Haifa · Where to stay
Where to stay in Haifa
Fifteen of the nineteen hotels in the listing snapshot behind this page stand either in the restored Templer streets at the foot of the mountain or on the Carmel ridge above them, and the funicular that joins the two climbs 274 metres.
Saturday check-in
18:00
Dan Hotels gives rooms out from 18:00 on Saturdays and the last day of festivals, against 15:00 midweek
VAT on the room
None for tourists
Dan's own legal terms state that tourists paying for hotel rooms in foreign currency are VAT exempt
Between the two hotel districts
274 m
What the Carmelit lifts in a 1.8 km tunnel between Downtown and Carmel Centre
The Colony's building
1905
Built for the Appinger family of the Templer colony and run as the Appinger hotel until 1978
People do sleep in Haifa, and unlike most of northern Israel the beds are inside the city rather than scattered around it. But they are not spread evenly. The hotel stock sits in two tight clusters at opposite ends of a mountain: a dozen small conversions in the preserved Templer streets at sea level, and a handful of large hotels along the ridge road several hundred metres above. Choosing between those two is the decision that shapes a Haifa trip.
The clusters are not variations on a theme. At the bottom are stone houses of the 1870s to the 1900s with seven to forty rooms, a boulevard of restaurants outside the door and the lower gate of the Bahai Gardens at the head of the street. On the ridge are lifts, pools, gyms and a view over Haifa Bay to the Galilee, with a funicular ride between you and dinner. Haifa has no kibbutz guesthouses, no zimmerim and no desert khans: it has these two things, and a thin scattering of cheaper rooms in the interwar district between them.
The ten places below were researched from the operators' own pages: room counts, building histories, what the parking costs, when the room is handed over on a Saturday. Ratings and review counts are not in the writing. They render from the dated listing snapshot in its own panel, so it is always clear when they were pulled. Nightly rates are not here either, because they move week to week and would be wrong before you finished reading.
10 places to stay
The places to stay worth the trip in Haifa
Our pick and why, then everything the listing knows, with the date it was pulled.
01
The Colony Hotel
The German Colony, in the oldest hotel building on it
The house at 28 Ben Gurion Avenue was built in 1905 for the Appinger family of the Templer community and traded as the Appinger hotel until 1978, with two sisters running it into the early 1940s and a restaurant that drew British officers. It was bought in 2006 and restored under the supervision of Haifa city hall's conservation department, at a cost Ynetnews reported as close to 15 million shekels over about eighteen months, reopening as a forty-room boutique hotel with a rooftop that looks at the Bahai Gardens and the sea. Its position at the lower end of the avenue puts the whole lit garden axis outside the door after dark and the railway station and port within a walk. The breakfast buffet is sold to non-guests as well, Sunday to Thursday from 07:00 to 10:00 at 95 shekels, which is a useful signal that there is a real kitchen behind it. The trade is the street: Ben Gurion Avenue is the busiest pavement in Haifa on a weekend evening.
Booking is direct through the hotel's own reservation system or by telephone on 04-8513344.
“Wonderful service pleasant and nice, clean hotel with very good breakfast”
A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing. 4.41,187 ratings86% of raters gave four or five stars.
Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.
Map, hours and reviews- Address
- David Ben Gurion Ave 28
- Kitchen
- Hotel
- Phone
- +9724-851-3344
- Website
- colony-hotel.co.il
02
Dan Carmel Haifa Hotel
The view, and a heated pool to look at it from
Dan Carmel stands at 85-87 Hanassi Avenue on the crest of the ridge, near the Louis Promenade, with Haifa Bay and the Galilee and Golan skylines opening out below the windows. It has a large heated outdoor pool with a separate heated children's pool set in gardens, the Share spa, a fully equipped gym, an executive lounge on the tenth floor and the Palachi Pub, plus underground parking at extra cost and electric vehicle chargers when they are free. It is one of the very few hotels in the city that takes pets, at 200 shekels a night outside holiday periods, alongside the usual service and guide dogs. Check-in is 15:00, or 18:00 on Saturdays and the last day of festivals, with checkout at noon. The trade is the mountain: dinner in the German Colony is a funicular ride, a bus or a taxi away, and the ridge is quiet once the restaurants down the hill have filled up.
