October 28, 2008 Casablanca/Marrackech Tour Report

We used Blue Men of Morocco for our Casablanca/Marrakech tour mainly because of great recommendation by an active fodors member, familyof4travels, and because Elena Hall, owner of Blue Men, said that by paying our 25% deposit as early as in June 2008, she will secure Zaid, her best English speaking driver, for us.

Please refer to my posting #13 (see link below) for details -

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=728304

Our ship, Celebrity Century, docked at Casablanca at around 6:40 am on Oct 28, 2008. Our group was ready to disembark at 7:00 am but it took quite sometime before the two gangways (on Deck 5 instead of Deck 3 which was used for all the other ports) were ready and before Immigration cleared the ship. I was the first off the ship at 7:55 am. It was raining that day. Our group walked all the way to the outside of the secured port entrance and saw someone holding the Blue Men of Morocco sign. I approached him and it was Zaid. What a great relief to hear him speak very good English.

First disappointment - We were taken to our vehicle which turned out to be a 15 pax Mercedes minivan vehicle (14 pax plus the driver). My invoice from Blue Men was for 16 pax so we should have gotten a 17 pax vehicle. It was lucky for us that 2 of our group members couldn't make the cruise so our group size was 14 pax. If the 2 pax had come, where will we seat them?

Second major disappointment - we were assigned another driver (Mousahib) who could hardly speak English instead of Zaid. What happened?? Zaid turned out to be the driver of another group of 8 pax from USA also with the Century. I asked Zaid why he wasn't our driver and he said that he doesn't have a license to drive a vehicle with more than 8 pax so we were assigned another driver. What a lame excuse since Elena promised us Zaid if we pay our deposit early. While we were on our way to the Casablanca toll station, I asked our driver to contact Zaid by cell phone. I conveyed our disappointment of not having an English speaking driver and asked Zaid to call Elena as I wish to speak with her when we reach Marrakech. Later, Zaid said that he had poor cell phone reception and couldn't reach Elena at all. I emailed Elena yesterday asking for her explanations.

Although we were upset with the switch in driver, we tried not to let this mar our day. The driver did his best pointing out a few things, saying "look" at the goats, or the city of Settat which we passed along the way. My group was just napping at the back as we had no commentary from the driver. After awhile, I tried my few Moroccan phrases with Mousahib who became animated and gave me several more Moroccan phrases to practice with him.

The drive time from Casa to Marrakech was 3 hours each way with no bathroom break. It took 1/2 hour to get to the Casa toll station from the Casa port. It was smooth driving on the new highway which posted a max speed limit of 120 km but our driver and Zaid were both driving at an average of 100 km which was fine with us so long as we were safe. It took another 1/2 hour after exiting the toll station to reach Marrakech city center. The weather cleared up in Marrakech, so we had a partly cloudy day for 3.5 hours before it rained again:(

I approached Zaid who were speaking with two guides and this time I insisted that Omar be our licensed tour guide as Elena had promised. We did not want another switch in guide.

Omar Chouiyakh was awesome. He has been guiding for over 10 years and speaks very good English. When he learned that we were from Vancouver, Canada, he said that he almost immigrated to Vancouver before the 9/11 incident.

Prior to sending our 25% deposit, I had asked Elena to specify our Marrackech itineraries on our invoice so that there is no misunderstanding later. Per Omar, the itinerary I showed was for a full-day tour from 9 am to 6 pm. As we didn't arrive in Marrakech until 11:15 am, he will do his best to cover as many places as he could on the list.

We started off at the Bahia Palace which would be closed to the public between 12:00 noon to about 3:00 pm. Omar paid for our admission fee first as we didn't have any dirhams with us. He gave us a brief history of those who stayed at the palace and explained the functions of the rooms we visited, pointing to the magnificent ceilings which were all painted with intricate designs on wood blocks using natural dyes from plants and minerals.

We were starting to get annoyed at Omar because of his numerous cell phone conversations. He later apologized and said that the other guide kept calling him for guidance so he shut off his phone.

After our visit to the palace, Omar discussed our remaining itinerary for the day:

- Would we like to visit Majorelle Garden (30 Dirhams admission fee pp - 10 dirhams is equiv to about 1 Euro) or Menara Pool and Garden (no admission fee)? We had no time to do both so we decided on the Majorelle garden.

