This is my first trip report, I hope you will enjoy this.

Between October the 29th and November the 10th my girlfriend and I traveled from London to Cape Town and back with Ethiopian Airways. At check in in London ET offered us a hotel voucher for Addis, check in was friendly and efficient.


Air Canada’s Maple Leave lounge (LHR T2)
Due to long delays on the M25 we were not able to visit the United lounge at Heathrow T2 so we decided to quickly grab something to eat at the Air Canada lounge. Arriving at the lounge we were welcomed by a not so friendly lady. It was not very busy at the lounge but I can imagine that at peak times it can get crowded.

The lounge itself has a nice look and feel. The bar area has a good choice of beverages and the big table in the middle is a great place to sit and chat. The food options were rather limited (chicken skewers, pasta, spring rolls, salad, sandwiches and pastries) and the quality of the food was rather poor. As there were a couple of minutes spare I decided to take a quick shower, I went back to the lady at reception and again it felt like I was asking for a huge favour. I handed her the boarding pass and got the key to the shower.

The shower unit looks nice and the rain shower is great. It’s sad that the lack of maintenance (parts of ceiling missing) and not having that little bit of extra luxury makes that it lacks compared to other lounges I have been to.

After the shower it was time to proceed to the gate so we left the lounge to board our flight.

I think the Maple leave lounge could be a much better lounge with just a bit more attention to detail, friendlier staff, slightly higher quality food and just that little bit extra luxury in the shower cabins (better towels, amenity kit, nicer shower gel) could make the lounge come across much better. I think that the look and feel is very nice, overall I enjoyed the lounge but it lacked attention to detail.


Flight: ET701 LHR-ADD
Having flown ET several times before I knew that everything they do ranges from terrible to good so we were prepared for the worst.

Boarding was surprisingly organised and went very smooth. The aircraft was a Boeing 777, a relatively new one but from the inside it looked like it had been flying around for decades. The seats were falling apart and the same applied to the screens of the IFE system. The IFE system itself is basic but offers a decent choice of movies, series, documentaries and music.

The flight crew was friendly but was not very pro-active, they served dinner and drinks but after that they never passed by to offer drinks. In the morning they served a very dry muffin for breakfast

Overall the flight experience was not bad, it is sad to see that an airline that invests in new aircrafts, is part of star alliance and offers a lot of extra service like the transit hotel is not capable of consistently delivering a good product.


Transit hotel Top Ten in Addis
After arriving at ADD we went through customs, we got our stamps and had to wait for the bus to bring us to the hotel.

At previous occasions Ethiopian put me in the Friendship hotel, I did not have any experience with the Top Ten hotel but when we walked to the bus I had a feeling that this could be an interesting experience.

The hotel was about 15 minutes away from the airport and brought us through neighbourhoods that were not very pleasant. The hotel is located in, what appears to be, a new building. Unfortunately from a distance everything looks fine and shiny, getting closer shows that it’s not all that fancy. The door to the balcony cannot be locked as there is no lock in the frame, sockets are falling out of the wall and the bathroom window did not fit so there was a constant supply of fresh air.

The hotel did not offer any shower gel, nor shampoo. It took about 30 minutes to get a small bottle of shampoo to wash our hair. Misses Melka was extremely unimpressed with this.

The food at the hotel was horrific, at lunch we could hear the ping notifying the staff that the microwave finished warming up our food. Lunch was served without offering us any options, we got a plate with some potato, rice, pasta and fish.

We decided to leave earlier as the WiFi was not working at the hotel and we wanted to do some work, while on the phone to reception they persisted that we stay for dinner. We had a quick dinner and went for check out.

I appreciate that ET offers this extra service free of charge and it wouldn't be fair to expect a 5-star hotel considering the price we paid for our ticket.


Flight: ET849 ADD-CPT (via JNB)
The flight was on a Boeing 737, a rather uncomfortable aircraft for such a distance. We knew about this and accepted it due to the price that Ethiopian charged for the ticket. Although a relatively new aircraft the interior showed a lot of wear and tear. The ADD-JNB section must be a very busy route as the aircraft was fully packed and about 80% left the plane at JNB.The board crew on the leg from ADD - JNB was friendly but as with the previous flight, you would never see the crew again after serving dinner and a drink.

After touching down at JNB, the crew asked us to embark the aircraft. While getting off they changed their mind and all passengers to CPT had to return to their seat. The new crew was friendly and as most of the passengers got off at JNB we took a seat with extra leg space.

The flight to CPT was pleasant and uneventful, nothing special to be noted about this flight.


We will be staying at the DoubleTree in Cape Town, I will put the review of the hotel up here shortly.