Mekelle Hotel

Regarding your questions and comments:

1) I never said I didn’t want my room cleaned. After my first night, someone came at around 11 a.m. to clean, and I asked them to come back in an hour because I was busy. No one returned, and after that no one came again. I never requested no cleaning.

You are lying — you do have cockroaches. I attached a photo, and you can compare it with the floor of my room. I killed three of them. When a cockroach gets into your bed at 2 a.m., what exactly am I supposed to do — wake up the whole hotel? I killed it and went back to sleep.

I didn’t open the window. The mosquitoes were coming from inside the hotel, getting in under the door, attracted by the light. Living in a hotel with the lights off is not a solution.

I didn’t “come back” to stay again — I never left. I had a tour planned, I needed somewhere to leave my things, and there were few options on Booking. So I was forced to stay.

2) I paid 4 out of 6 days fully in dollars. That was more than enough to cover any Booking commission for the remaining 2 days. There was no reason to use an unfair exchange rate. You are lying again: I paid for those 2 days at a rate of 167, not 152. You can check your cameras. The exchange-rate scam is what caused the most frustration. I paid only because I had to leave for a tour and didn’t have time to find other place.

3) I never asked for no cleaning. The manager offered towels once, and I refused because at that moment I didn’t need them. That doesn’t change the fact that basic hotel service wasn’t provided.

From your response, it seems I was expected to go to reception every few minutes and ask for basic things: clean the room, fix the water, fix the light, provide soap, deal with cockroaches, deal with mosquitoes. That isn’t normal. These are basic conditions a hotel should provide by default. That is your responsibility.

If you want cockroaches crawling on your bed at night and mosquitoes biting you to death, this hotel is for you.
They also scam guests with the exchange rate. The bank exchange rate is 155 birr per 1 USD. In normal places, when you pay in foreign currency, you get your change in that same currency. But not here. Here, you pay in foreign currency, but they give your change in birr — and not even at the proper bank rate of 155, but at the hotel’s own rate of 152.
I said I would rather go to the bank and exchange money there, since the bank was just one minute away from the hotel. But when I came back to pay in birr, they said that the Booking.com price in dollars would now be converted not at 152, not at the bank rate of 155, but at 167!!! This is an absolute scam.
Also, the location is very noisy.
During my 6-day stay, housekeeping was offered only once, whereas in other places it is offered daily.
The building itself and all the furniture are old, and there is no shower gel.
Unstable and slow internet.

Trop bruyant pas de wifi qui fonctionne correctement et propreté vraiment pas correct les lits sont propre mais le reste non .

May be the towel I had in my room wasn't the great.
Was a bit old and doesn't look clean

No wifi
No tv all inoperable
Reported however not fixed, they do not even touch it. I have a lot to say however I choose not.

Very noisy location.

There’s nothing specific to point out, but if you're sensitive to noise, I recommend requesting a room on the side of the building away from the road for a quieter stay.

Noone speaks good English so communication is very difficult and frustrating

remote location
no WiFi in room and Lobby

The included breakfast was quite tiny - not at all satisfactory. The wifi stopped working after I checked in (luckily I had my own data network).

Nothing

The rooms need some TLC - for example, lights don’t work. I asked the staff if they could get the TV to work - half an hour of fiddling round failed to resolve the issue.
There is some noise (even if you get a room away from the road) from surrounding bars.