- Saadien Tomb (closed on Tues) so we couldn't visit anyway

- Koutoubia Mosque and Minaret

- short lunch break (brochette)

- visit Jamaa El Fna Square

- walk through the old town of Marrakech and souks

- souvenir shopping for 1/2 hour before we return to the ship at about 5:15 pm

We stopped at a money exchange booth to exchange Euro for dirhams before we proceeded to the Majorelle Garden, which was a botanical garden designed by Charles Majorelle, a painter. When he died in 1962, the garden was not not kept up until Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergepurchased it in 1980. Only 1/3 of the estate is open to the public. It was a bliss in the garden, almost a different world from the outside. You can hear the birds chirping and quite a few visitors were just sitting on benches reading their books or chatting with their friends. There was a nice restaurant inside.

We stayed for about 1/2 hour at the garden and were driven back to the old city to visit the Koutubia Mosque and the Minaret. As we walked to the Minaret (the highest building structure in Marrakech), Omar explained the history of Koutubia 1 (destroyed) and Koutubia 2. The Mosque is closed to the public so we couldn't visit inside.

We walked around the Jamaa El Fna Square. Omar asked us not to take pictures of people without their approval. Tip is expected if we take pictures of the performers. We saw the food vendors, snake charmers and the monkeys performing their acts but we didn't get to see a waterman. It started to rain again:( Since some of us left our umbrellas and rain jackets in our vehicle, we decided to leave the square to visit the souks which were partly sheltered.

What a labyrinth the souks were - the incredible things to see, hear and smell. We saw the wares on sale at the small shops. It reminded us of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. Omar asked if we would like to visit a carpet store where they will show the different carpets made. Since my sister was interested, we went in. She saw a carpet she liked but it was 4,000 USD so we said thank you and left. Then we visited the section where leather sandals and musical insturments were being hand made, metal items being pounded and refined in charcoal fire, food vendors, etc.

We also visited a pharmacie where herbs and spices are sold. They took us into a room and a man and his 2 lady assistants put on a well orchested show, asking us to smell the herbs and spices and sample the ointments. The 2 lady assistants gave some of us neck massages using natural ointments. Since we have a pharmacist, an accupuncturist and a nurse in our family group, we were all interested in their herbs. We ended up buying black cumins for sinuses and migraine, tea leaves, argan oil and saffron spices.

It was close to 4:30 pm when we left the pharmacie and it was still raining. As we walked back to our vehicle, we passed by the old university in the old town. Our next stop was the souvenir shop where we bought several items. Omar was able to get us a 20% discount on all our purchases except books. He said that some visitors get between 0% to 10% discount but he can get his clients 20% discount (maybe this was his commission??). We paid in Euro at a very good exchange rate - much better than the money exchange place.

We left the souvenir shop for Casablanca at 5:30 pm. Apparently the other 8 pax group had already left so we were all anxious to get back. We arrived back at our ship at 8:30 pm.

Our driver, Mousahib, was a very good driver so we all clapped at the end of the tour to show our appreciation. We gave him a very good tip as well as it wasn't his fault that he was assigned to us.

We were all impressed with Omar so I asked for his email address for future reference (octours@gmail.com) and his cell # 00 212 612 42290. In case we visit Morocco again on a land tour, we will certainly hire him as our guide for the whole trip. He recently took a group of high-end travel agents on a land tour of Morocco, arranging their land transport, hotels and restaurants.

In conclusion, despite not having an English speaking driver, Omar made our visit to Marrakech a very memorable and enjoyable one.

Thank you, Verga, for your very well-written and informative review. We will be porting in Casablanca on the Jade in January, but since our stop is only showing on our schedule from 8 - 5, I see why our ship is not offering a day trip to Marrakesh, only a very pricey overnight one which will return folks to the ship at our next port Agadir. We just do not want to pay for an overnight again, as we already have one booked for Cairo, so we will be spending our day exploring Casablanca.

Hi Lambs2,

I was thinking of you when I wrote my review as I know you wanted to do a day trip of Marrakech instead of an overnight one. I paid very close attention on our travel time between Casa and Marrakech and I knew then that a day trip wouldn't work for you.

Enjoy Casablanca!

Verga (Veronica)