“Amazing experience, great service and food, awesome views and specious room”
A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing. 4.76,828 ratings93% of raters gave four or five stars.
Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.
Map, hours and reviews- Address
- Hanassi Ave 85-87
- Kitchen
- Hotel
- Phone
- +9724-830-3030
- Website
- danhotels.com
03
Hotel Botanica
A rooftop pool at the foot of the terraces
Botanica occupies 50 Ben Gurion Avenue at the top of the German Colony, closer to the garden gate than anything else on the street, and Fattal runs it under its Limited Edition label rather than as a standard chain box. The rooftop pool opens from April to October, there is a fitness room, and breakfast is a Mediterranean buffet from the Palm restaurant. Room categories are named for what they face, including Bahai Gardens rooms and suites and a Templars category, so the view here is something you buy deliberately rather than hope for. Underground parking is charged at 50 shekels a day on weekdays and 60 at weekends, or by the minute, and the machines take a card or an app rather than cash. The spa was listed as under renovation when this page was researched, so confirm it before booking on that basis.
“Nice comfortable rooms, good location pleasant service, excellent breakfast.”
A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing. 4.71,199 ratings91% of raters gave four or five stars.
Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.
Map, hours and reviews- Address
- David Ben Gurion Ave 50
- Kitchen
- Hotel
- Phone
- +9724-604-0409
- Website
- botanicahotel.co.il
04
Hotel Schumacher Haifa
Adults only, one street back from the noise
Schumacher has forty rooms and suites split between a restored and preserved Templer structure and a modern building beside it, on Lohamei HaGetaot one block behind Ben Gurion Avenue. It is adults only, which is the whole point of it: rooms run from 20 sq m classics through 23 sq m superiors to suites of 30 to 35 sq m, and the accessible rooms are the ground-floor classics with their own patio. Its facilities list is short and honest, running to a treatment room, a boutique events space and a rooftop sun deck, and it directs guests to free street parking and the public car park rather than charging for a garage. Being one street back removes most of the Friday night noise from the avenue at a cost of about two minutes' walk. For two people who want the German Colony without a boulevard outside the window, this is the sharpest answer in the city.
“Clean, great service, excellent location.”
A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing. 4.7615 ratings95% of raters gave four or five stars.
Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.
Map, hours and reviews- Address
- Lochamei Ha-Getaot St 25
- Kitchen
- Hotel
- Phone
- +9724-880-6070
- Website
- theschumacher.co.il
05
Mirabelle Plaza Haifa
Waking up level with the top of the gardens
Mirabelle Plaza stands at 111 Yefe Nof, the ridge road that carries the Louis Promenade and the Bahai Gardens' upper balcony, which makes the terraces a walk along a clifftop rather than a climb up one. It is the Dan property on Yefe Nof rather than on Hanassi Avenue, and Yefe Nof is the quieter of the two ridge roads: the view side rather than the shopping side. Being a Dan hotel, it carries the group's terms, which means rooms from 15:00 midweek and from 18:00 on Saturdays and the last day of festivals, and the tourist VAT exemption applied at the desk on a foreign-currency payment. Rooms are sold by aspect, so the bay-facing side is a decision to make at booking. Anyone whose priority is the gardens and the promenade rather than restaurants should start here.
“The hotel has a great location, you can see all Haifa from your balcony.”
A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing. 4.2604 ratings80% of raters gave four or five stars.
Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.
