Thanks for the TR offerendum Your TR made it easy not to chose Amenjena if we go back to Marrakech.

Similar to your experience, my wife and I didn't really find Marrakech having any wow factor to return back to. All of the souks are Chinese made trinkets, and carpets are way over priced. Feels like the city is built to extract as much as they can from the transient tourists.

History is great, but the biggest issue is the dichotomy of poverty right outside of these opulent hotels. There is just something wrong with this city at the present state, of financial imbalance.

We stayed at the Mandarin Oriental (Mandarin Pool Villa) and although not perfect, the place was relaxing and had excellent in house restaurants with friendly/attentive staff. Based on the photos you have provided, I think if we ever go back, it would be the MO again or RM.

I see, many similiar thoughts....

The museum about the square is located in the old post office.

The heart of the museum is a large hall in which historical costumes and other paraphernalia are on display.














There are also arts and crafts



and lots of art.







There are coins in a particularly beautiful room.


Finally, there is a room with photographs of films shot in Marrakech.





Finally, a little reminder of the postal era.

Time to go home! From Amanjena, we took an E-Class back to the airport. The new terminal is quite futuristic and difficult to capture in photos.




The Amanjena accompanied us to the counter and waited there with us dutifully. My objection that he could go ahead and we could do it on our own was rejected, they would accompany all guests as far as possible. Incidentally, it would have been possible to book a VIP service for a fee, but I couldn't quite see the point.
By the way, here's a picture for the junkies:

Unfortunately, this is when the problems began. I don't mean that the queue was quite long. You can cope with that. No, they were not able to check us in. The problem was that I had booked a free middle seat to make the next 3.5 hours or so in wooden class more or less bearable. But they couldn't cope with that. After I had tied up 2 counters and a supervisor, the result was that I had to pay €20 extra. Nonsense, of course, but as time was running out I didn't care, I'd just get it back later. After they had issued me with a slip of paper and I was waiting at the till, a lady from the counter finally came running up - they had done it! Then I quickly went through security. The Amanjena employee took us to the priority lane, which meant that we bypassed just 3 waiting passengers. It then took forever at the security checkpoint and again at passport control. After all, anyone leaving blessed Morocco has to be thoroughly checked. There is then a final check to make sure that you really have an exit stamp in your passport and then it's off to the terminal. Although the gate wasn't due to open for a few minutes, boarding had already begun. Well, the Duty Free only had euro prices anyway, so I bought some dirhams via......

Yet again, offerendum has saved me significant money and time. I was considering a few days in Morocco on an upcoming trip,but was ambivalent that the hassles would be worth the reward. This report seems to confirm my suspicions. Perhaps simply seeking out a quality Moroccan restaurant elsewhere will scratch that itch. Still, I can hear the faint call of the Atlas mountain area as a future possibility.

If you fly into Casablanca to go to Marrakech; I will also say some of the immigration officers at Casablanca are not tourist friendly. Short tempered, no patience, rude, and not even happy they are working. My wife and I were on different flights, and pretty much the same experience for the both of us through immigration.

If you do connect through Casablanca, just make sure you have a screen shot of your hotel reservation, as they will ask which hotel you are staying at for how long. They literally have no clue of the hotels and will then ask for a photo copy of your reservation. Wifi is spotty at immigration, so makes it abit difficult.

No point of economically supporting a country with tourist dollars if they can't even get tourism right in the first place. Plenty of third world countries with poorer economies are friendly, and it is a cultural issue at Casablanca.

We had to show our ticket at immigration- also strange. And they asked many questions as well....

This has been a great read. I’ve a lazy days In Marrakech booked for May that have become slightly less lazy after reading your experiences and starting to build out the itinerary

Just so I’m getting you right, do all border security agents have to be friendly or just the ones in third world countries?

First we had to stand in line, this time the flight was completely full.

It was busy outside.

The usual bag photo.

A few pictures of the departure.







Now we had no opportunity to eat at the airport, so we resorted to the gourmet restaurant in the sky. We chose penne with tomato sauce and chips from the menu. We also had Christmas coke.







I think the pictures on the menu can easily be called embellished. The fries were like the microwave fries that have been available in supermarkets for some time. For an absolute emergency, when the deep fryer and oven are broken, you really want fries and only have low quality standards. The pasta was reasonably edible, although the sauce had that usual ready-made sauce taste.
Let's put it positively: we didn't starve.
The chocolates we took from Amanjena were in a different league.


The flight was otherwise uneventful and the suitcases arrived relatively quickly. Being one of the last planes to arrive in Düsseldorf also has its advantages.