The food was amazing, the Seder night was unforgettable, the performances swept the guests off their feet, the extras, and the places we toured to were magical. Many visitors from the USA, England and Australia who were guests at Shainfeld Tours’s Pesach program in the Sheraton Rhodes, agreed that this was the best Pesach they had ever experienced.
This is certainly not the first time we have had the opportunity to fly with Shainfeld Tours, the leading company for kosher vacation trips, but nothing could have prepared us for the amazing and unforgettable experience that awaited us in Pesach 2023! Although this is a relatively expensive vacation compared to other alternatives on the market, Pesach only comes once a year. To sum it up in one sentence: it was worth every penny!
What did Shainfeld prepare for us?
During Pesach Shainfeld Tours provided a luxurious Kosher Pesach package in Rhodes which is unparalleled by any other company. This includes delicious gourmet food, available throughout the day, performances by famous artists, a magnificent seder night, activities for families and more surprises throughout the stay.
This year there was an unprecedented demand for the Pesach program. In addition to many guests who came from Israel, hundreds of Kosher observant Jewish families came from all over the world, including from the United States, England and Australia. Shainfeld Tours hosted nearly 1,500 guests at the Sheraton Rhodes and the adjacent Rhodes-Bay hotel.
We stayed at one of the largest and most lavish resorts we have visited abroad. It is located on the lovely beach in Rhodes, close to the city center. The complex has 5 beautiful swimming pools, including a covered indoor pool and an outdoor children’s pool. Throughout the resort there are many lush, grassy areas that we enjoyed along with pleasant temperatures throughout our stay.
A culinary experience at the highest level!
The highlight of a kosher vacation with Shainfeld Tours is undoubtedly the food, which has made a name for itself in the world of tourism. Due to the large number of guests this year, they opened two huge dining rooms, close to the size of a football field. In addition to the Sheraton chefs, they brought in a team of over 120 professional staff members that included award-winning chefs, cooks, pastry chefs, bartenders, and more. It was a culinary feast from beginning to end. We not only saw the spectacular results but also devoured them. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner with magnificent quantities of food, meats, fish, hot dishes, salads, cakes and desserts. The guests were simply amazed to see the abundance.
Mrs. Delia Goldman, a guest from Boston, USA, said, “Every day there was a show in the dining room, in terms of the quality and choice that you don’t often see or taste even in the most expensive restaurants.”
This Passover Shainfeld Tours provided a marvelous culinary experience that did not end with breakfast, lunch and dinner, but continued all day. The hotel had two bars open all day – the first was a bar where there were cold and hot drinks, cakes, fruit and special facilities for making pancakes that both the children and the adults enjoyed. In another part of the hotel was an Irish pub bar that was open until the wee hours of the night, with bartenders who were amazing at creating kosher cocktails for Pesach, and also served wines and luxury liqueurs from Israel, France, England and Italy. All the food on Pesach is glatt kosher, non- Gebrokts and non-Kitniyot.
A new and surprising culinary program every evening
Nothing prepared us for the fun and creative entertainment prepared by Shainfeld Tourism this year and you can definitely see how much they invested in their guests. For example, they had a make-up station with a team of professional make-up artists who made up the women and girls for the Seder night, so they all arrived at the Seder looking as gorgeous as brides.
In addition, every evening they put on an original production, each time with a different theme. We especially remember an evening of American meats and wines – a culinary experience from the movies that combined butcher-cuts of filet and entrecote steaks alongside fine wines with an amazing show by Yonatan Shainfeld, an evening of special cocktails, and a barbecue evening by the pool that was very enjoyable and impressive.
Mr. Shlomo Geller from England recalls one of the events “We finished dinner with a buffet of carved meats, tomahawk steak, entrecote, butcher’s cut and desserts from here to America. Suddenly at 11:30 pm Shainfeld surprised the guests with a meat dinner served with every possible type of wine, as if we had not eaten two hours before. Tomorrow, we start a diet.”
As is the best tradition, we were treated to a series of shows that delighted the audience with singing, dancing and thunderous applause – performances by well-known and leading artists in the Jewish music world, among them Dudu Fischer, Moshe Roicher, Yishai Lapidot, Yonatan Shainfeld, master mentalist, Ben Kala, Rabbi Dodi Leibovitz and Asher Gabai on the keyboard.
Shainfeld Tours is like a bank that never stops giving.
Only when you are physically on a Pesach holiday abroad do you realize how big and complex this operation is. Both in terms of organization and logistics, meeting schedules, taking care of every detail and ensuring that nothing is missing for any of the guests. Other tourist companies were stuck at the last moment because their food containers were delayed and did not reach their hotels in Rhodes. Shainfeld Tours did not hesitate and made sure to equip the other hotels with everything – flour, oils, meats, spices, raw materials and equipment that was missing so that they could enjoy all Pesach to the fullest. Yisrael Shainfeld, CEO of Shainfeld Tourism, explains, “At Pesach, everyone said that Shainfeld is a bank – that we have a lot to give and an outstretched arm. We still have two containers left full of quality ingredients for the summer vacation in Israel. We believe that there is one Creator of the world, and we do everything to provide everyone with their needs, wholeheartedly as a non-profit Gemach in the full sense of the word. For us, being the first in kosher vacations is more than a slogan – it’s our promise, and when you’ve been doing something you love and are good at for over 30 years, every vacation turns out perfect, and the customers will testify to that.”
Guests returned home delighted and full of praise for their vacation
From the guests that we had the opportunity to speak with, we heard only good things to say about this Pesach Rhodes vacation. The Aaronson family said “We have no words to thank Shainfeld for the luxury, for the planning, for thinking about the small details, for a wonderful and special holiday that we loved every minute, we felt like a special and united family and we will continue to vacation with you for years to come.”
Avraham Zucker, a customer who came from the United States, said, “We were looking for companies for a kosher Pesach vacation in Greece, and Shainfeld Tours promised that once we vacationed with them, we would never consider any other company. They were right! After two perfect weeks of Passover with Shainfeld, we can conclude that this is the highest-level company for a kosher vacation, and that is the gold standard. From now on we look forward to Shainfeld Tours for every future vacation.”
In conclusion, Pesach with Shainfeld is a luxury vacation that is suitable for those who really want to be fully pampered – it’s an experience you will never forget and will say that it was the best vacation you have ever had.
To watch a video of the customers talking about their experiences from their Pesach holiday with Shainfeld https://did.li/RHO-PIC23-EN
