We stayed here for one night as part of our Isram Tours package. The hotel has a marvelous view of Haifa harbor and the bay, and overlooks the Baha'i Gardens and Shrine.

The rooms are decorated in wood and burgundy colors that seem a bit on the dark side. No coffee service in the room was a negative. But the beds were comfortable. The breakfast was good, but not quite as good as the Carlton's in Tel Aviv.

Overall, this is still a very nice place to stay in Haifa.

15 years ago I had stayed at the Hotel Dan Carmel twice while visiting Haifa on business. I remembered the wonderful view of the harbor. Recently I had again begun to work with colleagues in Haifa and in phone conversations they had reconfirmed their impression that the Dan Carmel is the nicest hotel in Haifa. As such, I was pleased when a small group of professionals meeting in Haifa decided to stay at the Dan Carmel.

During my stay, I had a chance to reconfirm the beautiful view. If you have a bay side room, you can see it directly from your room. I also walked around the block to the area behind the hotel. There is a promenade that runs behind the hotel at the top of the terraced gardens that form the world headquarters for the Bahai faith. These are spectacular in and of themselves. There are also many small and interesting looking restaurants in and around the area.

As for the hotel, on arrival, the door man was pleasant. The reception area was very nice and the reception staff was friendly and helpful. My room was generally pleasant as well. After checking in and cleaning up from my long flight, I relaxed in the lobby lounge, listened to the piano music and had a pleasant light meal accompanied by Israeli white wine.

There were, however, some other small things I considered surprising for a hotel of this caliber.

1. The hotel has in-room wireless internet service. However, it is not quite obvious enough. It is mentioned in the greeting letter, but there is no card in the room and it is also not mentioned in the guest services guide in the room. This caused some confusion for me because my laptop computer did not initially detect the service and it appeared that there wasn’t any. Only after reading the greeting letter more carefully in the morning and doing a full reboot on my laptop was I able to access it. The hotel needs to update its in-room service directories. The internet service did not work on the first try – it simply would not bring up the screen to enter your credit card number. However, I called the help number shown on the screen and a polite customer service representative reset the server and I was then able to use the service. Like most of Europe, the internet rates are exorbitant.

2. The reception staff had difficulty changing a 100 Shekel bill into smaller change. Again, I found this puzzling. It would not be surprising at a tiny 3rd rate motel in a remote, rural area, but a first class international hotel should generally be prepared to provide cashier services for its guests.

3. No sundry store. The hotel does have a jewelry shop, which was open, but abandoned on Sunday evening. There was a bag of garbage on the floor and peering behind the counter it looked like they might have a few Hebrew newspapers. There were not any international magazines or newspapers or any of the other things one might expect to find in such a hotel shop and the staff was nowhere to be found.

4. When I went to look for the “Health Club” the Spa level carpets were torn up and strewn around the hallway.

5. My pleasant relaxation in the lobby lounge was briefly interrupted by the cleaning crew walking around with a vacuum cleaner while guests were eating and listening to the piano music.

6. In my room, what looked like a king size bed turned out to be two twins with separate sheets covered with a single bedspread.

7. There was no clock in the room, very unusual.

8. The room was generally well appointed, but some things like the heating controls were very old, not completely functional and sloppily painted over. There were raw wires hanging out of the wall by the bedside table.

9. The bathroom was equipped with a conventional tub. Rather than a shower curtain, it had a Plexiglas half-divider permanently mounted. This divider looked elegant but was not very functional. Water sprayed out of the tub onto the floor. The shower head fixture also had a loose cap. The water, however, was hot and plentiful.

10. The desk was cramped with the television covering most of the work area. (Note, however, that this problem is not unusual worldwide. Only certain hotels provide adequate desks)

11. No speaker phone in the room. Currently this is about 50/50 worldwide. Major international chains like Hilton provide them. Less professional hotels do not. In any case, when doing business internationally, long conference calls in the middle of the night are a fact of life. Not having a speakerphone in the room is really annoying.

12. There was no in-room coffee or tea set, although room service was advertised as running 24 hours. Personally, I don’t often like to deal with room service and am pleased when a hotel simply provides a small electric pot and some coffee or tea in the room.

Arrived with a group at 9 pm directly from Ben Gurion airport. Hotel was kind enough to keep their dining room open to feed a group of hungry and tired travelers. The hotel commands a beautiful view of Haifa and the Med Sea and is just around the corner from the Bahai Gardens and other Mont Carmel sites. The Israeli breakfast was excellent. The rooms are fair sized but have seen better days; while clean they are showing their age and need a refurbish.

I was quite impressed with this hotel despite questionable reviews on Trip Advisor. The location at the top of Mt. Carmel is great, the views are spectacular and the hotel is clean, nicely decorated if slightly outdated. Hotel staff are accomodating but a bit rough - it's the Israeli culture, nothing personal. Overall, would go back again and recommend to others.