Map, hours and reviews- Address
- Yefe Nof St 111
- Kitchen
- Hotel
- Phone
- +9724-835-2352
- Website
- danhotels.co.il
06
Dan Panorama Haifa Hotel
Families who want a mall attached
Twenty-one storeys at 107 Hanassi Avenue, with the Panorama Mall at its base and Carmel Centre's shops and bus stops at the door, which is as close to self-contained as a Haifa hotel gets. It has a large swimming pool with a children's pool and a sauna, and Dan's own page calls its gym the biggest fitness centre in the north of Israel. Underground parking is 70 shekels a day subject to space, and check-in runs from 15:00 midweek, 18:00 on Saturdays and the last day of festivals, with checkout at noon. Unlike its sister hotel a few hundred metres up the road it does not take pets beyond service, guide and rescue dogs. It is the least atmospheric hotel on this page and the most practical one to travel with children in.
“Outstanding hotel, staff is great, food is wonderful and has an amazing view”
A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing. 4.77,650 ratings93% of raters gave four or five stars.
Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.
Map, hours and reviews- Address
- Hanassi Ave 107
- Kitchen
- Hotel
- Phone
- +9724-835-2222
- Website
- danhotels.com
07
Sol Hotel Haifa
Seventeen rooms in a Templer schoolhouse
Sol has seventeen rooms at 48 HaGanim, in a Templer building that served as a residence until 1940 and then as a school from 1948, with the stone walls kept through the renovation rather than plastered over. The rooms come in five categories, two of them with balconies, and the ones without are the quieter proposition. It sits behind the tourist boulevard rather than on it, which puts the flea market, Wadi Nisnas and downtown closer than Ben Gurion Avenue does and makes breakfast in a market more natural than breakfast in a hotel. Nothing on its own facilities list runs to a pool or a gym: what it sells is the building, the size and the position. Book it if the appeal of Haifa is the Templer quarter itself rather than the view from above it.
“Perfect location, clean rooms , the stuff are super helpful and nice.”
A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing. 4.9248 ratings98% of raters gave four or five stars.
Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.
Map, hours and reviews- Address
- HaGanim St 48
- Kitchen
- Hotel
- Phone
- +97252-612-0612
- Website
- solstay.co.il
08
Eden Hotel Haifa
Arriving with a car and a budget
Eden is in a 1930s building at 8 Dr Shemaryahu Levin in Hadar, the interwar terrace on the slope between downtown and the ridge, and it puts an Israeli breakfast and free parking for the whole stay inside the room price, which almost nothing else in Haifa does. Rooms run from a 16 sq m budget double through historic doubles that keep the original 1930s features to family rooms of 25 and 40 sq m, the larger with a terrace. The hotel puts Talpiot market at a five-minute walk, Wadi Nisnas at ten, the German Colony at twelve and the Bahai Gardens at fifteen, all of them downhill on the way out and uphill on the way back, which is the standing condition of life in Hadar. There is a small wine bar on the lower floor and the desk works in English, Hebrew, Russian and German. Hadar is a working, immigrant, unglamorous district, and anyone expecting the avenue should book the avenue.
“The hotel is located in the center of everything it’s accessible.”
A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing. 3.7532 ratings62% of raters gave four or five stars.
Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.
Map, hours and reviews- Address
- Dr Shemaryahu Levin 8
- Kitchen
- Hotel
- Phone
- +9724-866-4816
- Website
- edenhaifa.com
09
Leonardo Plaza Haifa
A beach, a year-round pool and a kosher dining room
This is the only pick that is not in the city proper: it stands on David Elazar Boulevard directly on the Mediterranean shore, with Fattal putting it 800 m from the railway station and a kilometre from the central business district. The indoor pool is heated and open all year from 09:00 to 18:00, there is a children's pool, a spa and a fitness room, and the Coral restaurant runs a buffet breakfast from 07:00 to 10:30. Fattal states that meals are kosher, with glatt kosher available on request in advance, which is the clearest published statement of kashrut from any Haifa hotel checked for this page. Outdoor parking is free subject to space and the garage is 45 shekels per 24 hours; check-in is 15:00 midweek and 18:00 on Saturdays and festivals, with Saturday checkout pushed back to 14:00. The trade is unavoidable: the gardens, the German Colony and Wadi Nisnas are all a bus or a drive away rather than a walk.
