This was a great way to see Petra with a limited amount of time, but I went into it without a lot of info and thought some details about my experience would be helpful. There is one bus taking people from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem who have booked 1, 2 and 3 day trips, so the bus fills up more than you would expect. They also get people in Eilat which is why the border crossing they use is the one that's furthest away (Yitzhak Rabin/Wadi Araba). This makes the drive very long. We were picked up in Jerusalem at 3am, had two 30 minute rest stops, and arrived at the border crossing at 8am. There were people there to help us through the entire border crossing process, which took about 90 minutes. The good thing about this crossing is that it was completely deserted, only our group was there, and it's open late even on Friday night, which is when we went. They accepted credit card payment for the $65 exit tax on the bus, but cash (USD or NIS) was needed for the $60 visa fee. No one asked for the Visit Jordan QR code.
Once through the border, we divided up based on the length of our trip and met our bus and Jordanian tour guide. Our guide was great and gave us lots of interesting information on the ride. We had another 30 minute rest stop on the way to Petra and were at the entrance at 2pm (lost an hour due to the time zone change).
We had to be back at the meeting place at 4:30pm, so we decided to leave the group to see as much as possible. The guide took everyone as far as the Treasury. I'm not sure how much free time they had after that. We made it as far as the Great Temple before we had to turn around to make it back in time. There are golf carts that will take you through the Siq for $27; maybe it would've been worth it to save the walk time. There are horses included in the price of the ticket, but they only take you from the entrance to the beginning of the Siq and the way the guys treat them is questionable.
At 4:30 we met at a restaurant near the entrance called Sandstone and a buffet lunch was included that was actually really good. Around 5pm we started the trip back. We stopped to pick up people who were ending multi-day trips and had another 30 minute rest stop on the way back to the border. Returning to Israel was considerably faster than arriving in Jordan. There is no exit tax if you're in Jordan for less than 24 hours.
We had one 30 minute rest stop on the way back to Jerusalem and arrived at about midnight. All the rest stops were clean with nice bathrooms and lots of snacks, so you can either bring snacks or buy them at the stops.
All in all a very long and tiring day with only 2 1/2 hours in Petra, but it was very well organized and we had no problems. There are faster ways to get to Petra that might be worth looking into to maximize your time there, but if you don't want to worry about figuring it out yourself, I recommend this tour.
