We went a step up and stayed at the Dan Panorama, which is very nice. Basically, you pay less the farther you are from the beach.

You can definitely do Petra in a day, but it is a really long day. It takes a while to get through the border, then get on a bus or van for the 2-3 hour drive to Wadi Musa before you even actually walk around Petra. If you like walking, you could spend a long time wandering around and exploring - more time than you might be allowed for a day trip. We did the day trip, and wished that we had taken a more relaxing 2-day tour.

In any event, I'd recommend one of the smaller tours, as opposed to a big bus. Our guide was very personable, and was adaptable to our desire to spend more time wandering around.

Wadi Rum has a spectacular desert landscape. If you have not seen such places, I'd recommend it. If you've spent much time in the U.S. Southwest, you might consider it similar.

Thank you ALF.
Can you remember which tour company you used?
Is the scenery in Wadi Rum similar to the Negev ie Mispe Ramon?

We stayed at "Herod's Palace" which I think is a Sheraton. Very nice, we did have a beach though we didn't have much time to take advantage of it. Very nice pool area.
I'm pretty sure any hotel can arrange the Petra tour for you if you want to daytrip. Just make sure that a car will take you to the Israeli side of the border, and that your guide will meet you on the Jordanian side. Fees and paperwork have to be completed on both sides. And there's nothing like walking through a short no-man's land with barbed wire and signs warning of mines.

If you leave Eilat around 7am, it's true, you won't get to Petra until at least 3 hours later; more if the paperwork at the border is slow.
Take sun protection including water, hats and sunscreen. There is no shade on the main road of Petra, and on the way back it's uphill (you can opt for a horse or camel ride.) Our daytrip was outstanding, no regrets, but it would be nice to go back and have more time.

PS, I didn't explore all of Petra, but there's nothing I can think of that would equal Maktesh Ramon.
They are two different experiences.

I spent two nights in Wadi Musa (at the Sofitel close to the entrance, Awesome hotel!) and one full day in Petra and wanted more. We were in the park by about nine and left a little before close. But there is so much to explore-Treasury, monestary, amphnitheatre, 100's of tombs, lots of hikes, etc.

Wadi Rum is gorgeous and very unique. It's a red rock desert-red cliffs, lots of red sand, etc. Lawrence of Arabia used to call it home; Nabatean inscriptions cover the walls of some cliffs; narrow rock bridges (some of them quite high!) dot the landscape.

Eliat is like any beach town. Fun, but you can see nice beaches in Florida.

Laura

We've been on two 1-day trips to Petra, one with Desert Eco Tours (www.desertecotours.com), and the other time we simply booked a tour from the lobby of our hotel. Although Desert Eco Tours are very well-organized and professional in every way, we really enjoyed the guide from that second trip so much more. She was a woman from Aquaba (female tour guides are apparently a pretty new thing), and was just so knowledgeable in a non-"tour guide" sort of a way. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the name of the company was that she worked for. I checked our hotel (Dan Panorama), and they use a number of operators, so apparently it was just the luck of the draw for us.

I've spent a lot of time in the Mojave in California and Nevada, so Wadi Rum was fine but didn't feel that different. It is of course very beautiful, but I would personally not go there at the expense of time in Petra.