- Kashrut:
- Kosher
“Rooms tidy, staff friendly, nice breakfast, great view.”
A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing. 4.34,095 ratings83% of raters gave four or five stars.
Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.
Map, hours and reviews- Address
- רב אלוף, David Elazar St 10
- Kitchen
- Hotel
- Phone
- +9724-850-8888
- Website
- fattal.co.il
10
Mila Boutique Hotel
The smallest room count in Haifa, for two people
Mila occupies a Templer house of 1870 at 12 Ben Gurion Avenue, the port end of the boulevard, and is the smallest property on this page by a wide margin: its own pages give the count as seven rooms in one place and eight in another. The historic basement holds a wine bar and a massage room, and there is a courtyard used for small events and a meeting room upstairs. Guests must be 21 or over. Its own site warns that the hotel stands on a main boulevard and that noise outside its control is possible, which is an unusually straight thing for a hotel to publish about itself and should be taken at face value rather than discounted. Book a weekday if quiet matters, and book the avenue deliberately if it does not.
“Amazing hotel, the staff was kind and helpful, and the location is perfect.”
A reviewer, quoted by Google under the listing. 5.0196 ratings99% of raters gave four or five stars.
Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings move; this one is a snapshot, not a live figure.
Map, hours and reviews- Address
- David Ben Gurion Ave 12
- Kitchen
- Hotel
- Phone
- +97251-559-6776
- Website
- milahotel.co.il
The decision
German Colony at the bottom, Carmel ridge at the top
At the foot of the mountain is the quarter the Templers laid out from the late 1860s: one main street running north to south down to the harbour, today Ben Gurion Avenue, with single-family stone houses set in gardens either side of it. Almost all of those houses are now cafes, restaurants, shops and small hotels, and the plaza entrance to the Bahai Gardens stands at the top of the street. Above it, along Hanassi Avenue and Yefe Nof on the crest of the Carmel, are the big hotels with the views. The Carmelit funicular joins the two through a single 1.8 km tunnel, climbing 274 metres from its Downtown station to Carmel Centre, which is a fair measure of how far apart they are.
For a first visit of one or two nights the German Colony wins on almost every count. The gardens are at the end of the street, Wadi Nisnas and the flea market are a few minutes west, the port and Haifa Centre-HaShmona station are downhill, and the restaurants share a pavement with the hotels. That last point matters more than it sounds: the ridge has the views and very little dinner. What you pay for it is noise and small rooms, in converted nineteenth-century houses on a boulevard that fills up on a Friday night.
The ridge is the answer for a longer stay, for a family, or for anyone who came for the view rather than the walk. Yefe Nof carries the Louis Promenade and the gardens' upper balcony, so the terraces are a stroll along a clifftop rather than a climb up one, and these are the only Haifa hotels with pools, spas and gyms of any size. What you give up is spontaneity after dark: the way down is the funicular, a bus or a taxi, and the funicular stops at 15:00 on a Friday and does not reopen until Saturday evening.
Two other options exist and both are narrow. Hadar, the interwar terrace on the slope between them, is cheaper and sometimes comes with free parking at the door, but it looks like a working city rather than a destination and everything worth walking to is downhill on the way out. And one hotel stands on the shore several kilometres west, which suits a car and a beach and little else.
The stock
Restored Templer houses, chain towers, and a gap in the middle
The Templer conversions are the reason to sleep in Haifa rather than commute in from Akko or Tel Aviv, and they are more varied than a walk down the avenue suggests. Mila occupies a house of 1870 at the port end and runs to seven rooms with a wine bar in the historic cellar. Sol has seventeen rooms at 48 HaGanim, in a building that was a private house until 1940 and a school from 1948. Schumacher pairs a restored Templer structure with a modern one beside it, holds forty rooms and suites and takes adults only. The Colony has forty rooms in the 1905 house that traded as the Appinger hotel until 1978. What they share is stone, thick walls, courtyards and stairs.
