Getting to Jerusalem from Dublin

tunguska

Whats the best, most economic way to get from Dublin to Jerusalem? No direct flights exist obviously, and aer lingus/ryanair dont have flights to Tel aviv. So has anybody done this trip and if so how did you go about it?
Thanks

Midnight_EG

www.skyscanner.ie Works when I check anyway

narwog81

tunguska wrote: »

Whats the best, most economic way to get from Dublin to Jerusalem? No direct flights exist obviously, and aer lingus/ryanair dont have flights to Tel aviv. So has anybody done this trip and if so how did you go about it?
Thanks

Turkish Airlines through Istanbul or Lufthansa through Munich/Frankfurt from TA are usually the most economical and quick.

Flown both routes plenty of times with zero issues, you should get flights anywhere between 250 - 400e depending on availability.

CPTM

Google.ie/flights is a faster site

Credit Checker Moose

Believe it or not but Ryanair do serve Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. They also serve Amman and Aquaba in Jordan.

Phileas Frog

Credit Checker Moose wrote: »

Believe it or not but Ryanair do serve Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. They also serve Amman and Aquaba in Jordan.

That's nice, however they don't serve any of them from Dublin which is what the OP wanted

tunguska

Mr.S wrote: »

Dublin -> Luton (Ryanair)
Luton -> Tel Aviv (EasyJet)

Is probably the cheapest.

Just use Skyscanner.

That looks like the buachaill alright. Cheers mate

tunguska

narwog81 wrote: »

Turkish Airlines through Istanbul or Lufthansa through Munich/Frankfurt from TA are usually the most economical and quick.

Flown both routes plenty of times with zero issues, you should get flights anywhere between 250 - 400e depending on availability.

Did you travel to Jerusalem? If so what was your experience of the city?

narwog81

Yes I've been a couple of times, I'm not religious but the old city is an amazing place to visit for its obvious historical significance.

Be careful of travel planning around Shabbat, public transport options very restricted and Jerusalem is essentially a ghost town come friday lunchtime.

antix80

tunguska wrote: »

Did you travel to Jerusalem? If so what was your experience of the city?

I went to Israel a few years ago. I flew Dublin-Munich-Tel Aviv on the way over, and Tel Aviv - Zurich - Dublin on the way back.

Flying Ryanair is a bad idea because if you miss your connection, you'll be seriously out of pocket.

When I was researching flights to Israel, I couldn't believe how lucky I was. They were so cheap! Then I noticed the seriously long stop-overs in Turkey. Flights with reasonable stopovers were much more expensive.

It was most noticeable on the return flight. Flights leave Israel in the early hours and arrive in Europe early morning, 7 or 8am IIRC. The onward flight (to Dublin) was very expensive in the morning. I saved €200 on the flight by taking an evening flight instead and visiting Zurich for the day.. unfortunately, it's an expensive city so after getting the train, a boat ride, a few pints and a meal I probably only saved €100.

I hired a car and drove to Tel Aviv initially, and travelled a bit by car. I wouldn't recommend a car in either Tel aviv or Jerusalem, but it's handy to have one for outside the cities.

Just be aware that public transport (and some hotels) can be restricted a lot on the Sabbath - Friday afternoon to Saturday evening.

The old town of Jerusalem is quite an experience. East Jerusalem is a bit dingy. West Jerusalem is probably nicer but I didn't have much time to explore it apart from the holocaust museum and the Israel Museum.

Berserker

Some of the teams I work with now have to travel to Tel Aviv for work and they all go via Istanbul with Turkish airlines. The other route they use is DUB-LHR-TLV but you'll need to switch airlines to Virgin for the LHR-TLV part.

samo

Mr.S wrote: »

Dublin -> Luton (Ryanair)
Luton -> Tel Aviv (EasyJet)

Is probably the cheapest.

Just use Skyscanner.

