Jerusalem Hotels - Serial Tourist's Guide

December, 2006 - Copyright by Morris Rosenthal - - contact info

Inbal Hotel, Sheraton, Dan Panorama, Crowne Plaza and King David

Jerusalem Hotels

Sheraton Plaza from Agron (back view)
Why should a serial tourist in Jerusalem need hotel information? Primarily for putting up the folks. Apartment rentals, pensions, sublets, they all work great if you're going to be in Israel for a few months, but if you're just coming for a new nights or a week, a hotel or a B&B is the normal option. Jerusalem is a tourist destination, so there are more hotels than you can shake a stick at. Most short term tourists really want to be in the center of things, and that usually means somewhere between the Old City and the Jerusalem's Great Synagogue. If you're coming to visit political cronies or the Supreme court, there's a whole different cluster of hotels on the other side of Gan Sacher and the government complex, with the Crowne Plaza sitting up on the hill across from the Supreme Court. On this page, I'm going to stick with hotels that are within a 10 minute walk (say, 15 if you're really slow) of the Jerusalem Great Synagogue, the Prime Minister's residence (not that it's a tourist destination), and the Conservative Center.

The closest hotels to the Great Synagogue are the Prima Kings, right next door, and the Sheraton Plaza, right across the street. One advantage of staying that the Sheraton Plaza is you can always find your hotel because it tower over the surrounding buildings, you can even see the top of the Sheraton over the hill from the Gan Sacher/Government area. Well, I suppose you could stay at the Prima Kings, find your way home to the Sheraton Hotel, then cross the street:-) The Prima Kings seems to host a lot of wedding guests, there's a banquet hall/restaurant right between the main entrance and the Great Synagogue.

Prima Kings Hotel from Conservative Center

King David Hotel from YMCA
The hotel in Jerusalem that everybody has heard of is the King David. You pay for that privilege, I've seen room rates there vary between around $200 and $300 a night. The King David Hotel is directly across the street from the Jerusalem YMCA, which has a nice view of the city from their bell tower. My folks stayed in the King David some 20 years ago, I seem to remember that all of the rooms were individually furnished. It's about a 10 minute walk to the Great Synagogue, 20 minutes to the commercial center and the Ben Yehuda Midrahov, and there's a great view of the Old City from the back. The King David is within a hundred or so yards of the Dan Panorama and the King Solomon Hotels. The Dan Panorama is about a five minute walk (uphill) to the Great Synagogue, and the King Solomon is literally next door. Diagonally across the street, above Independence Park, is the Inbal Hotel. I don't remember what the name was before Inbal, it changed fairly recently.

The newest hotel of the bunch is the David Citadel, which is closer to the Yaffo Gate of the Old City, maybe a five minute walk downhill from the King David, away from the intersection of Agron and King George, which I'm taking as the center of town:-) The David Citadel, the King David, the Inbal and the Sheraton Plaza are considered the super luxury Hotels. The Inbal seems to be more popular with large groups than the others, I frequently see International conferences being held there, but maybe they just have the best banquet facilities. The Dan Panorama and the King Solomon seem to play host to tour groups on a regular basis, I frequently see a banner on the Dan Panorama welcoming some mission or another.
Inbal Hotel

Dan Panorama
Standard room rates for the above hotels range from the $100 to $300 a night range, but you can usually get a better rate through a travel agency, and in the off season, you can sometimes bargain with the manager. It depends on your personality. Occupancy rates for Jerusalem Hotels has really picked up again in the past year, for a while they were pretty much empty, "Al Ha Pan'im", as fears of terrorism kept guests away. You can stay in cheaper hotels with standard room rates in Jerusalem down to around $40 a night, but if you're only going to be there a few days, I'd suggest going with first or second class. The problem with cheap hotels (in my experience) is they can come with attitude problems on the part of the staff, a casual approach to reservations, and a less than perfect state of repair. If you want to stay in a cheap hotel, get a recommendation from a friend, or at least a travel agent you trust.

This guide is in progress, and I welcome your comments, questions and suggestions.