Stairs are the catch. A preserved building is preserved, which means the lift a modern hotel would have was often never added: City Port, on the upper floor of an old Templer house at 57 Ben Gurion, states on its own site that the hotel and its facilities are not wheelchair accessible. Where step-free access matters, the ridge hotels and the ground-floor patio rooms at Schumacher are the dependable answers, and the right move is to ask rather than trust a symbol on a booking site.
The ridge stock is the ordinary Israeli city hotel done at scale, and two groups own most of it. Dan runs all three ridge properties: Dan Panorama, twenty-one storeys with a mall at its base; Dan Carmel, in gardens near the Louis Promenade with a heated pool and a spa; and Mirabelle Plaza on Yefe Nof above the terraces. Fattal has Botanica at the top of the German Colony and Leonardo Plaza out on the shore. All of them sell rooms by aspect, so a bay view is a category with a price on it rather than something the building hands you.
The week
The Israeli city where Saturday still has buses
The single most useful thing to know about sleeping in Haifa is that the city does not shut the way the rest of Jewish Israel does. Public transport has run here on Shabbat since before the state, under the same status quo understanding that stopped it everywhere else, because the population is mixed. The Times of Israel put it plainly in October 2022: Haifa "has long had some public transport on Shabbat, unlike most majority-Jewish communities". The Carmelit is part of that, running Sunday to Thursday from 06:00 to midnight, stopping at 15:00 on Friday and coming back on Saturday evening.
So a Saturday in Haifa is a normal day for a visitor in a way it is not in Jerusalem: the gardens open, the German Colony trades, most of the city's restaurants carry no kashrut certificate and do not close, and you can get up and down the mountain without a car. It does not mean everything runs. Israel Railways keeps Shabbat, so a Saturday train out of the city does not exist.
The hotels keep the Israeli hotel week regardless. Dan's published terms hand rooms over from 15:00 on ordinary days and from 18:00 on Saturdays and the final day of festivals, with checkout at noon; Fattal's Leonardo Plaza does the same on arrival and pushes Saturday checkout back to 14:00. Anyone landing on a Saturday morning should plan to leave luggage at a desk and spend the day out, which here is genuinely easy.
Breakfast is the meal Israeli hotels do best, it is a buffet, and it is usually inside the room price at the ridge hotels and at Eden in Hadar, which states that an Israeli breakfast is included. In the small Templer conversions it varies, so check rather than assume. The Colony sells its buffet to the public as well as to guests, Sunday to Thursday from 07:00 to 10:00 at 95 shekels a head, which is a fair benchmark at the bottom of the hill.
The bill
VAT, the passport slip, and what a parking space costs by altitude
Tourists do not pay Israeli VAT on a hotel room, and Dan Hotels sets out the mechanics in its own legal terms. The prices on its English site "refer to tourists only and do not include VAT"; Israeli citizens who book through the non-Hebrew sites are charged full VAT under Israeli law; and tourists paying for hotel rooms and car rentals in foreign currency are exempt. The exemption comes off at the front desk rather than being reclaimed at the airport, and it hangs on the foreign currency, so settling in shekels on an Israeli card can lose it. Bring the passport and the border entry slip to the desk: a hotel that cannot see them will charge the tax and be right to.
Parking is the other line that moves the total, and it splits by altitude exactly as everything else in this city does. On the ridge it is a paid garage: Dan Panorama charges 70 shekels a day when there is space, and Dan Carmel charges for its underground car park, which is also where the electric vehicle chargers are. On the shore, Leonardo Plaza leaves its outdoor spaces free and charges 45 shekels per 24 hours for the garage. At the bottom of the mountain Botanica's car park runs at 50 shekels a day on weekdays and 60 at weekends, by card or app only, while Schumacher points guests at free street parking and Eden includes parking in the rate for the whole stay.
The wider arithmetic is that a car is a liability inside Haifa and an asset outside it. The gardens, the German Colony, Wadi Nisnas and the ridge are reachable on foot and by funicular; Akko, Caesarea, the Druze villages and the forest roads all want a vehicle. Picking the car up on the day you leave the city is usually the cheaper shape.
