Last Updated on April 1, 2023 by PowersToTravel
The Planning
During our travel planning, our Petra excursion grew from one singular place to a whole host of interesting sights in Jordan. This growth was in many ways due to the well-designed website at Jordan Horizons Tours. With tours for one day, two days, three days, and the list goes on, we ultimately found ourselves considering a twelve day tour! What? Twelve days when we originally planned for two?
We finally decided on a seven day tour which included a day excursion to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Castles, Roman ruins, the Dead Sea, the Red Sea, Wadi Rum and, I shouldn’t forget to mention, Petra, all engaged my imagination. It grew to become a destination kind of location versus a simple stop-over.
Jordan Horizons also recommended hotels, not just one or two, but quite a number in each price category. That meant the detailed-oriented planner in me had to read the reviews, and learn their features. Do they have refrigerators for my insulin? Do they have king sized beds?
That led to investigating marvelous 5-star hotels at the Dead Sea and at Wadi Rum.
If we are going to stay at the Dead Sea and the Sea is the draw, we want the best possible access. We want to be able to walk right into the sea, on sand. Not every hotel has that feature. The Hilton certainly does. (And it has a golf cart to bring you back up to the hotel afterwards! and an awesome Italian restaurant.) At Wadi Rum we learned about tent camps in the desert: the tent camps with canvas tents, the camps with geodesic bubbles, and then there’s Memories Aitcha which stood out head and shoulders above the competition for its glass domes and luxurious “Arabian Knights” ambiance.
As I tried to juggle the availability at the Hilton at the Dead Sea, Memories Aitcha and certain dahabiya boats in Egypt I managed a multi-faceted spreadsheet. If we get this boat, then I lose the Hilton. If we get this boat, I can’t choose the suite at Memories… The itinerary swirled and swirled until the dahabiya boat was settled, and happily on a schedule which would give us the boat, the Hilton Sea View King, and the Panoramic Tent (not the suite) at Memories….
I immediately wrote to Aida and asked, “Please put together this trip as soon as possible, all the stars are lining up…” Very quickly she was able to give us the quote but not all our accommodations. She was unable to book my favorite hotels. Strange that, that an agent can’t book a hotel that a stray internet user can? She said “They don’t show as available for me. Go ahead and book your two favorites and I will book the rest.”
I went to book the airfare and found that we were destined to have a six hour layover in Istanbul. I informed Greg. I always do, so he can adjust his thinking. And so he did. “Can we fly directly to Tel Aviv and start the Jerusalem part of the trip from there?” That started a flurry of activity and I found that indeed we could fly from Boston to Tel Aviv with a much shorter layover in Istanbul. We indeed could have Aida plan our pickup in Tel Aviv and cut hours of driving off our trip. It seemed a no-brainer.
I should have remembered our land crossing from Vietnam to Cambodia, and how the immigration bureaucracy likes you to come in by airports, and makes everything so much more difficult if you cross by land…. That’s a story for a different time. I just can’t recommend doing the King Hussein Bridge crossing into Jordan.
Back to the planning. Aida so clearly documented each and every element of the trip: the car, the driver, the excursions, the hotels and provided a clear exact tour and cost. I booked and paid the deposit immediately.
Trip Execution
Jerusalem and Bethlehem with Michael Jackaman
I’m just kicking myself because I had our guide write down both his name and his agency. Then I proceeded to lose that scrap of paper! I know his name, Michael Jackaman, because I always write the names of our guides and drivers in my expenses list. Our driver was Nasif. But who did they work for? We never actually dealt with their agency – Jordan Horizons did the coordination between the two agencies in the two countries.
Why does it matter? It matters because Michael and Nasif were outstanding. Michael is now on our “top-guides-of-the-world” list (along with Kledi Milloshi in Albania, Oualid Naciri in Morocco and Riyen in Cambodia.) Michael gave us such perspective on the ancient history and current life in Israel and the West Bank.
Just now I Googled Michael to see what I could find, and I found him, and his own personal agency, MichaelTours. Check him out. As you can tell, we very highly recommend him.
