Chasing the Fionist Dream

Ever since I organized and went on a(n inexpensive) ladies’ European getaway in 2021, my daughter has been begging for a mother-daughter #ladyvacay of our own. As flight prices tend to go wayyyy down in the winter, I had decided last year that I’d snag cheap tickets to a nearby European country for some point in winter 2023-2024. Wherever we’d end up, we’d find something fun to do and make memories together.

Of course, by this point we all know what happened in winter 2023-2024. After the outbreak of war on October 7, almost all foreign airlines cancelled their Israel flights and no one knew when they would return. Not only were we not in the mood or mind space for travel, the drop in supply made flights incredibly expensive and out of our budget. In December 2023, I booked us 138 shekel Ryanair tickets to Paphos for March 2024 in the hopes that things would calm down by then and the flight would take place. However, in the first week of February, those tickets were cancelled and I was quickly refunded. A day or two later, Wizz Air announced that they’d be returning to Tel Aviv in a very limited capacity in March. I took a look at their destinations and prices – which were very low at the time to entice hesitant Israeli travelers to book with them – and immediately snagged two roundtrip tickets to Bucharest for the end of March at 200 shekels a piece. As we were promptly refunded by Wizz after our October booking was cancelled, I knew that if this flight was cancelled, I’d get my money back again. I spent another 504 shekels to book two nights at this hotel with a free cancelation policy…. and waited with bated breath.

As you can figure out by reading this post, the trip did happen! (Hurray!) And we just got back. So what did we do, what was it like, what did we learn, and how much did it all cost us?

What did we do?

We landed in Bucharest around noon and headed straight to Therme, a massive indoor water park and spa complex that is cheaper than our neighborhood semi-Olympic pool. We booked a three-hour slot for the Galaxy section – the only one that allows kids – and giggled our way down the waterslides, floated on our backs across the wave pool, sipped mocktails in the jacuzzi, and swam through a revolving door out to a huge heated (36 °C) outdoor pool where my daughter practiced her flips and other tricks, while the lifeguards outside of the pool wore coats. Sadly, we don’t have many pictures of our adventures here since we were in the water together almost the whole time.

Eventually, the time came to drag ourselves out of the water. We showered off and grabbed an Uber back to the city center where we had dinner at Moise. We then walked to our hotel, checked in, and headed to bed.

The next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel (cereal & fruit – and coffee for me), while my daughter got to see people eating sausages for breakfast for the first time. We hopped on the metro and made our way to Parcul Unirii (Union Park) where we met up up with our Walkabout Free Tour guide, Julian, and the rest of our group. We got to meet people from all over, including a British child about my daughter’s age and an older Israeli couple who filled the role of our adoptive Saba and Savta throughout the tour, looking out for us and making sure my daughter could see and understand everything that was going on. We learned all about Romanian history, from the Middle Ages and Vlad the Impaler to the monarchy to communism (a particular interest of mine) and modern day. Our guide was engaging and schmoozed with everyone, including the kids. My kid followed along the whole time and asked lots of questions, which he happily and skillfully answered. Very recommended. 🙂

After two hours of walking, we headed over to Avraham Kosher for lunch, where we ordered pizza and salad. We sat on barstools outside and watched the world go by while we ate. My daughter kept darting off to pet a dog who was hanging out nearby. (Don’t worry, she always asks the owner’s permission before petting unfamiliar dogs.) The restaurant was conveniently located next to a pet supply store, so after we ate we went in to buy assorted treats to share with the dog and to bring a taste of Romania to our dog at home. We then ordered dinner to pack up and take with us for later that day.

We were still tired out from walking and had some time to kill before or our next activity, so we stopped at a nearby cafe, ordered a coffee for me and a hot chocolate for her and just sat and relaxed – for an hour. After regaining our strength, we hopped on a bus and made our way to our next activity. As I had chosen the tour, she got to choose the last activity of our trip. Any guesses as to what it was?

After an hour on the bus heading into the boondocks to the north of Bucharest, we got off where Google Maps told us to and found ourselves on the side of a country road near-ish to the airport, with fields of…. I’m not sure actually… for miles all around us. We followed the tractor tracks (as there was no sidewalk and we wanted to stay far away from the road) to Paws -The Golden Retriever Experience. We sat in their reception area and ate our packed dinner while we watched the planes overhead.

