I recommend to everyone to go to SETAI. The position is excellent,situated in Jaffa. The view from the pool at the 4th floor is amazing,especially at sunset time….wow! The staff is extremely efficient! I have never met a kindness like this in a hotel. I will never forget Gustavo, he was so nice with us at the point that we cried when we had to say goodbye to him. I hope the staff will reach my review so I can send a kiss to everyone. Stella
The only reason I am giving it two stars is the location; Jaffa is a fun place to stay and you can walk out the door of the hotel into a lively area filled with great bars and restaurants. But from the moment we got there the whole experience was off. It took two hours for our bags to be brought to the room; we didn't have a bath mat until the third day of our stay; the lounge is understaffed and you will be ignored if you want a drink; when asked for beach towels, the concierge grunted and pointed without looking up. The pool area is so crowded there is barely room to walk and that is only the case if you can actually score a lounge chair. The day before we left we tried to go to the pool and were told by an attendant to come back in "two, three, or four hours." Six hours later there were still no available chairs. This is in July during the heat of the day. It's also worth noting that the guest population is young and flashy and there to party. This is not the fault of the hotel except that these guests stand IN the pool for hours drinking while the ambient music is crushingly loud. I wouldn't recommend this hotel and I certainly wouldn't go back.…
A most welcoming, friendly, personable and well run hotel with delightful and caring staff. Not too large clean with excellent service I highly recommend it for leisure and or business. Well done the Setai Tel Aviv!
Beautiful hotel , great location but above all spectacular service and management. Alex one of the mangers his team including Maia and Zaid are all very professional, patient and friendly . I would recommend this hotel to anyone wanting a true 5 star experience in Tel Aviv
We stayed at the Setai for 2 nights and it was wonderful. The lobby is extremely well air conditioned and has a beautiful scent wafting through it as you enter. The front desk staff are all welcoming and smiling and friendly. We were offered cold drinks as we checked in and all of our luggage was taken by the bellhop immediately to our room before we even completed check-in. Very much appreciated. The room is small but very lovely with gorgeous sea views. The bathroom is spacious and well stocked with amenities. A beautiful fruit bowl and cold water were provided in the room. I needed an iron for my clothes - all it took was 1 phone call and a very cheerful employee brought it up within a few minutes. The bed is extremely comfortable. We appreciated the evening turn down service while we were out for dinner. Breakfast in the morning was delicious and full of variety. Everything was fresh and tasty. The ambiance of the dining room is very lovely. Location is really terrific. We were easily able to order a taxi from the GetTaxi app whenever we needed one. There are also multiple electric scooters for rent on the promenade which we really enjoyed. Very walkable to all the major attractions in Jaffa - the port, the old city, the market. The infinity pool is beautiful, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, and was not crowded at all both times we used it. We just had 1 small hiccup with the oversight of the housekeeping staff on our 2nd day - the room wasn't cleaned in the morning even though the light indicating that we wanted housekeeping was clearly turned on, and I had to call down to the front desk to ask a housekeeper to come. Every time we returned from outside to the lobby we were offered a cold bottle of water by the front desk staff. It was a very nice touch. The stay was refreshing and we look forward to returning!…
Good hotel. Needs fine tuning with staff at front desk. Very expensive especially rates went up 25% without letting us know for the weekend. We stayed 5 nights USD$5450. Location in Jaffa very busy could not get a cab most days. The hotel needs to provide better transport service for travellers. Rooms are quite small (motel style). Breakfast excellent and friendly staff. Pool too big for area. Pool deck too small so you’re sitting on top of everyone. Especially when guests invite friends who live in Israel and they take up all the seats.