The full list
Every place to stay we found in Haifa
All 18 that Google Maps returned for this area, ranked by rating weighted for how many people rated it, so a five from three people does not outrank a four and a half from three thousand.
| Name | Kind | Rating | Ratings | Price | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mila Boutique Hotel | Hotel | 5.0 | 196 | n/a | Haifa |
| Sol Hotel Haifa | Hotel | 4.9 | 248 | n/a | Haifa |
| Dan Panorama Haifa Hotel | Hotel | 4.7 | 7,650 | n/a | Haifa |
| Dan Carmel Haifa Hotel | Hotel | 4.7 | 6,828 | n/a | Haifa |
| Hotel Botanica | Hotel | 4.7 | 1,199 | n/a | Haifa |
| Carmela Boutique Hotel | Hotel | 4.7 | 625 | n/a | Haifa |
| Hotel Schumacher Haifa | Hotel | 4.7 | 615 | n/a | Haifa |
| City Port Hotel | Hotel | 4.8 | 60 | n/a | Haifa |
| Atelier Luxury Rooms | Hotel | 4.4 | 22 | n/a | Haifa |
| Port Inn | Hotel | 4.4 | 345 | n/a | Haifa |
| Templers Boutique Hotel by Golden Crown | Hotel | 4.4 | 438 | n/a | Haifa |
| The Colony Hotel | Hotel | 4.4 | 1,187 | n/a | Haifa |
| Golden Crown Haifa Hotel | Hotel | 4.3 | 1,300 | n/a | Haifa |
| Leonardo Plaza Haifaמלון לאונרדו פלאזה חיפה - Leonardo Plaza Haifa | Hotel | 4.3 | 4,095 | n/a | Haifa |
| Mirabelle Plaza Haifaמיראבל פלאזה חיפה - Mirabelle Plaza Haifa | Hotel | 4.2 | 604 | n/a | Haifa |
| The Nof Hotelמלון נוף The Nof Hotel | Hotel | 4.0 | 1,742 | n/a | Haifa |
| Satori Hotel Haifa | Hotel | 3.8 | 765 | n/a | Haifa |
| Eden Hotel Haifa | Hotel | 3.7 | 532 | n/a | Haifa |
Google Maps, retrieved . Ratings and counts move daily and this table does not: it is a snapshot, and it is here so the ranking above can be checked rather than taken on trust. Prices are Google's own price band, not a menu price.
Practical
What to know before you go
- Sleep in the German Colony for one or two nights and on the ridge for longer. The avenue puts the gardens, the restaurants and the station inside a walk; the ridge has the pools, the views and the parking, and a funicular ride between you and dinner.
- Settle the room in a foreign currency and put the passport and border entry slip on the desk at check-in. Dan states that tourists paying for hotel rooms in foreign currency are VAT exempt, and the discount is applied on arrival rather than refunded later.
- Do not plan a Saturday morning arrival. Dan hands rooms over from 18:00 on Saturdays and the last day of festivals against 15:00 midweek, and Fattal's Leonardo Plaza does the same.
- Buses and the funicular run on Shabbat here, but the trains do not. Haifa is the exception in Jewish Israel on urban public transport; Israel Railways is not, so a Saturday train out of the city does not exist.
- Ask which way the room faces before booking on the ridge. Dan Carmel, Dan Panorama and Mirabelle Plaza all sell rooms by aspect, so a bay view is a category with a price on it rather than a default.
- Ask about the lift in any Templer conversion. City Port states on its own site that the hotel and its facilities are not wheelchair accessible, and preserved stone houses rarely gained lifts on the way to becoming hotels.
- Price the parking before the room. Seventy shekels a day at Dan Panorama or 50 to 60 at Botanica adds up over four nights, while Eden includes it and Schumacher sends guests to free street parking and the public car park.