I've just done this route! We did book the LTN/TLV flights well in advance though and were approx 950 gbp for 4 adults and 1 child, which was pretty good and stayed in Luton one night on the way over, the easyJet flight was delayed approx 1 hour each time.

easyJet nice to go with, Luton is not the nicest place to spend time though! (Sorry!) and amazing experience to travel to Israel. It is super expensive though, that was a shock. Ireland feels very reasonable in comparison. Give yourself enough time, at least 3 hours for travel back via Ben Gurion TLV for security too.

Credit Checker Moose

Allow plenty of time for your Mossad interview. They are quite intimidating.

antix80

Samo, i found Israel prices were much the same as Ireland.

Re immigration.. it was very smooth. "Have you been to Israel before. (No). Do you have friends here. (No). Have a good trip"

samo

antix80 wrote: »

Samo, i found Israel prices were much the same as Ireland.

Re immigration.. it was very smooth. "Have you been to Israel before. (No). Do you have friends here. (No). Have a good trip"

For Jerusalem the prices changed shop to shop and really needed to look around, eg milk in one shop could be 12 NIS versus 5.80 NIS next door, some places good value but even in the supermarket (Mayan 2000 btw good in Jerusalem!) general food prices for staple foods much higher than Ireland.

On Wednesday, immigration consisted of 20-30 mins to even get into airport for terminal 1 asking questions such as what time did we fly out and what have we eaten that day (!) and same again for bag drop.

antix80

They ask more questions leaving the country than entering, apparently. I was travelling alone, but i saw them quizzing couples separately-prob to see if they contradict each other. They only asked me the time of my flight.

Regarding prices.. I'm sure they'll be higher in tourist traps but i got coffee, danishes, schwarma, fish, etc , all at reasonable prices.

e.g of tourist trap. I asked an arab vendor for a bottle of water. He said 10 NIS (€2.50), which became 5 when i said "no thanks".

I think staples like bread and milk are meant to be fixed price for bog standard stuff, so they make their money by charging a premium on speciality bread etc

tunguska

samo wrote: »

I've just done this route! We did book the LTN/TLV flights well in advance though and were approx 950 gbp for 4 adults and 1 child, which was pretty good and stayed in Luton one night on the way over, the easyJet flight was delayed approx 1 hour each time.

easyJet nice to go with, Luton is not the nicest place to spend time though! (Sorry!) and amazing experience to travel to Israel. It is super expensive though, that was a shock. Ireland feels very reasonable in comparison. Give yourself enough time, at least 3 hours for travel back via Ben Gurion TLV for security too.

How did you get from Tel aviv to jerusalem? Was it by bus/train/car

Credit Checker Moose

Bus or taxi are your best options. I don't think the rail link has been finished yet.

tunguska

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/110644165#Comment_110644165

Well 3 years later and the small issue of a pandemic behind us, I'm finally taking this trip. Got a Turkish air flight from Dublin(thanks for whoever made that recommendation) to Istanbul with a pretty reasonable layover of about 1.5 hours and then from Istanbul to Tel Aviv. Got a place to stay thats very near the old city and close enough to the train station. I checked to see if there are trains from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and as far as I can see there is.

I have a question about internet.........where Im staying has wi-fi but as for internet on my phone does anyone know what the deal is, will I need to buy data before I go or does regular roaming cover it in that part of the world?

Montage of Feck

I got a local sim for data in 2019 from simtoisrael.

Dr Turk Turkelton

I love that the first post asks for the most economic way to get to Jerusalem!

tunguska

Ok so I have returned from Jerusalem and it was a magical trip, I absolutely loved this place. I made quite a few mistakes though so in the interest of giving anyone who may wish to travel to Israel, a heads up, here are a few things you should keep in mind:

- Check to see if there is a religious holiday taking place during the time you had planned to be in Jerusalem. I landed right at the start of a 2 day religious holiday which meant all public transport had stopped running. This was a big shock because my plan was to get the 485 bus from tel aviv airport to Jerusalem. With no busses running you are at the mercy of taxi drivers who are to put it diplomatically, hustlers. One Lad wanted 450 shekel for the trip(€135). I got very lucky, I got talking to an Italian guy who wanted to go to Jerusalem and he and two other people shared a taxi with me. So do not arrive during a religious holiday or the Shabbat(which takes up Friday and Saturday basically).

