This riad has some really positive reviews online and seeing as it’s only located about a 3 minute walk from Jemaa el Fna, I decided to book in for a 2 night stay.
Their website is very basic and with the cost being very economical, I knew that it would likely be a very basic riad. Prior to arrival, I had made arrangements with the owner for a driver to pick us up from the train station. The owner had said that we could just email her when we were leaving Casablanca so that she could make arrangements for a driver to be ready for us when we arrived into Marrakech. She was going to charge us 15 euros and we were willing to pay that as the location of the riad is quite hidden.
When we arrived into Marrakech, I noticed I didn’t receive an email response from the owner and we ended up having to make our own way to the riad. It is definitely very hidden and if we hadn’t received help from a kind shopowner, we probably wouldn’t have been able to find it. During all of the email communication with the owner of the riad, her English seemed to be quite competent but when we finally arrived, we found that she couldn’t really speak English at all. I asked her about the driver that was supposed to pick us up and she didn’t seem to understand us at all.
The rooms were on the 2nd and 3rd floor, so we had to lug our suitcases up a narrow stairway. Another thing that I had pre-arranged was a room with 2 twin beds, but the owner gave us a room with one double bed. I asked about this and she was able to make arrangements to give us a room on the 3rd floor with 2 beds instead.
Our room was the only room on the third floor and was shared with a terrace. The room was dark and small and we couldn’t even lay both of our suitcases on the floor at the same time. The bathroom was very dark to begin with but the walls were all painted a dark grey. However, it was of an acceptable size. The biggest complain we had was that there was no complimentary air conditioning in the room. The owner told us that we could pay 5 euros a night for air conditioning, which seemed quite expensive as our room was only 25 euros in total. We ended up just having all the windows open but because the terrace was on the same floor as us, people gathered up there and it was quite loud at night. We also heard the Call of Prayer around 3am the first night. I was quite surprised that it lasted around 30 minutes. I thought it would be a bell that rang a couple of times but that is obviously not true.
Breakfast is served between 8am and 10am at the riad and we chose to eat breakfast on the terrace. We weren’t quite satisfied with the breakfast at the riad and decided to venture out to a nearby café for breakfast. However, at that time, we didn’t realize that Moroccan breakfasts basically consisted of coffee, orange juice and various kinds of breads. So the nearby café sold the exact same thing as what we were served at the riad.
We were planning on going on a Sahara tour after checking out of the riad and the owner was kind enough to allow us to leave our suitcase with her during the two days that we would be gone. She is a very nice lady and tried to be as helpful as possible but it was unfortunate that we weren’t able to communicate very well due to not knowing each other’s languages.
If you’re just looking a basic place to sleep and don’t mind not having many amenities, this is a good option. The location alone makes up for much of its downfalls. However, even 5-10 euros more would likely be able to get you a much better riad. The best part of the riad was definitely the terrace. It was much cooler than our room and we spent quite a bit of time out there. The terrace also offered much stronger wifi than our room did. On the morning that we were set to check out, we stepped out of our room and found someone sleeping on the terrace! I guess it got too hot in his room too!
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