- Pools are a ridge and shore matter. Dan Carmel and Dan Panorama have them, Botanica's rooftop pool runs April to October, and Leonardo Plaza's heated indoor pool on the shore is the one that is open all year.
The figures
Numbers behind this page
Each figure carries the year it belongs to and links the source it came from.
| Measure | Figure | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rooms at The Colony Hotel | 40 | 2009 | ynetnews.com |
| Rooms and suites at Hotel Schumacher Haifa | 40 | 2026 | theschumacher.co.il |
| Rooms at Sol Hotel Haifa | 17 | 2026 | solstay.co.il |
| Breakfast buffet for non-guests at The Colony | 95 shekels a head | 2026 | colony-hotel.co.il |
| Parking at Dan Panorama Haifa | 70 shekels a day | 2026 | danhotels.com |
| Parking at Hotel Botanica | 50 shekels a day, 60 at weekends | 2026 | limited-edition.co.il |
| Underground parking at Leonardo Plaza Haifa | 45 shekels per 24 hours | 2026 | fattal.co.il |
| Carmelit climb between Downtown and Carmel Centre | 274 m | 2026 | en.wikipedia.org |
The rest of the Haifa guide
Sources and further reading
Every link below was opened and checked when this page was written. Official statements are marked as such: they are the subject's own account, not an independent one.
- OfficialDan Hotelsdanhotels.comDan Carmel Haifa Hotel
Address, heated pools and gardens, Share spa, tenth-floor executive lounge, paid underground parking, pets at 200 shekels a night and the 18:00 Saturday check-in.
- OfficialDan Hotelsdanhotels.comDan Panorama Haifa Hotel
Twenty-one storeys, adjoining Panorama Mall, pool and sauna, the claim about the gym, 70 shekel parking and the pets policy.
- OfficialDan Hotelsdanhotels.comLegal Terms
The tourist VAT position, the treatment of Israeli citizens booking in English, and the group's check-in and checkout times.
- OfficialThe Colony Hotelcolony-hotel.co.ilThe Colony Hotel Haifa
The 1905 Templer building, the Appinger sisters, the position relative to the Bahai Gardens, and the public breakfast buffet at 95 shekels.
- OfficialThe Schumachertheschumacher.co.ilHotel Schumacher Haifa
Forty rooms and suites, the restored Templer structure beside a modern building, adults-only policy, room sizes, rooftop deck and free street parking.
- OfficialFattal Limited Editionlimited-edition.co.ilBotanica Hotel Haifa
Address at 50 Ben Gurion, the April to October rooftop pool, the Palm restaurant breakfast, room categories by view, and the parking tariff.
- OfficialSol Hotelsolstay.co.ilSol Hotel Haifa
Seventeen rooms at 48 HaGanim, the Templer residence that became a school in 1948, and the five room categories.
- OfficialEden Hoteledenhaifa.comEden Hotel Haifa
The 1930s building in Hadar, room sizes, included Israeli breakfast and free parking, and the published walking times to the German Colony and the gardens.
- OfficialMila Hotelmilahotel.co.ilMila Boutique Hotel
The 1870 Templer house at 12 Ben Gurion, the room count, the cellar wine bar, the age-21 minimum and the hotel's own warning about boulevard noise.
- OfficialFattal Hotelsfattal.co.ilLeonardo Plaza Haifa
Shore location on David Elazar Boulevard, distances to the station and business district, year-round heated indoor pool, kosher meals, parking and Shabbat check-in and checkout.
- OfficialCity Port Hotelcityport.co.ilCity Port Hotel
The upper floor of an old Templer building at 57 Ben Gurion, and the hotel's own statement that it and its facilities are not wheelchair accessible.
- ReportingYnetnewsynetnews.comBoutique hotel to open in Haifa's German Colony
Forty rooms, the Appinger hotel trading until 1978, the purchase and the restoration cost of close to 15 million shekels over about eighteen months.
- ReportingThe Times of Israeltimesofisrael.comIgnoring objections, minister inaugurates new bus route in Haifa during Shabbat
That Haifa has long had public transport on Shabbat, unlike most majority-Jewish communities, and the status quo behind it.
