Author: Brad

Guests: the people who attended the program were fairly diverse, and mostly really nice people. We made a number of new friends during the week and truly enjoyed spending time together. Not a fancy group of people who cared what you wore or how many different outfits you had. Very relaxed group of participants. Grade: 5/5 Hotel: very lovely hotel overlooking a marina. The rooms were the largest rooms that I have ever stayed at in a European hotel. Nice that it was not a super big hotel (4 floors). There was plenty of space for other activities - multiple davening rooms (sefard minyan and ashkenzi minyan rooms), breakfast dining room, main banquet room, beautiful outdoor pool with large terrace. Grade: 4/5 Location: perfect location. Would have been even better if weather was a bit better (out of our control), but we got to walk to town, go shopping, wander around, go for early morning runs. Easy to visit other areas in S. Portugal which we did every day. 20 minutes from the airport was great! Grade: 5/5 Activities: generally good. Arrangements were made with excursion operator that worked well with us. Spent a day doing a jeep tour in the nearby mountains, seeing the beauty of the Algarve. Spent a day going to Lisbon, but this was not the best thing since the drive was over 3 hours and we didn't have much of an opportunity to see Lisbon outside of the bus - only got to spend 1-1/2 hours off the bus and the guide was not really very helpful or prepared for what the group wanted to see. I would not recommend this excursion (I will need to go back to Lisbon one day). Drove to other places in the Algarve, and did a hike along the shoreline cliffs about 40 minutes away from hotel. Grade: 3.5/5 Staff: kudos to the Rabbi's that oversaw the program and ran davening and ran the sedarim - R' Jonathan Dove and R' Jonathan Tawil. They gave great shiurim and were really engaging. The organizer staff was generally okay, with a few wonderful standouts overall. They did try to adjust things when it was brought to their attention, but by then most of the problems were probably hard to totally correct. Grade: 4/5 (raised because of the rabbi's and their wives). Food: unfortunately, this is where the program fell VERY SHORT. The plated seder was significantly disorganized - our mains were served before the soup was out, and then it took forever to get our food. Most of the food was the same from meal to meal, and there was never any milchig meal, and no subtlety in the taste of the food. The desserts were excellent, but it was unfortunate that the main courses did not equal the quality of the desserts. If you were not one of the first to get to the food, there was a chance that they would have run out of it - even ran out of diet coke, coke, apple juice and sweet n'low during the last days. Meal time always became a tense moment for everyone. Room set up could have been better. There were two serving stations that were set up next to each other, so the crowds would just descend on the food like hoards of starving people (kind of like a shabbos kiddush with 300 people all pushing and shoving to get food). Once you got the food, it was generally filling and tasty, but not to the standard that we were expecting from "Rochelle Sassoon, London's finest Kosher Caterer. With over 30 years' experience, you can be sure that the food will be divine! " (this is a quote from their marketing of the program). There were no crudite or relishes or pickles/olives on the table, no choices of wine (one red, one white, one rose of a substandard quality). There was no liquor beyond the wine, other than 3rd level vodka and arak. There was a dearth of green cooked vegetables - plenty of salad, but nothing like broccoli, or cauliflower, or string beans, etc. - lots of potatoes though. The tea room was pretty weak, without much in the way of choice of desserts or snacks. The ambiance of the dining room was very bland, with no flowers on the tables and all food served in chafing dishes or plastic bowls. They did try to improve things once chol hamoed began and they say facebook comments, but unfortunately, most of the problems with the food portion of the program probably arose because of poor pre-planning. The comments on facebook from those who were not associated with the program or the family who ran the program are pretty accurate (although maybe a tad too strong and strident). I don't think that any of this can't be corrected and improved upon if they do a program again next year. Grade: 1/5 Overall: Although food is the not the deciding or the most important factor going into selecting a program, it is still one of the key factors. There were a lot of positives with the program and I have no regrets in attending the program this year. It accomplished for my wife, dad and me what we wanted/needed for this Pesach. Things can always be improved and hopefully the organizers of the program will do their own honest assessment of what was good and what was bad, and make improvements if they do this again. However, I don't think that I would attend this program next year, even if they figure out how to improve. Overall, i would say that except for the food issues, I would grade this program a 4/5, but the food does have to count.