The Swaynes is of the typical mediocre tourist quality found so often in Ethiopia. Rooms are ok, but lack air conditioning. Service in the restaurant is lousy. Furniture needs upgrading. Often sold out in high-season. Then they'll give you a tent.

Had a really nice time staying at this hotel, the bar restaurant overlooking the rift valley, a perfect place to sit and chill with a cold beer and admire the view. Had a nice bungalow with a garden and a garden wooden chair overlooking the rift valley, with plenty of wildlife that flies walks and creeps and crawls past if you are quiet enough. The room was clean and comfortable and apart from a branch scraping on my roof at night (which the gardener sorted) i had a nice relaxing peacefull stay, and i would recomend the local fish dishes from lake chomo served in the hotel restaurant....

Pros
- decent dinner, restaurant has atmo at night, and once they do take take your order, food gets served fast (both nights I had to walk up to the chalkboard and tell the waiters /waitresses what I wanted coz they just sat/ stood around, but staff are friendly)
- awesome view of the two lakes, good place for birdwatching with plenty of kites and other birds flying by at close proximity and at eye level, in fact giving this place a 3/5 mainly because of the view/ location
- interesting decor that incorporates local architecture-the beehive looking entrances of the Dorze people
- room has mossie net, hot water, electricity (that went on and off a few times)
- adorable olive baboons live in the same cliff area, too bad the hotel guards threw rocks at them to scare them away, I was enjoying the morning sun when a family incl baby walked by but they got chased away

Cons
-  could be more clean, made me itch just being in the room although I was just scratching the same old bites from Axum days ago, while room had very good view of Lake Chamo on the right and Lake Abaya on the left (once you walk out of your room), when at the cliff edge could see plastic bottles and excrements, in the outdoor area around the restaurant the grass was also littered with cigarette butts, glass, bottle caps, the walkway to the restaurant was littered by bamboo and other debris (as some of the rooms look like they were still under construction) 
- thin walls: Heard everything next door

Three people of our group, all who had fish for diner, were very sick the day after due to food poisening. Chairs in restaurant are broken, garden not maintained and very muddy after a rain shower. The service at breakfast is very slow and certainly not on time; take this in mind if you have to leave early! Instead of building new rooms it would be better to maintain the old ones; hotel deteriorate.