two ladies in the reception. One was extremely rude even by Israeli standards... After waiting to hear if there are any rooms for half an hour while she was talking on the phone, we decided to leave. Mainly because a polite question second time about if we will get an answer regarding room availability was answered with a very unwelcome question if we see that the lady is busy on the phone. Unfortunately, we shortly realized that this is the only place in Manara, so decided to go back and ignore the bad start. The young woman who took us to show the rooms was very sweet and nice. We chose a room with a small porch and table outside, the cost was above 600NIS. They asked when would we like to get the breakfast to the room and we said 10a.m. The next morning was the most ridiculous morning I have ever had in my life after traveling around the world. The breakfast came at 8.30. An hour later someone was forcibly breaking into our room while we were having our breakfast on the table outside. Apparently, it was a cleaner, who somehow was not informed that we are in the room. Of course, instead of knocking on the door to make sure the room is empty she tried to unlock it and when she did not succeed, she just used more force... Even in third world countries with rooms for 10 euros you will not get into this situation. The cleaners are always informed which rooms are empty and which have guests. It is not rocket science, especially in a small lodging place like this one. No matter that, while we continued our breakfast -- a bucket of water was chucked on the floor in an upstairs room, needless to say, the good cleaner made sure the water washed off everything, including our breakfast downstairs. ||||DO NOT STAY HERE. We nicely explained the situation while checking out, right after the washing off of the breakfast and the lady in the reception offered her sincere apology for us. It is not her fault, by all means, but an experience like this is not...

The hotel is made of many small buildings, each with several rooms, spread across the hillside, somewhat mixed with the local "kibbutz" houses, and sharing their main central dining room. It is very suitable for families with children, and offers various activities (some more extreme like rock climbing) as well as free rides up and down the cable car connecting Manara above with Kiryat Shmone downhill.||||The room has all the basic stuff, including plywood floor in the bed area and ceramic tiles in the rest of the room, TV, an additional kitchen sink, a small fridge and a microwave. There's no bath - only a shower. Simple hot breakfast and dinner are included.||||On the good side: There are many outside activities offered for families and children. The view is awesome, with The Galilee Panhandle down below on the east and southern Lebanon down below on the west. The room also includes a small balcony from which you can have a great view eastward.||||On the bad side: Lots of walking is required (e.g. to eat) that often involves certain climbing. Note also that the main reception is open only during the day (we arrived a bit late, so they contacted us to let us know they left our room key for us in some designated spot). The food suffers from some local religious restrictions (e.g., no fresh omelets on Saturday, no sausages etc. on breakfast), but that is common to many hotels in Israel that choose to attract religious customers.||||Also, the rooms seem to need some better maintenance. There is an old-fashioned mechanical door key. The bed was rather squeaking. The fridge was a little noisy during the night. The wall around the door was broken in several locations, and the bathroom faucet leaked from...

We stayed a weekend at Manara lodge. |The hotel/B&B is basic and clean, but a bit pricey in our opinion.|PROs:|1. Great shower and AirCon (relevant as it gets very cold at night).|2. Each room is equipped with a kettle, sugar, tea, coffee and 2 glasses, as well as a mini fridge and a microwave. |3. The price includes an entry to the extreme park nearby, which is nice.|4. There's also an option to BBQ but you have to bring everything in advance.|5. There's a small shop that offers food and beverages to buy.|6. The view is absolutely amazing and the porch the room has Uri's awesome.|7. The breakfast was very good considering the price and we were all happy and full when we left. |CONs:|1. The rooms are old and basic, there are no extra blankets and the towels are very very thin.|2. The reception closes at 1800, so there's no one to turn to physically if there's need.|3. The staff could have been more accommodating and pleasant... although the interaction with them was minor.|4. There is no shampoo or soap at the bathroom and you have to...