Beit Shmuel Guest House

The location of Beit Shmuel is excellent – about a 5-minute walk to the Jaffa Gate of the Old City. The price of our hotel room was less than the more highly-rated nearby hotels, and we were extremely happy with our stay here. Reading Trip Advisor, though, some people seem disappointed in the place, and I think I can provide some helpful advice so you can decide if you want to save a lot of money and stay here, or pay a lot more and stay elsewhere. We considered this a fantastic bargain in Jerusalem, and I recommend it highly, but read on to make sure you agree before booking. Beit Shmuel is both a guesthouse (rooms with 3 bunk beds, that sleep up to 6 people) and a hotel (rooms that sleep 2-4 people - your children might be able to stay in a hotel room with you, but you might want to call and ask to be sure you get a larger room with a pull-out couch, or book a guestroom). When we tried to book our hotel room online, using TripAdvisor and Hotels.com, the only price and rooms noted were for the guesthouse. The price for the guesthouse room is less than the price for the hotel room, but the hotel rooms are still a bargain compared to other hotels (which will also probably be farther from the Old City). So if you want a basic room that sleeps up to 6 people (you won’t be sharing with others – it’s your room), or a slightly more expensive room that sleeps 2 comfortably, choose the “guesthouse” or “hotel”. We had to call the hotel directly in order to reserve a hotel room. This probably explains many of the reviews, where people ‘upgraded’ onsite to a hotel room, because they didn’t have the option of booking the hotel online and didn’t understand the difference in room type. The rooms, though, are located next to each other – there is only one building, and part of it is the cultural center and offices. Now for the guesthouse/hotel itself. It’s no-frills. The ‘lobby’ is shared with the cultural center. It’s large, clean, contemporary, and spacious, but doesn’t look like a hotel lobby and the ‘hotel desk’ is only staffed from, I think, 8 am to 11 pm. There is a guard at the door, so you can go in and out at any time, but there isn’t any reception staff during overnight hours, and it might be 8:10 am before a staff member gets to the desk in the morning. The staff are helpful, and speak English. The rooms are simple and clean. By "clean" I mean there was no dust and no visible dirt in the room or bathroom, the sheets were fresh and clean, the beds were made. We had room 252, a small hotel room with a bed for two but not a couch (the larger hotel rooms are the same price, I think, but we were 2 people and our room was great). If you opened the window and leaned out a little, you could see the wall of the Old City about 200 meters away. The bathroom was clean and had a large tub and a good shower. By "clean" I mean there was no visible dirt. There were a few cracks in the stone around the sink. While this wasn’t a ‘luxury’ room, it was clean, functional, and we were very happy with it. The air conditioner worked well, as did the windows, which could be opened (although one could not be locked). It’s cooler in Jerusalem than in most of the rest of Israel, so bring a jacket for the evening and enjoy the lovely cool evening breeze. So here’s where the ‘no frills’ part might not be for everyone. Our room was not cleaned or serviced every day. If you want fresh towels or more toiletries (soap, shampoo, conditioner), you can either find the very nice woman with the cart, who is deaf and does not speak, but can figure out what you need (she reads lips in Arabic, also) and seems eager to help you, or you can bring your used towels to the reception desk during hours and get fresh towels. Make your own bed. If you’re okay with that, Beit Shmuel is a bargain. If you’re not okay with that, you’ll probably write a bad review because you were expecting something else. Our price included breakfast, and here’s another ‘no frills’ fact. The hotels that charge twice as much (or more) will have a much larger, incredibly impressive, breakfast buffet with an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables, cheeses, hot foods, desserts, omelets, and salads. Many tourists to Israel cite the amazing breakfast buffets as close-to-the-best part of their trip. Beit Shmuel does not have an impressive breakfast: it has very good coffee, a large pot of hot water for tea, lemonade, one fresh lettuce salad (with cucumbers and tomatoes in separate bowls), one type of freshly-baked (locally, not at the hotel) bagel/bun and one type of (whole wheat or white) bread, and spreads (jelly, chocolate, honey). Each morning had something like tuna salad, shakshuka, or pasta, so if you want to ‘fill up’ and save money by not eating lunch, you can do it. It was a very simple breakfast by Israeli hotel standards, but we were happy with it. If you want a luxury breakfast, you should pay the luxury price at another hotel. The coffee was great – either brewed and in a pot on a heatplate or from a “European-type” machine. My husband is the coffee connoisseur in our family and he loved the coffee from the machine. I’m a tea drinker and was very happy with the very hot water and Lipton tea bags, plus a carton of milk and small packets of honey. So please understand that if you stay here that you will have a simple breakfast. The breakfast area has large round tables and a few smaller tables. The man who is in charge of breakfast is helpful and personable (I’m sorry I forgot his name – he went out of his way to talk to us and brought me honey after he noticed I was using it). Many of the guestrooms (the rooms with bunkbeds) were taken by ‘gap year’ young adults, mostly from the US and Canada, who are on a gap year cultural exchange and stay in the guesthouse. They are exuberant and noisy at night, and you will hear them talking and making noise in the evening as they return from wherever they’ve been. Again, we were fine with this – it was happy noise, but if you’re sensitive or apt to complain about noise, consider this. They’re staying here long term and consider this as home, and you’re only here a few days. There are safe deposit boxes on the first floor that require the assistance of someone from the reception desk to access: you will get a key to your box but they have the other key. You can leave your room key at the desk while you explore the city. The free wi-fi worked well.