29 Mar 2023
We got off to a bad start on our Israel trip with Tourist Israel. We were sold a 13 day package, however we were not told that this was comprised of many shorter tours. We wrongly assumed that we would be collected from our hotel at the start of each day, which is normal on every other package we have ever done. At pickup time a representative from Tourist Israel rang to see where we were, as we were not at the collection point, which was over two kms from our hotel… He told us to get a taxi to that location. We ordered a taxi, but within a couple of minutes, and we got there the coordinator messaged us to say they had left without us. After a long trip to Israel, including flight delays, and missing connections, I was totally overwhelmed.
We decided to get ourselves to the central train station and try to join the tour later in the day. We contacted the tour guide Oded and he gave us a meeting point in Haifa. We totally missed out on Caesarea. It was so disappointing to come all this way, and miss out on some of the things we had wanted to see. We did enjoy the remainder of the day, but unfortunately I can’t give any more than an average score for this effort. Tourist Israel need to be clear on their website that these tours are NOT pickup from the hotel they book for you. Also that the hotels are not located nearby to the pickup point. Disappointing.