First-Timer's Guide to Taking a Mano Cruise

 

Having just returned from a Mano Cruise, I want to share my impressions and offer some tips I wish we had known in advance.

If the name Mano Cruise is not familiar to you, you probably live outside of Israel. Mano Cruise is Israel's (only?) cruise line with a total fleet of one cruise ship and a maximum capacity of 2000 passengers.

The Boarding Process

During the war, the Mano ship (the Crown Iris) leaves from Ashdod rather than from Haifa. The train stops in Ashdod and a Mano rep will guide you to the port. Convenient private parking is available for 40 NIS/day.

Once you get to the port area, you'll be asked to show your passport. From there, walk 3-4 minutes to the free shuttle buses that take you to the terminal. Luggage is stored under the bus.

Once at the terminal, you queue up to check your luggage and get your all-important Mano card which is also your room key. Your luggage will be tagged with your room number and, by the time you board the ship, your luggage should be at your door.

Items you didn't check are scanned and then you go through Passport Control. There's a duty free shop in the terminal and also a Passport Card representative in case you haven't already bought travel insurance.

Once you step outside the terminal, the ship is right there. Just before you board, you will need to surrender your passport. You can pick it up at the end of your cruise by going to the Reception desk with your Mano card.

In all, the boarding process was very efficient. It took us less than 30 minutes from start to finish. Everyone boards on Deck 2. Your Mano card will be scanned each time you enter and exit the ship.

Things We Eventually Figured Out

Your room and three meals a day are included. Everything else costs extra. 

Literally everything else.

There are seven bars on the ship and they all offer the same basic menu.

To purchase hot or cold drinks, snacks, alcohol, popcorn, cotton candy, etc., you need to add money to your Mano card. If you have a balance at the end of the cruise, you can get a refund from Reception desk the morning you disembark.

The only place on the ship to refill a water bottle with something other than tap water is near the bar on the 10th floor.

The cold water station

Late at night, you will get a schedule of events for the next day slipped under your door. It will be in Hebrew unless you go to Reception and ask that an English version be delivered to your room. Kiosks throughout the 5th floor have the daily schedule and other information in English.

Walk around each deck (there are 11 in the ship and eight are accessible to passengers) to get oriented. To get to some function rooms, you have to walk through a corridor of cabins.

If you have a bigger than average, ahem... caboose, some of the cup seats will be a little tight. But there are plenty of other seating options all over the ship, including cushioned window seats.

These seats can be a tight squeeze for some.

The Food

For kosher consumers, the big draw of a Mano Cruise is that all the food served is kosher. There is plenty of variety, although many options appear over and over at every meal. Breakfast was virtually identical each day, as were the salad selections at every meal.

We ate in the largest dining hall called The Seven Seas. Other guests were assigned to smaller dining halls where I was told that the same food was served. 

There are no numbers on the tables even though your Mano card will have a table number on it. Guests are free to sit anywhere and table sizes ranged from 2-8.

OPINION: The prepared foods are tasty, but there were many dishes that were served lukewarm or even cold. This is a common problem with buffet style dining where hundreds of portions are prepared in advance and not unique to Mano.

IKEA, I'm looking at you.

There is a fresh preparation station that served omelettes at breakfast and grilled meats for lunch and dinner.

Some packaged foods in the Duty Free shop did not appear to have a hechsher.

You can get coffee and black tea at breakfast. Any other time of day, you have to buy hot drinks at one of the bars. There are also carafes of orange drink (not juice) at breakfast.

Only cold water is served at lunch and dinner. For other drinks, such as soda or juice, you have to buy a drink package or pay for them individually with the balance on your Mano card.

You can order sugar-free and/or gluten-free desserts from the wait staff.

There is no place to wash for bread in the Seven Seas dining hall. You have to leave the dining hall and wash in a nearby bathroom. A washing cup is provided.

There are five specialty restaurants serving other cuisines. The cost for a full meal at the restaurants we saw was 25€ (about 100 NIS) not including a tip. Since we had already paid for our meals, we did not eat in any of these restaurants.

The Classic Room

We booked a Classic Room, the smallest and cheapest kind. Ours had a window, which we were not expecting, and that was a nice surprise. 

The two beds in the Classic Room can be pushed together or separated. The advantage of separating the beds is that it is easier to get in and out of bed. Floor space in a Classic Room is at a premium.

Once you've unpacked, you have to store your luggage in your room, so you might want to consider bringing soft luggage that can be reduced to a smaller size when empty.

We found the beds decently comfortable, although only flat sheets are used, so if you toss and turn, the linens will come completely undone.

The water in the shower was hot HOT HOT and the water pressure was surprisingly good.

Classic Rooms have a USB port and plugs for Israeli connections near each bed. Other plug types can be accommodated in other parts of the cabin.

