The summer vacation ended quite a long time ago, something you feel with the decrease in the hustle and bustle and the number of children vacationing in the public space – and there's something good about that, because let's admit that it's more pampering to experience an adults-only "all inclusive", which is actually what you do at Dream Island, an Israeli gem that is an advanced Mediterranean resort.
The boutique hotel has a spa complex and you can also find culinary treats, with a particularly family atmosphere on top of everything. But let's start with the food – an empty stomach is a prerequisite for arrival. Around the outdoor area, which includes a watsu pool (a method of body care performed in a hot water pool) and an ecological lake, they rest five podtrax, which are basically conceptual food stalls where you can eat as much as you want, free of charge.
Dream Island Hotel, photo: PR
The food is constantly changing to suit the style of the year, and when we arrived at the place – our choice was between the fricasa stand that a real expert prepares on the spot in front of your hungry eyes; the Moroccan stall offering sphinges and mufletas; a pizza stand with a built-in tabun that gives a delightful interpretation of focaccia and vegan cheese; Asian stall of rice and fish; a custom-made salad stand; A rich rustic stand, as well as a cocktail stand (extra charge) next to the bar on the upper terrace. If you want something sweet, you can also find a kind of ice cream and sweets stand. You can sit with all your loot in one of the seating areas or on swings overlooking the lake.
The hotel restaurant has been redesigned into small spaces, with lighting dimming at night and colorful spotlights illuminating the plated dishes in mysterious tones. The menu (kosher, like all the food in the complex) brings couples from the area who want to eat well without children who demand a sugary drink or snack at the next table. In the first courses, the caramelized pear with foie gras wins, the main courses – gnocchi and angus, and although smarter people than me say that the best dessert for meat is meat – we didn't skip the last dishes either.
The best way to relax from so much food is through one of the three pools on site, hot pools with small waterfalls, Jacuzzi streams and even beds built into the water, for those of you who need a nap between meals. The hotel also houses a chestnut restaurant, which you can enter from the inside if you're lucky or from the outside if you didn't think in advance that it would be better to combine a spa session before dinner.
A meal at the Dream Island Hotel, photo: Tal Lev Ran
This is not Europe
Near the pools there is a shop reminiscent of the promenade in Eilat, where backpacks, wallets and large dolls are sold, and opposite you can find a cosmetics store. The snobbish parts we are used to encountering in such compounds in Israel and around the world were left out. The quality – luxury, the atmosphere – popular (in a good way), and even the price is reasonable (NIS 880-590 for a daily entertainment package). There is no extravagance, there is room for everyone. This is also why alongside the outdoor pools, where the most beautiful boutique rooms come, you can find a synagogue.
Two other specialties sit in rare locations within these dreamy 60 acres. One – designated cabins for massages, and the other – a wine workshop held in a glass room overlooking an ancient winepress that was discovered there. Here, too, it's not a professional wine workshop, but more of an unpretentious wine tasting of a few bottles that, if you're a fan of the genre, you've probably drunk before. Serving Suggestion: Collaborations with wineries that fill Mateh Yehuda can upgrade the wine motif.
During Sukkot, you can find at Dream Island a particularly worthwhile retreat with sports priestess Ira Dolphin (who will also lecture on a healthy lifestyle); lifestyle, relationship and fitness workshops; A cocoa workshop, and even a guided dip in an ice bath that contributes to the release of dopamine in the body (having a heated hot tub nearby, it's not a bad idea at all), in addition to the yoga and Pilates classes that are taught here every day throughout the year.
Dream Island pools, photo: PR
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