- ReferenceWikipediaen.wikipedia.orgCarmelit
The 1.8 km single tunnel, the 274 m climb, the six stations from Downtown to Carmel Centre, and the Friday and Saturday operating pattern.
Where to stay in Haifa: common questions
Should I stay in the German Colony or on the Carmel ridge?+
The German Colony for one or two nights, the ridge for longer or with children. The colony puts the Bahai Gardens' plaza entrance at the head of your street, the restaurants on your pavement and the railway station downhill, in converted Templer houses of seven to forty rooms. The ridge gives you the bay view, the pools, the gyms and the parking, and takes away the ability to walk out to dinner.
Is Haifa a good base for Akko, Caesarea and the Galilee?+
Yes, and better than most alternatives, because the coastal railway runs north to Akko and Nahariya and south to Caesarea and Tel Aviv from stations inside the city. The Druze villages on the Carmel, the forest roads and the western Galilee all want a car, which is the case for basing yourself somewhere with parking. The catch is Shabbat: the trains stop from Friday evening to Saturday night even though Haifa's buses do not.
Do hotels in Haifa close for Shabbat?+
No, but they change the timetable. Dan's published terms hand rooms over from 18:00 on Saturdays and on the last day of festivals rather than 15:00, and Fattal's Leonardo Plaza does the same while moving Saturday checkout to 14:00. Kitchens, lifts and lighting keep running. A Saturday morning arrival means leaving bags at the desk and going out, which in this city is easy because the buses and the funicular are working.
Do I have to pay VAT on my hotel bill in Haifa?+
No, not as a tourist paying in a foreign currency. Dan Hotels states in its legal terms that its English-language prices refer to tourists and do not include VAT, that Israeli citizens booking through those sites are charged full VAT, and that tourists paying for hotel rooms and car rentals in foreign currency are exempt. Bring the passport and the entry slip issued at the border, because the exemption is applied at the desk and not reclaimed at the airport.
Is there parking at Haifa hotels, and does it cost?+
Mostly yes to both, and the price depends on where you are on the mountain. Dan Panorama charges 70 shekels a day, Botanica 50 on weekdays and 60 at weekends, and Leonardo Plaza 45 per 24 hours for its garage while leaving its outdoor spaces free. Schumacher points guests at free street parking and the public car park, and Eden includes parking in the rate for the whole stay.
Are there cheap rooms in Haifa?+
Yes, mostly in Hadar and around the port rather than on Ben Gurion Avenue. Eden in Hadar sells a 16 sq m budget double and includes breakfast and parking, which is a different proposition from a Templer conversion on the avenue. The trade is the neighbourhood and the gradient: Hadar is a working district and everything worth walking to is downhill on the way out.
Can I walk to the Bahai Gardens from my hotel?+
That depends which end you want. From the German Colony the plaza entrance is at the head of Ben Gurion Avenue, minutes from any hotel on the street. From Yefe Nof on the ridge the upper balcony is along the same road, so the sightline costs no climb at all. The main entrance on Hatzionut sits on the slope between the two and is the only one that opens the inner gardens and the Shrine of the Bab, for a shorter window than the outer gardens.
Are any Haifa hotels kosher?+
Leonardo Plaza on the shore is the clearest case: Fattal states that its meals are kosher and that glatt kosher is available on request in advance. Most of the small German Colony hotels publish nothing about kashrut on their own sites, which in a city where most restaurants carry no certificate should be read as a genuine absence rather than an oversight. Ask before booking if it matters, and ask about the kitchen rather than the building.
Is Ben Gurion Avenue noisy at night?+
It can be, and one hotel on it says so in writing: Mila's own site warns that the property stands on a main boulevard and that noise outside its control is possible. The avenue is where Haifa goes out, so Thursday and Friday evenings are the loud ones. Staying a street back, as Schumacher does on Lohamei HaGetaot, keeps the location and loses most of the sound.