- stay away from the 24 hour shops. The prices are insane. €10 for a loaf of bread. I'm not kidding. I was in a position where I had to spend this kind of money because......I'd arrived smack in the middle of a religious holiday and the more reasonably priced shops were all closed.

- Be careful in the markets not to pick up anything. The rule is, you pick it up you have to buy it

- Don't fly Turkish Airlines, use Easyjet instead.

- The locals are not friendly. The people who work in shops, cafes, at the bus station etc.....they seem pissed off to be there. Now me personally I don't mind this at all, I'd rather someone be real and not friendly than someone who's fake polite because they have to be, otherwise they'd be fired. I actually found it quite funny how ignorant some of them were. If you're someone who's easily offended because staff in a shop didn't smile or say hello then this is not the place for you. That said I get the feeling that the locals will warm to you eventually.

- The 485 bus leaves from 220 jaffa Street and goes to tel aviv airport. It runs 24 hours a day and will arrive at this bus stop about 5 or 10 minutes after the hour. My return flight was 7am so I had to get the 4am bus(it takes 1 hour 10 minutes to get to the airport). The price for the bus is 12 Shekels but they don't accept cash, you gotta get a Rav kav card which is their equivalent of a leap card. 12 shekel is about 3 euro so that's a bargain when you consider the cab driver wanted 450 shekel for the same journey!!

- it's a very safe city, I'd say even safer than Dublin. They're a cops every where.......heavily armed cops. And they're big guys, jacked awsell, some of them are enormous dudes who look like they could break you in half if you tried anything. Lots of soldiers around too. When I went to get my bus at 4am I saw women walking alone down the street without a care in the world. A guy I spoke to said the reason for this is that they know they're safe, if anyone tried anything the police would have them within 60 seconds. And they dont mess around over there, it's not a slap on the wrist, they'll put the hurt on you. So it's very safe.

- There's no pub culture. I saw one pub......and it was irish.

- The city is alive. The atmosphere is amazing.

- everyone is packing heat. The police have guns, the military, security guards and even park rangers are armed. I saw lots of women dressed in regular civilian clothes, handbag over one shoulder M16 over the other. It was quite something to see.

Anyway just a few things to note for anyone who wants to visit Jerusalem.

CPTM

Nice write up, thanks for that.

How did you feel about the presence of so many guns around the place. Were you not nervous at all coming from a country where many people never see a real gun in their entire life?

Also, that's funny about the pub - was it very busy or do local people simply not drink (even the younger ones)?

tunguska

I wasn't nervous about the guns at all, in fact I was quite fascinated by the whole thing. As a little kid I loved guns and I suppose that's never left me. I had to make myself not stare at police or soldiers, trying to figure out what model of gun they were carrying, I didn't want them to become aware of some bloke eyeballing them, they may have gotten the wrong idea. I can't describe to you how many guns there are, they are everywhere. And like I said, seeing the girls in dresses, the kind they'd wear for cocktails on a Saturday night, whilst having a machine gun draped over their shoulder.......this was a strange experience. Lots of people in army uniforms aswell, obviously heading off for their compulsory military service.

Yeah drinking is just not a thing. Even on a Saturday night. Near my hotel there was a center square and this guy with a trumpet would send out the call and within minutes the square was backed with people. He'd then belt out tunes for over an hour and the people would lap it up like it was strawberries and ice cream. Nobody drunk, everyone just having a great time. In fact not once did I see anyone drunk nor do you see junkies walking the streets. Its a different world for sure.