Addis Amba Hotel in Bahir Dar

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comments 5

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  Nicholas Karavatos

  :: 16 December 2018 04:56:54

  Locals say this is one of the best local hotels in town. It’s not, though budget travelers may feel it is good for the price. Let us use their breakfasts as a barometer of quality, rather than the mosquitoes and cockroaches: the breakfast buffet is almost entirely leftovers from the previous day, and at least 70% are bread-based, being various leftover-ingeria dishes and various things done with sliced-up stale bread. The food at the breakfast buffet will also be cold. And no one seems to care. I am often one of the first people in the restaurant. The food had already been sitting I don’t know how long in serving trays, but long enough to be room temperature. Only when patrons begin arriving so servers light the flames beneath. This is the perfect condition for bacteria growth - food is cooked and slowly cools to room temperature and then ever so slowly reheats over the little flames. The irony here is that you will not be able to get cold milk for your corn flakes. You will only receive hot milk which immediately turn your crispy flakes to mush. So where is that milk before it’s heated? Mystery of mysteries. I’d say having an omelette or scrambled eggs is your safest food option, but today they are using that skillet for toasting bread, so good luck with that. Staying here for multiple months on business, my consistent inability to get a steady flow of morning cups of coffee, particularly with milk, was nightmarish. (My first-world whining is even obvious to me here.) One day the staff heeded our suggestions and placed a large thermos of coffee so we could keep refilling without the long waits for individually-brewed too-small cups; eventually the same was done with milk as getting milk to pour over coffee was also confusing Western habit for the staff. We’d often get a cup of coffee and a cup of milk served. We’d then ask for a third cup to mix them and I know how odd we looked. I worked in kitchens for several years, and my observations from ordering meals at other times here is that they make them one at a time but without individual attention: you will wait a long time for food and dishes to your table will arrive whenever (table guests finishing their meals by the time other table guests received theirs). Also, getting your bill is a long, laborious process. Someone sits behind a computer, the sever goes to them and recites what you ordered, and I assume that person scrolls through lists of items (?) and 10 minutes later you have your bill. Last night I came in thirsty and had a mineral water at the bar. When finished I asked how much because I just wanted to leave the cash+tip and go to my room. We went back-and-forth with How much? I’ll get your bill. No, please, how much? I’ll get your bill ... on and on and I didn’t want to wait 10 minutes for my bill so I asked someone how much it was and left cash on bar with tip. Anyway, we prefer to eat at the Waterfront Hotel down the street for its better quality dishes, but there you’ll wait 45 minutes for a simple meal for similar reasons. A special note on tips: if you eat three meals in your hotel restaurant you will have consumed 1/3 or more of your servers’ monthly salary, so please tip them generously! I should add the the WiFi has been atrocious, and the only clear pictures on your tv are the football game channels, though I don’t get how they pull that off. And though the GoogleMaps profile says there is a “hot tub” I do not believe that is true and if it were I would hesitate to enter its water. Though this hotel does not have a pool, international travelers may be put off by the green tint of pool water at other hotels here. But I’m probably imposing an attitude unfairly. Good downtown location! And good value-for-money, depending on your standards. I’m writing as someone forced to live here Long-term because our promised housing from our employer was so mold-ridden it was too unsanitary to live in, admittedly, again, to my overdeveloped-world standards. This hotel is much better than that! Incomparably so!

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  Ambrose Wamwana

  :: 31 August 2018 10:48:18

  Nice hospitality I like the place

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  Rene D Olate

  :: 09 June 2018 12:51:24

  It is good. As in many places in Ethiopia wifi is bad.

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  Getnet Mehari

  :: 13 April 2018 08:07:48

  Good quality and great service. There servers are very humble and communicate friendly. I appreciate their effort to meet customers need. Good job!! Keep it up.

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  Alemtsehay Degefu

  :: 27 January 2018 19:39:17

  It's very good hotel we r enjoying