Here I sit quarantined at The Setai Tel Aviv with a case of Covid 19 and $20,000 in Setai room charges on my American Express. How did I get to this unenviable place? A little bad luck, followed by a lot of bad judgment, corner-cutting, and low integrity on the part of The Setai Tel Aviv management. We had high hopes for our quick 5 days in Tel Aviv. My DH, DS, and I were looking forward to touring Jerusalem, climbing Masada at sunrise, soaking in the Dead Sea, and wandering Tel Aviv’s dynamic streets, none of which we were ultimately able to do. I’ll start at the beginning. Our vacation started well when we checked into our sea view executive suite (Platinum Amex Travel price: $1300; website price $1650). The suite was as promised: huge, with numerous windows providing 180 degree views of the gorgeous Mediterranean (and a less scenic view of the 20-somethings instagramming themselves and hoarding pool chairs at the small infinity pool a couple levels down). This was a pricey room, but big enough for all three of us, and we looked forward to spending most of our time outside of it rather than in it: we had so many things to do in Israel! Unfortunately, the day after we checked in - a Friday - our 16 YO son was feeling sick, so that afternoon he — and my DH and I also — took at-home Covid tests. DS was positive, but we were negative. We called down to the front desk to ask what to do, given that best practice is for the Covid-positive person to be isolated. But the manager on duty at the time - Alex - told us that we shouldn’t tell anyone about the positive result, because getting a doctor’s note would mean that the Israeli government would know, which would keep us from flying out, given that Israel enforced a 5-day minimum quarantine by putting a hold on tourist passports as a way to keep Israelis- and the rest of the world - safe from Covid-19. That said, every travel insurance policy and every airline requires an actual doctor’s note confirming Covid-19 for trip interruption and other benefits to be paid, so “not telling anyone” was not an option for us. Plus, the idea of coming to Israel and violating Israeli law did NOT sit comfortably with us in the slightest. Our son was exposed to Covid because another family behaved irresponsibly and the last thing we wanted was to do the same. So we declined Alex’s offer to break Israeli protocol. We asked Alex if he agreed that the best course of action would be to get our son his own room, but Alex said that the hotel was very booked and we needed to ask him the next day. On Saturday, the following day, our third day, almost the entire day was taken up by us trying to find a doctor to provide the medical note that Alex had advised us not to acquire. Finally, towards the end of the day, Concierge Elizabeth reluctantly arranged for a medical professional to come after Shabbat (Israel’s most privileged people do not answer calls or assist others from Friday afternoon through Saturday sundown), who ultimately showed up at 11.30 PM to provide the official diagnosis: our son had Covid-19. This was our son’s third night in our hotel room with us, despite his being Covid-positive. When I asked again that Ari be isolated to his own room that day, I was again told that the hotel “was fully booked up.” Sunday thankfully our son was moved to his own room, on his Day 3 with Covid (Day 2 to the Israeli govt because they start counting the day of his official diagnosis - Saturday), but again due to “lack of availability” we had to stay in the room where our Covid-positive son was staying rather than move to a clean room to avoid infection. It wasn’t until Monday, Day 4 of our son’s Covid, that we were able to move to a new room, where we stayed on Monday night. By then, however, I was clearly sick. On Monday night I took a covid test - positive - and on Tuesday another healthcare professional came back to give PCR tests to me and my husband. I was positive and DH was negative. So now my quarantine — a quarantine that could have been prevented had the Setai isolated my son in a timely manner — began. Fortunately, my son recovered from Covid on Day 6, and he and my husband flew back to California early this morning. But I remain. Today is Day 4 of my mandatory Covid quarantine, and I finally took the time to ask for my hotel bills. Here is what I found: 1. The room my son was moved to (620) cost $762/night even though it has only one small window, which is marred by bird droppings. 2. The room my husband was moved to (520) also cost $762/night even though both the refrigerator and television were broken, and it lacked a coffee machine. 3. My new room cost $890/night despite the fact that the television is broken — something I notified the hotel about upon move-in but that they never did anything about, saying that they cannot go in due to my covid -- the same excuse they used to refuse to move me to a room with a working tv (because of my covid). They insisted that even though I acquired covid while staying at their hotel! 