Classic Rooms do not have a safe in the room, but the higher end rooms do.

The bathroom in our room was raised and required taking a big step to enter and leave the bathroom. For those who are mobility challenged, that could be a hassle, especially in the middle of the night,

What Some People Told Us They Brought

Immersion heater and a thermos to have hot beverages throughout the day without having to pay 3-5€ each time.

Triple plug extenders to be able to plug in more than once device at a time.

Non-slip bathmat.

Power banks to charge phones.

Filter pitcher to filter drinking water.

Sugar-free sweetener of their choice.

The Ship

The ship is clean and in good repair. We had some loose tiles in our shower and they were regrouted before we even reported the issue.

There are over 600 crew members, mostly from the Philippines and India. You can hardly walk 2 meters on the ship without seeing a crew member. They were uniformly friendly and accommodating and everyone we interacted with spoke English. The young woman checking our Mano cards before each meal picked up a few words of Hebrew and said, "L'hit'ra'ot Mami," unironically every time I left the dining hall.

The ship was constantly being cleaned. Our room was refreshed twice a day.

There is a small synagogue on the 5th floor. The men's section had about 20 seats and the women's section had about six seats.

The ship's synagogue. Photo credit: Tatyana Yassenov

There are three pools and a jacuzzi. All are outdoors on Deck 10. The pools are small and access to the main pool is with a ladder, as opposed to steps. The other pool is accessed by climbing up to the 11th floor deck and shooting yourself through a twisted yellow water slide.

Yeah, we didn't do that. In fact, since our cruise was in November, we didn't use the pools at all. The jacuzzi, when it was in use, was packed. I can only imagine that, during a summer cruise, the small pools would be hopelessly overcrowded.

The main pool which I think was filled with ocean water.

The jacuzzi, emptied at night.

There are three sets of elevators - one in the front, one in the middle and one in the back of the ship. They are small, slow and often packed. Leave extra time if you need to be somewhere else on the ship at a particular time.

During luggage loading and unloading, the middle set of elevators cannot be used by guests.

OPINION: We found navigating around the ship confusing at times. When exiting the elevators, we were never sure which direction to turn to get back to our room. There is signage, but it's limited.

OPINION: If you don't drink, gamble or speak fluent Hebrew, the activities on the ship are limited. Unless you appreciate a good towel-folding workshop.

OPINION: The evening entertainment is cheesy and often not tzanua.

The gym, located inside the Wellness Center, is small and the free weights only go up to 10 pounds. On the other hand, I regularly clocked 6-7000 steps a day just moving around the ship.

There are a couple of rooms where games can be played and games are available from the Reception desk.

If you misplace something on the ship, there's a lost and found at Reception, We were easily able to retrieve my husband's hat which got waylaid somewhere along the way.

We definitely felt the movement of the boat more than on a larger cruise ship, but it wasn't hard to manage. Our room was on a low deck and in the middle of the ship which is ideal for avoiding seasickness. Movement is said to be most pronounced in rooms at the front of the ship and on higher floors.

RUMOR: Returning passengers get a 10% discount on future cruises.

WiFi Access

Hold your nose and pay for WiFi access if you can't be completely unreachable. It's not cheap.

Here's my best tip:
Put your phone on airplane mode when not in use. You can download email and WhatsApp messages while online and read them offline. You can also respond while offline and your response will be sent the next time you log in.

To log in, you will need to create an account using the number on your Mano card number and a password. Every time you log in, you will get an update on how many MB of data you have left.

We didn't stream any video and only logged in to check messages and respond to what was most urgent.

Kids Programming and Wellness Center

These things exist on the ship. We have no personal experience with either of them. 

Disembarking Process

Expect to tip 5€ (about 20 NIS) per person per night for housekeeping and the same for wait staff in the dining hall. For our four-night trip, we paid a total of 80€ (about 315 NIS) in tips. You'll be given an envelope in your room the night before disembarking and one on the table in the dining hall at your last dinner. Rumor has it that tips are split among all crew members.

Your luggage will be collected the night before disembarking and brought to the terminal for you. This is optional but very helpful so you don't have to schlep your luggage while disembarking. Keep a small bag or backpack for the things you need the last night (i.e. toothbrush, pajamas, etc.) and your valuables. You will retrieve your luggage at the terminal after passport control.

Remember to pick up your passport from Reception the night before disembarking and also getting reimbursed for the balance on your Mano card.

After you collect your luggage, a shuttle bus will take you to the parking lot which is a short walk to the front entrance where you can get a taxi to your final destination.

For more information, there's a Facebook group called Sailing with Mano Cruises - English Speakers Q&A (https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1GyoHkAKeX/) which I just found.

If you've been on a Mano Cruise and have more to add or want to offer a correction, please comment below.