Hotel Asmara Palace

First the good news: the rooms are spacious and you’ll sleep well because the bedding, pillows and mattresses are all good quality. There’s front desk staff speaks English and Italian and tries hard to be accommodating. They can change money and book the airport shuttle for you. Their “fixer” at the airport is AMAZING and he will retrieve your luggage while you deal with the hour-long process of getting your visa placed inside your passport and paying them. You get free bottled water daily, along with 1 beer and 1 Coke in your minibar on the house. Now the bad news: The WiFi is temperamental. Electricity cuts out for no reason. Breakfast buffet is uninspiring but the omelet station saves the day. Oddly, despite Italian colonialism , the coffee and the pastries are substandard. The fruit is fresh and sweet. I never ate dinner there but the restaurant had a constant flow of visitors.

This is billed as Eritrea’s best hotel but it has seen much better days. Originally, an Intercontinental Hotel, the government took it over when they pulled out. The lack of maintenance is apparent. During one stay we had no hot water at night but only in the morning. Another room had only hot air coming out aircon and you couldn’t open the window. The toilets smell urine, the carpets are stained. Cleanliness is very average. You can get the BBC and Al Jazeera and they offer free WIFI but the log in system is complicated and usually painfully slow and buggy. The food in the Trattoria Italian restaurant is very good as is the service but prices are very high, even for Eritrea. The breakfast buffet costs $25 if you aren’t staying at the hotel and isn’t worth it. The selection is reasonable enough but not up to a usual 5 star hotel breakfast. Service is kindly and they try to please. They offer a shuttle for $10 to the airport which is ten minutes away. It’s therefore a convenient hotel if you arrive or depart late at night. If wanting to look around town it’s best to stay in the well managed and cheaper Crystal Hotel (also has WIFI) which gets good reviews. You can safely walk around Asmara from there. From the Asmara Palace, you pay 20 Nafka for a spot in a share taxi into town. It’s very safe. Note: the bottled still water co. had its licence revoked a few years ago so only water with gas is manufactured in Eritrea. Still water must be imported. The Asmara Palace doesn’t have still water!!! Ask to buy sone before staying g here, but be sure it’s not s brand from Dubai as they get contaminated by being next to detergent products and taste like soap. The Ethiopian and Sudanese brands coming in by toad are best.

Этот отель считается лучшим в Асмэре и почему-то имеет ранг 5*, которому, конечно же, не соответствует! Отель давно нуждается в ренновации: здесь всё устарело уже как лет 20!!! Мебель старая, номера грязные, вода подаётся в душе с перебоями... Но это лучшее, что сейчас есть в городе...