The Ghion is decent. I won't say "nice", but decent and we enjoyed it. It has everything you need--hot water, even room service (!) if you want it. It also has carpeting in the bathrooms and looks like it's been there a LONG time with a lot stains (I preferred not consider what they were from). The Ghion used to be part of the Presidential Palace, and has the remains of really pretty gardens you can walk through. There are different options there for rooms. We stayed in a suite (I think it was called the Riviera Suites? I'd have to check). There are several suite options, but these ones are detached from the main hotel. There is an upstairs suite and a downstairs suite. We had the downstairs one, which was great. There was the main room, which had a queen bed, desk, chairs, tv, and then a large sliding glass door which opened to a big grassy area. We left the door open the whole time we were in the room, and it was so nice and breezy..sometimes we'd just sit out on the grass with our son, relaxing...then there was another bedroom which had a single bed in it, and then a kitchen (which we used to clean out baby bottles, boil water to sterilize them, etc). If you use an agent like Susan Parr, she'll get the right rate for you, but if you book it on your own by phone or email (which we did), be sure to mention you are there to adopt--you can much lower rates. I think our suite was like $35/night or something like that. It is owned by the Ethiopian Gov't.
If you're looking for a step up, the Hilton is nice. There's a bank on the main floor, all the airline offices are there (except Lufthansa, which is what we flew), and a coffee bar, tourist shop (where you would pay WAY more than necessary for anything you buy
). It's pretty old, but was somewhat redone a few years back. The one thing I'd say about the Hilton, which is a high rise, is that you might want to book on a lower floor. If there ever were a fire, the Addis fire dept. is not going to be able to get you down from a higher floor. Not something I'd stress over, but all things being equal...it is a bit removed (physically and aesthetically) from "regular" Addis, and you get a bit less of a local feel..all depends what you're looking for.
The Sheraton is seriously luxurious. Both the pros and cons of it is that you don't feel like you're really in Addis. It's an oasis, but you also don't get the feeling of the country you're in. I felt like I could be anywhere in the world when there. If you're looking to really relax while in Addis, it would nice! We tried to get in there for the last few days of our trip, to make a mini vacation out of it, but it was booked
There are other hotels too--these are just a sampling!
As for airlines, we used ff miles, so if you have a lot of those, you might want to use them. We were able to fly 1st class on Lufthansa w/o ever paying a dime. It was GREAT. If there's ever a time to fly 1st class, that length of a trip was it for us! I'm trying to think of all the airlines which fly in there...I think it's Ethiopian Air, Lufthansa, KLM, Alitalia, British Air....I might have missed something...but you could start looking at routes/rates for those.
I don't think you need to worry about getting sick from taking a shower, but you definitely don't want to drink the water (or get ice in drinks) if you're concerned about getting sick.
The other thing you could start thinking about is which vaccinations you want to get. Some are more necessary out in the countryside than Addis. Malaria, for example, is in lower altitude areas than Addis, so if you're planning to travel to lower elevations, you might want to take some with you, but it shouldn't be a problem in Addis.
Hope some of that helps!
Teranga