4. They charged us $450 for laundry, even though they lost my husband’s (irreplaceable) 2012 SF Giants World Series Champions hat — an outrageously irresponsible thing for them to do; and no they have not apologized of that or offered to compensate us in any way for the fact that the hat we sent to their laundry service never returned. Since checking into this hotel 9 days ago, I have spent countless hours dealing with the hotel management’s false kindness and disingenuous promises, all while arrogantly chastising and barely tolerating us for having the plague that they themselves gave to me by refusing to segregate the sick members from the healthy members of our travel group. As my husband worked hard to shuttle food to my room and to our son’s, the management glowered and made it quite clear that we did not make the correct choice by participating in Israel’s legal covid process. While the hotel clearly considered us to be a burden on them, in truth we never bothered telling the hotel about the many broken and non-working things that should not be so ubiquitous in a presumed 5-star hotel: the phone lines that only occasionally connect to the front desk and room service; the curtains that roll off their rods due to lack of stoppers; the numerous broken appliances and non-functioning electrical outlets; the hotel bicycle which threw its chain and covered my husband in grease (inspiring the door man from refusing him re-entry to the hotel: very classy, Setai); and of course, the nonfunctional televisions, refrigerators, and coffee machines. These were the rooms for which the Setai was charging us $800 ( for my son), $800 (for my husband) and $900 (for me) a night — $2500/night total!! That is US dollars, I must clarify. For rooms with these problems, the Setai charged my family a total of $2500 a night. And we were supposed to be grateful. (When I asked Alex why he charged us so much for the rooms, he explained, “You said your insurance would cover it!” You can’t make this stuff up.) Now that I have been here for 9 days — with another one or two to go — I am able to see that even if I were not living this covid nightmare at the Setai, I would not choose it again regardless. I feel particularly let down most of all by the hotel’s irresponsible sustainability practices. At at time when all high quality hotels are implementing conservation measures, the Setai has none. Plastic bottles of water and plastic containers of single-use toiletries litter the rooms. The brand of shampoo, soap, and conditioner chosen by the hotel is not cruelty-free and is known to practice animal testing. The room allows the air conditioner to be on with the windows open, and allows the lights to remain on when no one is in the room. Worse: even though the Setai claims to cater to an Orthodox Jewish clientele, it is impossible to get from the 6th floor to the lobby without the use of an elevator. I tried on multiple occasions (there are stairs, but maintenance and other departments stores things there, and the stairs do not run down to the first level - I do not understand why). Worst of all: it is almost impossible to maintain a Vegan diet at the Setai. A Kosher hotel, the restaurant and room service loads up on the dairy, fish and meat options, but the room service menu contains not even ONE item that does not have cheese or other dairy. I had to ask the chef to point out vegan options at the beautiful and otherwise extensive buffet breakfast. Often special options had to be prepared for me. The Setai opened in 2018, well into the day and age when we know that sustainability and plant-based diets are extremely important aspects of saving the earth for future generations, yet here at the Setai, it feels like 1980 and everyone-out-for-themselves-ism all over again. I guess it all adds up. A hotel that demonstrates such little regard for a family infected by Covid — even when one of the family members caught Covid at the hotel — obviously is not going to care for things like our natural environment either. Do yourself a favor and stay somewhere else.…
Everything about this hotel is perfect; Excellent Service, Beautiful Rooms, Infinity Pool overlooking Tel Aviv coast line, Great Shabbat Dinner, so many outdoor decks to enjoy and chill on. Amazing ambiance. We will be back
We had a fantastic stay, from the personal service from Alex, to the rich breakfast and the superb pool. The best hotel in Israel, both in term of service and in terms of location and proximity to Jaffa's trendy flea market and it's restaurants, to Neve Tzedek and the beach. Highly recommended!
This was the second time we had stayed at the hotel this year and once again the service was excellent. On our previous visit in winter we were not able to enjoy the outside areas but combined with the excellent service this added to our enjoyment and any issue was dealt with efficiently Elizabeth the concierge assisted us on both stays and merits special mention We look forward to returning
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