WE LOVED MOROCCO! Just a magnificent country and culture!
First, I’d like to tell you about Younes. He did a fantastic job with us… he was organized, relaxed, confident, easy going, open to other ideas, excellent English, just a delight to be with. When you spend two weeks with someone, if it’s not the right match, it could seriously get on your nerves! We would highly recommend him to anyone else. I think it’s particularly commendable because he is a young guy and probably hasn’t had as much experience as some older drivers. One special thing was that he also arranged for us to have different room than was booked in Essasouira. we had an ocean view room booked which would have been wonderful but he asked for this amazing corner room with windows on two walls that looked out at the ocean in two directions. It was spectacular!
Only one very small suggestion we might make…. I’m thinking that the drivers kind of build a mental library of places. For example, Younes took us to visit with an elderly woman who lived in a cave house. It wasn’t on our agenda but really added a special touch. That was in Younes’ mental library. It would be great if he could further develop his mental library of places to stop for meals. All the places he took us were good so we didn’t really have a complaint but we would have preferred places that were more where local people ate. Often times we stopped for lunch at a kind of standard tourist type restaurant. We kind of like the little hole in the wall spots. Our city guide in Fez took us to a lunch spot where we were the only European faces in the place…no one was eating with a fork… now, that was fun! We did stop at more of a hole in the wall place coming through the High Atlas mountains.. there were tourist there but they seemed to be almost all Moroccan. We had a great time there.
Now for favorites… as far as places go, we loved Chefchaouen (yes, it’s a bit touristy but just historically fascinating and beautiful as well), Fez, Volubilis, all of the Atlas mountains, Marrakech (which I wasn’t that excited about visiting but loved), Essasouria…. mmmmmm, sounds like we loved it all! …. maybe the question should be what didn’t we like! Well, we liked everything but Rabat wasn’t particularly interesting to us. I loved the camel trip! Would have liked an extra night somewhere in the Middle Atlas mountains… would have liked to see where they actually create the beautiful rugs. Was glad we ended up not staying in Ouarzazate – it just seemed kind of empty to me. Loved the way we saved Marrakech until the end… that worked out beautifully.
All of our accommodations were great… particularly loved the Riad in Fez (Riad Jaouhara)…. the young woman who worked there made our stay very special. She cooked meals for us on two nights and the food was wonderfully prepared and presented. We were the only people staying there so it felt like our own home. Breakfast was excellent. We had a wonderful room on the roof of our hotel in Chefchaouen…. just a beautiful quaint room, very private with a view over the entire city and mountains. And then the spectacular corner room in Essasouria just was icing on the cake or maybe it was the SPRINKLES on the icing on the cake!
As far as company service goes, everything went very smoothly. Jeff, your email personality was what won us over plus your willingness to get a trip within our budget. This might seem like a little thing but I would have liked it if you guys had emailed us a few days before our departure just to say “Hi, all is well and we’ll see you in Morocco”… I had a momentary thought or two that we might arrive in Casablanca and find we had been “had”… that would have been reassuring. In the end, Younes stayed right with us until we were going into security in the airport. Would definitely recommend your company to others!
Best to you and the gang at Morocco Tours!
Jean and John