Marrakech guided city tour

Our Medina Treasures tour was very enjoyable, and the cookery workshop at La Maison Arabe was even better.

The first guide who showed us the cultural parts of Marrakech was very good, and he even took as to a good English speaking herbalist as my husband had a cold, and we bought some rather potent nigella seeds, which certainly helped.
The 2nd day we had a driver to drive us around to see the gardens and he must have thought we were odd because they really weren’t worth the bother.  They could and probably were once so much more, and from the air on the way out of Marrakech you could appreciate the extent of them.  It was my idea to have a look but I certainly wouldn’t recommend this to any others except of course the Majorelle gardens which were interesting in their own way. The driver also took as to the Mamounia Hotel at my request – we thought we would have a coffee there, which was an excellent idea as it turned out, a swanky hotel with a nice garden! We didn’t bother going around the Palm Grove area as we had driven through there quite a lot before and after the balloon ride, delivering other guests so felt we had seen it.

The guided tour was good but unfortunately the guide did not want to take on board what we wanted to do, only what he wanted us to see. In the end we cut the tour slightly short but enjoyed the experience.

Was too long for us, we didn't finish it till half one and it was a really hot day. Was interesting though and worth doing. Our guide Rashid was very good.

Marrakech was very interesting, we enjoyed the main sights and we enjoyed being shown around the centre by our tour guide, another Rachid, but with reservations as included in his tour were visits to a co-operative carpet shop and a perfume, spices and herb shop, which were less enjoyable.  At the perfume, spices and herbs shop we were left with a woman who took us to a room where she launched into a presentation on the various Argan oils, potions, herbs etc that her shop sold followed by a very hard sell on the products.  We each ended up spending just over 1,000 dhs but we felt she was very pushy, and although we did buy she kept trying to cajole us into buying more, even at the cash register point.  It spoilt it for us and we were glad to escape! We then had the same experience in the carpet shop.  We were brought in and shown around and then many carpets were being taken out “just to show us – no obligation to buy” the styles/colours.  When we said we probably not be buying the owner just said ‘no worries’ but insisted on his helper taking out many more and he continually questioned us on which we would like etc.   We ended up buying a small carpet but to be honest we would have preferred a different approach to it and it would have felt difficult to leave without a purchase because of his pushiness…and again we felt that obligation to purchase with his attitude.

Our friends, Chris and Nicky, said later they would quite liked to have purchased a carpet but did not want to buy there with the pressurised situation.  It felt very different to an occasion in March of this year when we visited a souk in Oman and the guide with us on that occasion just followed us into shops we wanted to visit and helped out when the shop/stall owners became ‘pushy’.  The difference is that tour guide Rachid clearly took us to these shops because he had an understanding with the owners and did not warn us in any way what experience we were being put into and deliberately stayed outside both shops after he had handed us over to the care of the respective shop owners.  May be there was a touch of naivety on our part, but had we known what was coming we would have asked not to visit these shops because of the hard sell.

Marrakesh-city tour-very good information, very easy to talk to, personable. A little canned, but with the right questions, he opened up. Good suggestions for restaurants and hammam.

The half-day visit to the Souk and Medina Treasures also excellent with charming and well-informed guide, (Mohamed Azim).  We then enjoyed a day of exploring on our own.

City tour/travel arrangements - all drivers on time, honest and good company. The half day city tour was useful for orientation and good on historical and social detail (it probably helped that I lived in Bahrain for a few years and knew a bit about Moslem culture and history).

The guided tours were worthwhile and took us to places we never would have found ourselves. 

The guided tour was excellent until we got into the souks at which point the guide went into "vendor" mode and dropped us off into the herbalist, rug seller and antiques and artifacts dealers!  I think because it is our third visit to Marrakech we have had our fill of the souks now!

Our guide in Marrakech was fine - he was efficient and informative.

We really enjoyed the city tour, and would certainly not have seen all of it trying to navigate on our own. Unfortunately we did not read your advise about letting the guide know that we did not wish to purchase anything in the souks, so we felt a bit awkward, but that was our fault!

The garden tour was also enjoyable, a little surprised that we had to pay the entrance fee to the Majorelle gardens, but not a problem.