Casablanca and Agadir Morocco

[TERRIER1]

This May we were on the Marina which made a port call in Casablanca. We elected to go to the mosque on our own. The mosque was beautiful and worth seeing. We walked there and back to where the shuttle bus left us off at the market. The back streets were poverty stricken but safe.

 

To be frank, I wasn't impressed with what I saw and was wondering if others who went on private tours found them worthwhile. When I got back on the ship I asked others their impressions of their tours of Casa and most were not impressed.

 

We are back in Casa this June on the Riviera and really don't want to make Casa a ship day for laundry. Maybe someone out there can provide some advice as to what to see and do in Casa and Agadir which is our other Moroccan port. Marrakesh and Fez are too far although to me these are the real places to see in Morocco.

 

Any advice and input is greatly welcomed.

[Mura]

I don't have any real suggestions other than to agree that after several visits to Casablanca, I fail to see the charm. Yes, the Mosque is impressive -- and there is also a lovely small orthodox Synagogue there. Other than that, I don't have much to say.

 

We did do a tour to Rabat on one visit but I have to say that although there is more to see in Rabat, it didn't impress me that much either. (My being on crutches at the time of course had nothing to do with my opinion.) It took us 2-1/2 hours to get there because the driver went at a very slow pace ...

 

If I have another stop in Casablanca, I think I'll stay on board.

 

Mura

[Benita]

We spent 12 days on a land trip to Morocco in May. Casablanca was the arrival airport - the tour company immediately took us to Rabat. There are many highlights in Morocco, but Casablanca is not one of them. We needed to spend the last night in Casablanca to catch the flight to NY and the tour company drove us from Marrakech, stopping at the Jewish Museum outside town, with a lunch stop along the beach and then a tour of the huge mosque. We then checked into a hotel and had a farewell dinner at Rick's Cafe (touristy, made to look like the bar in the movie, with the movie running in the background).

If you have not been to Casablanca before, I would go and see the mosque (really impressive). We spent two nights in Rabat, and had gone there on a shore excursion a few years ago, and I think it is worth seeing - it is about a 90 minute drive from Casablanca. The Jewish Museum was interesting, but it is a ways out of town and very small - only merits a half hour or so.

Oceania is offering an overnight land trip to Marrakech from Agadir, ending in Casablanca. Marrakech is pretty interesting, although IMHO, nothing beats Fes, but that is too far away.

When we do the September sailing, we will probably stay on the ship or look for an internet cafe in Casablanca.

[rjrcm]

We stopped in Casablanca in August on Marina, and I was also unimpressed. We had a private group tour set up by our travel agency that stopped at a food market (very unappealing), the Mosque which was interesting, a stop at Rick's Cafe for lunch, and a stop at a "shopping mall" hyped by the guide but in reality just an excuse to get us to spend money at an over-sized souvenir shop. We were also supposed to stop at a local cathedral known for it's stained glass windows but ran out of time.

 

I'd also stay on the ship next time or avoid that itinerary altogether.

[Bruin Steve]

We were there off Marina in August as well...

After doing my own internet research, I booked a tour for six of us through this company (Travel Exploration Morocco):

 

http://www.travel-exploration.com/page.cfm/About_Travel_Exploration

 

Very professional, very well organized. Actually run by a woman (Alecia Cohen) in New York, but an expert on Morocco. Payment was required in advance, but I had no concerns after my research. She was very easy to work with and had other recommendations for the tour as well, but we had to fit in what we could fit in for the day. I am fairly certain she could put together a tour for you with whatever parameters you would like.

 

Our guide, Redouane, was very knowledgable. He met us right at the gangway (actually, there was a little confusion at first since we missed him and walked right past as we got off, but he was standing right there. Once we overcame that, everything worked like clockwork).

 

We visited the Mosque, the Synagogue, the market and a walk through part of town and a driving tour through some of the nicer neighborhoods (there actually are some).

 

The Mosque, of course, was very impressive. The Synagogue was beautiful and well worth seeing. But, yes, the market was very unappealing though I did get some very interesting and colorful photos. Most in our party were not overly impressed with Casablanca as a whole. Much was dirty and a little "third world".

 

Still, I thought our tour guide was excellent and I would strongly recommend the company. Our tour cost us $108 US per person.

[TERRIER1]

Thanks for all the input. Your impressions match mine. I just didn't want to think I was being limiting or narrow minded. I would have taken another itinerary but this one goes to the Canaries and Mallorca which are places we haven't been.

 

I wish O would eliminate Casa as a port and chose another that has more of a Moroccan feel or substitute it for one of the islands. Almost everyone on our May voyage felt the same way. Thanks again.

[Mura]

I know not everyone agrees with me but I enjoyed Tangier when we were there much more than Casablanca ... and it's not that far away. I, too, wonder about other seaports that might be available in Morocco.

 

I'm not wild about Gibraltar either (although it's not a dirty third world city!) but I would vastly prefer going there to Casablanca.

 

There are also some other Spanish ports that are enjoyable -- we enjoyed Alicante and Almeria very much when we were there. (Not to mention Malaga, but plenty of cruises go there.)

 

Mura

[Paulchili]

Tangier (and to some extent Casablanca) are the Tijuanas of Morocco.

Mexico has a lot more to offer than Tijuana, just like Morocco does (think Rabat, Fes, Marrakech, Sahara & Atlas mountains for starters).

The problem is that none of these are easily accessible from the port cities.

[dlb237]

DW and I were in Agadir a year and a half ago (Rio to Barcelona transatlantic on Insignia), and took the ship's tour to Taroudant. We'd recommend that, as Agadir was leveled by an earthquake in 1960 and rebuilt on a different site, so it's a modern city, plus the ship docked at the container port, which is not really close to anything.

 

Taroudant is much older, the city walls are intact, and the souk (bazaar) there is the real thing with piles of spices, all sorts of other interesting things to buy, and hard bargaining. The tour to Taroudant was interesting, whereas friends who took tours of Agadir were not impressed.

 

Full review of that transatlantic cruise is here: http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=67138

 

Enjoy, --David