Oct 29, 2023
Seeing the Sahara up close - This was one of the best experiences of our Moroccan trip. Seeing the desert up close, watching the sunset from the top of a dune. Even there, feeling the sand it still didn’t look real. The beauty and tranquility is overwhelming in the best way. The desert accommodation was gorgeous and the food was delicious. Stopping at Ait Ben Haddou was really interesting and the views spectacular. Totally worth the time and money
Review provided by Viator
Sep 1, 2023
Morocco is beautiful, but this trip by Sami is the best - We were treated as guests, friends, travel companions, sharing time, food, emotions, adventure, surprise, amazement, hospitality. Mamood, Sami, the drivers, the camel and tent camp staff, the other Australian, Brazilian and American participants made sure that this experience was the best part of our holiday. Thank you
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Oct 14, 2023
Karim, from driver to travel companion - Departure a little disorganized due to the difficult communication with the agency to agree on the pick-up point. Challenging tour due to the numerous hours of travel, but very suggestive for the landscapes and the various stages partly described in the itinerary. The night in the desert was a unique experience, overnight stay in a tent equipped with every comfort (private bathroom with shower). Small unexpected event for the booking of the second night, fortunately resolved by our driver Karim.
Karim, as well as being efficient, was very helpful and allowed us to better understand the Moroccan landscapes and culture. Nice, funny and engaging, from a driver he also became our travel companion.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Sep 7, 2023
Great experience , but would only do 1 night - The Sahara portion of this tour including the camel ride and the accomodation & food that night were incredible.
That being said , I would opt for the 1 night tour personally if I did it again. The second day is not overly enjoyable.
Also we were very lucky 2 of our group members spoke French as the driver spoke no English.
Set expectations low and enjoy a great time.
Review provided by Viator
Nov 19, 2023
Our group seemed to be unlucky with the timings at the stops. But all in all you see quite a lot of amazing landscapes - You get to see the Atlas, the desert and a couple of kazbahs, but the program is very tight and you end up driving the whole day. We arrived unfortunately late to the desert, at already sunset and did not have time to really get slightly deeper to the desert. The logistics of different groups is caotic and there is lots of confusion how you should refer to your itinerary. The description on Viator does not correspond to what the tour operator describes nor what you get. I think we did not have time for 1/3 of the things described. The desert camping was nice, the group was small, 7 persons, the food at the lunch stops overpriced for the quality, plus it took close to an hour at one place. The hotel in Ourzazat was basic 2star, worn out, but the dinner was very good.
Review provided by Viator
Sep 19, 2023
Not the luxury tour you’re expecting, but the desert is worth it! - I was hesitant about how I would rate the experience because it was polarized in different ways…
The beginning of the journey has been a little confusing since we were unsure if the trip was still happening since if was shortly after the earthquake. We tried to join the company on 4 different occasions and we never got a reply. We had to ask one of our hostess at our hotel to call them to get some answers, but the lack of communication was a first strike.
The morning of the trip, Sami texted us as showed up on time to pick us up and drop us at a restaurant in Fes before we went to take a semi-bus type of vehicle with other people. Sami was amazing and took his job very seriously. We were disappointed that he wasn’t our guide for the trip.
On the way to Merzouga you stop to see some monkeys, which is nice.
The second strike was our first driver. He never introduced himself to us and his driving was absolutely terrible. The worst drive we had in this country, bouncing us from left to right as if the bus had no power steering.
He barely communicated with us, never checked if we were comfortable, we had to remind him to turn on the A/C on multiple occasions. He didn’t care at all. One girl almost passed out.
Also, the description was “no more than 9 people”. We were 17 on the bus. Luckily, all of them were really nice!
The desert was definitely the best part, it’s an amazing experience and you can’t come to Morocco and not go there. It is a must!
The berbers were amazing with us, very festive, playing music and relaxing, the food was great and they hd no problem giving me a generous vegetarian meal (upon request). They were great!
But if you want A/C in your tent, they will try to charge you an extra.
The second part of the trip began as we left the desert to go towards Ouarzazate and Marrakech. We left with a second driver/guide, Soufiane.
It was a relief to have him drive us because he was very nice and caring, he drove very carefully and we were comfortable in the vehicle. He showed us many places, he was flexible if we needed to stop for the bathroom/food/coffee/view or anything and he was very pleasant to be around! He have us information on sites and regions and you could see that he takes his job very seriously!
He also went out of his way to get our Riad to send someone to pick us up in Marrakech and made sure we got there safe and even offered his help afterwards for the rest of our trip in Morocco :)
The hotel in Ouarzazate is La Perle du Sud. The pool is great and all of the public spaces in the hotel are very nice and well decorated and full of beautiful art.
