Marrakech Discovery Tour

Lots of walking and sometimes hard to keep whole group together esp through narrow souks. Too much to see in 1 day. Guide was rubbish! Loved the sound of his own voice and kept every1 listening to him talk about irrelevant things whilst at the sites instead of allowing time to explore/take pictures.

Tour Guide Mohammed was excellent. very knowledgeable knew his history spoke good English and was humorous.

We joined this tour from Casablanca and eventhough we confirmed it when we have arrived to Marrakech the agency told us the tour has been canceled and we should come back the other day , this was unacceptable as we drove 3 hours at 4 in the morning . After fighting with we managed to have our tour so it wasn't nice at all in the beginning.
After resolving this problem the tour was great the guide was fantastic I wish we did not have that kind of a start

First of all, regarding pick-up from "selected hotels", I had assumed that because my riad was in the medina, that it would be included in the pick up, but apparently if you book online you will only be picked up from "central" hotels in the new city area, not from the Medina. Tourists who book directly through their riad/hotel in the Medina will be picked up, but they pay a higher rate. This caused us a problem as we had to travel to the Viator office in the "new city" at our own expense and our taxi driver, who was late picking us up, dropped us off in the wrong place. We finally made it to the coach and visited various historic sights. Many of the people with us in the morning had booked the "historic tour". They left us at lunch time and we went on to lunch at a restaurant, Dar Es Salaam. Service was slow and food was bland, but the surroundings were attractive. The afternoon tour consisted of the souks and the tanneries, factories, etc. You were not given the opportunity to buy anything at the market stalls, but were taken to a particular gift shop (like a fair trade shop?) where you could purchase, although there was no huge pressure to buy. All in all, it was a long day and the next day I had blisters on my feet! With hindsight, I would have booked separate half-day tours through my riad and ensured transport to the tour coach was included. Otherwise, the content of the tour was interesting.

Quite a good tour. Rather a large group when I took it (about 30 people) and the start point is not ideal if you are staying in the Medina itself. If you are in an outlying resort hotel then it is ideal. Good lunch (perhaps too long allowed for it) so a full day. However seeing the main square at night is not to be missed so you might want to come back for that.

Quite an enjoyable day though everything felt very rushed. Although it's a lot of walking (end of the day the pedometer read 13kms) you won't feel it. Guide was very nice and shared a lot of info, but his pace was so high that we lost people of the group time and again and he had to go back to find them while we waited. If you're looking to shop, this tour is not for you. If you have limited time and wanna squeeze in the must-sees in Marrakesh however, then this is the tour you want.

Guide was nice. We spent too much time in carpet and spice stores though.

Excellent value for money, the guide was OK and the lunch superb. On the negative side, we had to call Morocco a number of times prior to our trip to find out the meeting arrangements, and then had to take a taxi to the tour companies office (even though "hotel pick-up" was advertised), which proved challenging as we were given only a vague address. The tour company will not collect from the Medina - even from a prominent point.

I was booked on a French speaking tour, but I wanted an English speaking tour. I was the only English speaker and fortunately, the guide spoke English. However, it seemed he spent more time explaining the sites to the French speakers and less time translating it to English to me. I felt the tour was okay, but I didn't get the detailed information as the French speakers did.

I was disappointed as I took the tour because I read a lot of good reviewed about the tour but that was not the case for me. We were in a group of 8 English/Spanish speaking tour which is a sub group of about 30 French speaking group. We basically had to wait for the French group anyway because we use the same bus and eat at the same restaurant. That still ok but what worst was our tour guide speak ok English (not the best) but when he has to also speak in Spanish at the same time we hardly get anything information we thought we should off him. Wasted a whole day when everything could be done in really half a day.

Overall I think the tour was ok but I would have liked a lot more information. Our guide, for example took us to a royal burial ground and told us to look around for 20 minutes and then gave a 2 minute overview at the end when it would have been a lot better if he walked round with us explaining things as we walked around. The walk through the souks was just that, without any explanations of anything. I would have liked more historical references throughout the day. Lunch was too long, and we had to ask to leave the restauarant as we had been sitting around for quite a while after everyone had finished leaving. Also despite me having mentioned I was vegetarian when booking no provision had been made. I then had to tell a waiter I was vegetarian when it became apparent we were not going to be asked what we would like to eat and was then bought a dish of vegetables straight out of the chicken tagine that the other guests were given. If you armed with a guide book Marrakech is very easy to look around yourself and you will probably get more comprehensive information from a book. It is quite a compact city and its easy to get around by walking and taxis. Overall i would not book this tour again.

Note from Viator: Thanks for your honest comment. While we never like to hear about customers having substandard experiences, your feedback helps us to ensure our local suppliers provide a quality experience.

This tour should only last through lunch - the guide and the historical sights were fine, but the afternoon visit to the supposedly ”no pressure” carpet showroom - my husband and I experienced major hard sell and a mother/daughter were almost traumatized since they were led off to another room and really pushed to buy something. When the group was ready to leave, we asked about the 2 and were told that they would catch up with us because they were staying to purchase a rug. We expressed concern and the guide went back in and brought them out - they were thankful that we stayed for them and were upset with the experience at all. Then it was off to the healing herbs pharmacy which was much less hard sell and some people did buy a few items. Then it was a long walk through the souk where there was no time to even take a second glance at things. I did like seeing the craftsmen working on things - that was the best part.

If you want to do a city tour in Marrakech make sure you shop around first! My advice would be to check with your accommodation if/what they can arrange for you, as you’ll probably get better value for money and a tour better tailored to your specific interests. We were staying in the Medina and the tour company got really irritated when we asked if we could be picked up from somewhere (anywhere!) near our riad – although that wasn’t the case with some other couples who were also staying in the Medina but (as we later found out) had only booked the day before (as opposed to us, who had prebooked the tour before we went to Marrakech). What’s more, as it happens quite often in Morocco, most people in our group were French so our guide’s descriptions - even though I’m sure he meant well - were for the most part in French rather in English, so not a balance there. On the plus side, this tour does cover most of the must-sees in Marrakech (with the exception of Jardin Majorelle – though we didn’t appreciate the stop at the local shop in case we ‘wanted’ to buy traditional rugs) and the meal at the restaurant where we had lunch was very good indeed.

If you do this, make sure that your language is the primary one spoken on the tour. It was a French tour and there were only 5 English speaking individuals so they gave us an inferior tour guide. We often had to ask what the other one was saying so that he would translate the French to give us the English. I don't think we should have to ask for information on a guided tour. I often felt like I was missing out on a lot of important information because I wasn't French.

Note from Viator: Thanks for your feedback. We have followed up with our local supplier to make sure that this does not happen again. We agree completely - you should not be penalized for not speaking French! Apologies, and thanks for flagging this to us. Your feedback is critical so that we can address problems like this quickly.

I would not recommend this tour, especially not for independent travellers. The group was very large and was comprised almost exclusively of package tourists, who didn’t seem to have spent very much time outside the hotel aside from this tour. The main tour guide appeared quite arrogant, including in his responses to some people’s questions about the timing of the tour group. Our lunch was very average and took place in a large room in a restaurant that seemed to be dominated by other package tours. The afternoon session was basically an extended sales pitch from a Moroccan herbalist store about which of their products we should buy; followed by an optional visit to a handicrafts store. The one saving grace was the second tour guide, who was a lovely and very knowledgeable man. I learned a few things in the morning, but on the whole, it really felt like an impersonal, lowest common denominator, mass-produced experience.