At 6 pm sharp, they opened the doors and 18 happy golden retrievers bounded out toward us. We petted them, played with them, and gave them treats for an hour while the owners told us about each dog – what their favorite things are, where they were rescued from, and the therapy (if needed) that they needed to go through after whatever traumatic past they had been rescued from.

After another tiring day, we Ubered back to our hotel, packed and got ready for bed. We flew home the next morning, tired and happy. The trip was short, but incredibly fun and gave us a great opportunity for the mother-daughter bonding experience we were looking for.

What was it like?

As you may have expected, my biggest fear on this trip was antisemitism, which is terrifying, demoralizing, and way too prevalent these days. I didn’t want to ask my child to hide her identity as an Israeli Jew and I didn’t want to expose her to anything dangerous or threatening. One of the reasons I chose Bucharest (aside from the cheap flights and the amazing indoor waterpark) is that I had read that Romania (along with its neighbors Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic) has stood by Israel since the outbreak of the war and that antisemitism there is generally not a problem. Fortunately for us, that proved true in our experience. We saw Israelis everywhere we went and felt reassured when we saw #bringthemhome billboards on the roofs of buildings downtown. The waterpark had all signs in four languages: Romanian, English, Italian, and Hebrew, and our walking tour company also offered Hebrew-speaking packages. Everyone we met asked us where we were from and when my daughter answered that we are Israeli (because why should she be ashamed and hide it?), people smiled and responded “shalom” or “boker tov”. This all was a massive relief for me. Despite this, as always, make sure to remain aware of your surroundings at all times wherever you are, because you never know.

What did we learn?

1. Traveling with just a backpack is amazing and lifechanging. After checking in online the night before, we got to skip check-in and luggage drop-off entirely and walk right through security. We also didn’t need to wait for our luggage on the other end.
2. Cabs in Bucharest are corrupt and overpriced. Uber in Bucharest is wonderful and is definitely the way to go. I had read this online before the trip, and yet still managed to get ripped off on a cab before learning my lesson.
3. Romanian history is the stuff of movies. The Romanian people banded together and ousted dictator Ceaușescu from power in 1989. Hard to believe this type of thing happened within my lifetime.
4. Three nights would have been better than two. We’d have been less rushed and would have had more time. I might have had more time to prepare food instead of always eating out, and we’d have had more time to take (incredibly inexpensive) public transportation instead of all the Ubers. However, at this time, Wizz was only flying between Tel Aviv and Bucharest every other day, and four nights would have been too long.

I’m sure you’ve all been wondering… How much did this adventure cost us?

Flights: 400 shekels in total for both of us – round trip.

Accommodations: 504 shekels including breakfast for two nights. I saw other hotels and apartments for as low as 100 or 150 shekels per night, but chose this one because of its reviews, breakfast option, nearby metro station, and proximity to one of the kosher restaurants.

Food: 357 shekels for three meals of kosher restaurant food plus coffee out. Despite my plans to make it to a supermarket, this never happened since we were strapped for time. This figure would be much lower for someone who doesn’t keep kosher or makes some of their own meals.

Activities: 314 shekels total. This included the water park (including the rented towels and mocktails, which doubled the price of admission), the walking tour (which we tipped 100 lei, or 80 shekels, for), and the dog extravaganza.

Transportation: 354 shekels. This includes one outrageously expensive ten minute regular cab ride (literally half of the total), three Ubers, and some bus and metro rides. The public transportation system there is pretty extensive and costs 2.40 shekels per ride. Again, if we had more time and were in less of a rush, we’d have spent much less on transportation.

Souvenirs: In total we spent 152 shekels on a miniature double decker tour bus for Finn, two dog figurines, and a set of four Paw Patrol characters that do their various powers when you squeeze their legs.

Travelers insurance: 20 shekels in total. Many Israeli credit cards offer up to 5 days of free travelers insurance as one of their perks, so I decided to go with that. While mine was free, I had to pay for my daughter’s through the same company, since she doesn’t have a credit card.

In total, we spent 2,100 shekels on this unforgettable experience. And since I booked the flights, hotel, insurance, and water park tickets ahead of time, this cost ended up getting split between two credit card cycles, which made it easier to budget for. We had a great time and I can’t wait to travel again.

Have you ever gone on a parent-child vacation? Would you like to?

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