Stayed here for nearly three weeks. A new hotel, the rooms are of the highest standard with comfortable beds, high-definition televisions, and impressive rainfall showers. Housekeeping was prompt and did a thorough job keeping the room tidy. Indeed, all the staff were never anything but extremely helpful and accomodating. I stayed in a standard room, but would note that in the larger rooms there is apparently a tub that opens to the bedroom rather than the bathroom, which struck me as extremely odd.

The breakfast buffet had a wide selection, although the omelettes (made at a station) were sometimes undercooked and the selection of juices sour. However, the pastries were excellent, particularly when fresh. As for lunch and dinner, be sure to try the fish goulash, pizza, and any of the steak, but avoid the chicken cream soup and don't bother going out of your way to eat the burgers. The bar also has a good selection of beers, wines, and spirits, although on one occasion a beer was served to me so cold it poured out as a slush!

The gym has a good variety of machines and a rotation of helpful trainers. As is usual in Ethiopia, the pool is rather strongly chlorinated but otherwise clean and at a good temperature. The shower temperature can be a bit finicky, but otherwise everything works as expected, including the steam bath and sauna. I hear the masseuse is exceptional but did not book an appointment myself. Some of the fixtures-- in the spa and elsewhere appear to be showing premature wear-and-tear, but this is a consistent problematic feature of construction work in Ethiopia whose redress probably entails a systemic solution and thus can't helped insofar as this hotel-- or any other-- is concerned.

My sole complaint is that the hotel could be improved by the addition of a business centre-- the lack of one was a little surprising, and it made printing documents a hassle; the staff was no less accommodating to this request, but it required me to send my documents to the IT office and then go back to the front desk to pick the printed copies up. Had I been dealing with sensitive documents. However, the wi-fi was always reliable, so that was less of a problem than it could have been.

Overall, I strongly recommend the Magnolia Hotel to all sorts of travellers-- business, tourist, expat, diaspora-- and will undoubtedly return here when I next travel to Addis Abeba, which hopefully will be soon.