Eilat

I have to say that Eilat was all that. We had a great time and made all the people who brought their children very jealous. The hotel was very nice, though the couches weren't comfortable and the lobby didn't really have a sitting area. We got a little suite with a kitchenette and sitting room for the two of us.

Thursday night we had a nice bbq when we got there after the flight. We then went on a nice long walk along the boardwalk, where we saw there was nothing interesting for sale. We ended up buying some tshirts for souveneirs for the kids.
We were in bed by midnight and got up bright and early and went swimming. You would think that you could sleep in without kids, but apparantly it doesn't always work that way. Breakfast was great. Waffles and burekas and danishes and tons of other stuff. Our morning tiyul was cancelled because there was a triathlon that was blocking the bus route, so we had free time. We considered going to the dolphin reef or the underwater observatory, but we had to be back by 12 to go on the boat. So we first walked along the boardwalk for a little bit. We stopped at Kings City, the new biblically themed amusement park, and got information but we didn't go in. (It costs 118 shekel a person and you have to be about 4 feet to go on the King Solomon Waterfall ride.) We then went back to the hotel and went swimming in the pool. That was a lot of fun. They have a very funky pool with a number of different interconnected sections, so you can swim from one section to the other. There is one "bea!
ch" section, where there was sand/gravel in the entire pool section and up onto the shore. You could sit on the lawn chair and feel like you're at the beach. There was a Pantheon type section where water was pouring out of a greek looking structure, There was a sprinkler section, where you swim through water shooting at you from both sides. There were waterfalls pouring down on you and caves that you could swim in to.
They also had a huge waterslide, it took a full minute going down.

The boat was a lot of fun. It had 2 Jacuzzis and chairs and tables and mattresses, a bar with beer and soft drinks and decent music (if you discount the one bob marley song they played). We anchored in the middle somwehere and got to go swimming in the Red Sea. They also had snorkel masks, which I tried, but there was nothing to see because we were about 100 feet above the bottom and fish don't swim that high.

There was a bbq on the boat for lunch after which we turned around and went back to shore for shabbos.

Shabbos we lazed around. There was no minyan in our hotel (though there were more then 10 people with kippas), so I went to the hotel next door.

It was a great trip and I highly recommend it.

We got home and the basement was filled with water, but that's a
different story.