After only day in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, we feel so much more educated. That’s what travel is supposed to give you – education and perspective (and some great pictures!)
Jordan
Did you know I was an IT Manager? IT Managers know how to Manage. They don’t necessarily know how to program and my programmers wouldn’t let me program. There are tried and true reasons for that!
Unfortunately for us, the driver who met us at the King Hussein Bridge that first night was not a driver/guide, he was the Operations Manager. I wonder what was going on at the time within the company or industry? Were drivers hard to come by? Was just one person out sick? Why did we get the Manager?
Normally one might think that getting the Manager is getting an improvement, a step up, but just as my programmers wouldn’t want me to program, an Operations Manager shouldn’t be interfacing with the customers.
He started off on the wrong foot by yelling at us for, in his opinion, showing up at the wrong location at the very confusing King Hussein immigration crossing. We asked people at every step of the way through the building and parking lots, “Where do we go, where do we go?” We were finally debouched outside the Immigration building on a dark street facing a row of black Mercedes with their drivers. Seemed to us to be the right location. Only no one had our “POWERS” sign. As we struggled with our luggage on the unpaved street, this man ran up to us, “Powers? Why are you here? Why aren’t you there? You were supposed to be there? Why didn’t you call me?” It was all so confusing. He didn’t seem very nice.
We were driven by the manager for two more days. He was constantly on his phone, probably coordinating “Operations.” Occasionally he would speak to us, but he would speak facing forwards (appreciated since he was driving!) in a normal/quiet voice and we couldn’t hear him over the noise of the car and the road with the windows down. (Isn’t a driver supposed to ask the passengers if they want the windows up or down? We did say we wanted them up, but that’s not where they were.) We would say, “We’re so sorry but we can’t hear you,” and he would act as if we were being rude.
He just wasn’t a trained and pleasant tourist driver. He even tried to intimidate us not to stop at a castle which was in our itinerary. “It’s not good, it’s not worth it.” I stuck my ground, “I want to see it.” So we did, see it. It was really worth it. It was Shobak Castle.
It was that evening he informed us we would be getting a new driver the next day after our Petra hike. Was the new driver suddenly available and our Operations Manager could get back to his Manager role? Or did he realize we weren’t as pliable as he wanted us to be and now that we were pissed not as likely to give him a big tip? We didn’t know and were just happy to have a new driver.
We were especially happy when we met Jihad. Jihad was wonderful: friendly, accommodating, conversational, informative – everything a driver should be. Now our vacation felt as if it were back on track.
Apart from the Manager/driver issue, everything about the arrangements made by Jordan Horizons was top-notch. Our hotels were excellent – even better than I was led to expect by the reviews and stars. The coordination of desert to snorkel to castle was flawless. We only have a few lessons learned.
Lessons Learned
Arrive in Jordan at the Amman Airport. I’ll write an article about the extra effort and stresses involved with land crossing.
When flying out of Amman, don’t stay in Amman the night before. Traffic in Amman is terrible. It was terrible getting back to our Amman hotel the night before after a long day’s sightseeing and drive from Aqaba. Then to have dinner, sleep and turn around and fight that same traffic back out of the city to the airport? It was hell. It’s much better to stay at the airport hotel. There is only one airport hotel, and if it’s booked then staying in the southern area of the city of Amman, or even Madaba might be worth discussing. I wish Jordan Horizons had counseled us, and not recommended a downtown hotel.
If you wonder if your trip might be a little rushed, then it probably is. No one I knew had ever been to Jordan and I wasn’t sure if perhaps we might be disappointed. Would the transfers between locations be boring? Would the locations themselves be boring and not require as much time as I hoped? You should have no such concerns! Jordan is a fantastically varietous and interesting place to visit. Nothing will be wasted, and certainly not your time, if you slow it down a bit. Spend an extra afternoon in the Wadi Rum desert riding a camel, spend the whole day at Aqaba. There’s no reason to rush through Jordan.
Bottom Line
I highly recommend Jordan Horizons Tours, and I highlight recommend requesting Jihad!
Note: I have no sponsors and am not recompensed for any reviews.