The room itself is very basic and the shower was absolutely disgusting. Also you have to shower right next to the toilet and the water splashes everywhere, the floor becomes slippery and there is no towel/mat on the floor. The room’s floor are dirty and dusty (we had ashes on the floor even if it’s a non-smoking hotel) and the TV didn’t work (no big deal there, but all in all the room was very disappointing). The breakfast was good and had some options, but the dinner was not impressive (mostly meat and no vegetarian options). Also weird point, but the one same song played over and over again, every day.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Aug 12, 2023
Long drives, no English spoken and drivers rather than guides. - The first day was a drive with a couple of stops, the problem was that the guides spoke no English (we booked an English tour) and so it was left to google maps to work out where we are and why we were visiting. First night was great, in the Desert with camels and the desert camp. Day two was a long drive with stops for about 10’mins along the way, and so felt like a good sated day (but again as the guide spoke no English we didn’t know where we were) day three we visited a kasbah and the studios which were fun. On the whole okay, but better communication would have made it excellent.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Oct 8, 2023
Desert was amazing….Viator was not. - The desert was and amazing but if you are looking for luxury, book with some one else. Other couples had air conditioned tents while we slapped mosquitoes all night. Air conditioned transportation with an English speaking driver…NOPE! A taxi driver who spoke no English, 1 star hotel and then another non English speaking driver who refused to turn on the air conditioning in 100 degree heat. I asked Viator for a partial refund and they refused. Definitely go to the the desert but definitely use some other tour company.
Review provided by Viator
Sep 14, 2023
Lots of issues - Pros:
Our driver Omar was kind and funny
Riding camels and the night in the dessert was really fun
Very beautiful scenery
Lots of interesting places visited
Cons:
When stopping at the place to buy headscarf’s before the desert the man at the store is a pervert. He offered to help adjust my scarf and pressed his penis against me as he moved around to fix my scarf. I had to tell him to get off me. Then when we stopped in the Berber village and the man who was trying to sell us rugs, was trying to get the solo girls to “stay with him” as we were leaving. One of the women on the tour was rightfully upset by this vendor and told our tour guide who had dropped us off at the rug place and then they got into a verbal altercation. The guide was so mad, it seemed like he was going to leave the whole tour group before we got back to our driver and van. After this trouble the driver asked everyone about the guide and then said they wouldn’t work with him again.
Since these two stops are set up through the tour I can NOT recommend this tour for female solo travelers, unless the tour group stops working with these vendors. I did mention this to the driver but I was not sure he understood due to the language barrier.
Also many of the stops seemed like they were trying to sell us over priced souvenirs.
I had to pay extra since I booked solo, but was asked to share a room with other women at the hotel. I declined and they provided me my own room.
Lastly the drop off and pickup to the night in the desert was very confusing, very little communication on who was going where and who would pick them up the next day.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Aug 30, 2023
Definitely do a desert tour - but NOT this one! - First and foremost, if you're in Morocco DEFINITELY do a desert tour. This was the best way to get from Fes to Marrakech and cover a lot of ground along the way. Unfortunately, I'm sure there are better tours you can book than this one. Here's goes:
Communication: awful! I had not heard from the tour company at all, so 5pm the day before our tour I reached out via Viator to ask what the pick-up and meeting arrangements would be. I got a call on WhatsApp from a man who just said “What is your name?”. As a woman in a foreign country getting a phone call from an unknown number and being asked THAT, I was immediately very uncomfortable with the whole situation. The person on the phone then told me my name and asked if I had booked this particular tour. I said yes. They gave very vague directions about where to meet & what time the next morning. When I asked what type of vehicle I should look for, the man on the phone acted as if no one had ever asked this before and just said “minivan”. So again, was already feeling uneasy about this trip
& tour company.
Organization: First and foremost, I had booked an English tour. My driver only spoke Spanish & French. Out of 8 people, only 5 could understand him.
Our vehicle was far from “luxury”. 8 people were crammed into a minivan with minimal leg room. And there was no Wi-Fi in the car as advertised. No one gave us any information about where we were going, where we were staying, what was happening at some of the stops, or when we would be having lunch. The second day we did not stop for “lunch” until almost 5pm (we’d had breakfast at the camp at 7:30am so needless to say everyone in the car was hangry at this point).
My tour advertised we would be staying in the Dades Valley. We did not. Instead they drove all the way to Ouarzazate where we were supposed to go the following day. Again, no communication was given about this. So that made for a frustrating 3 days since we couldn’t ask our driver anything or understand him. The other passengers did speak both Spanish & English and were very nice to translate for the rest of us. It also just made the whole car ride awkward.
The Driver: I don’t know where to start. In addition to the fact that he didn’t speak English, he gave us very little info of details.
This driver drove like a maniac on the roads. He drove at top speed and was weaving & passing other vehicles on narrow roadways the entire 3 days. There was a point we almost got T-boned on a narrow windy mountainside because he wasn’t paying attention. All the other passengers on this tour felt very unsafe.
Our driver also had a terrible cold and was coughing up a storm the entire time. Which is gross when you’re in a small vehicle with this person for 3 days. The last day I saw he was taking a ton of cold meds, which definitely impacted his driving. He was clearly drowsy.
The driver also worked out a side deal with another passenger who had a flight to catch in the afternoon. This impacted the rest of us passengers because it meant our schedule the last day got pushed up and rushed to take this person to the airport. We almost missed some of the advertised highlights b/c things weren’t open yet. The upside was that it got us to Marrakech faster and out of the vehicle and away from this driver.
Finally, the driver had a heck of a time taking any of us to our hotels. You would think it was his first time in Marrakech. Add in the language barrier and it was a mess.
While I enjoyed the experience & sights we saw, I wish I had done more research and booked with another company. This tour company is TERRIBLE and I am shocked by the number of rave reviews people had of this tour.
Review provided by Viator
