Has anyone hired a guide in Morocco in advance for a day trip in Morocco. We will be in Spain for 2 weeks and I would like to include a ferry trip to Morocco for a day trip. However, I just don't want to pick a guide from the group of guides assembled to meet the ferry. If so, who do you recommend and how easy was it to arrange in advance? How far in advance of your trip did you make arrangements with the guide? This would be for a tour of Tangier. Thank you.
Posted by
Paris
7304 posts
The general advice on here is to avoid day trips to Tangiers, or at least reconsider. Guide or no guide. Why?
- extremely time consuming due to the need to get to the ferry port (Tarifa I presume) with some time buffer, customs both ways, etc.
- Tangiers itself has some interesting sights (souk, medina), but isn't the best Morocco has to offer; it has the rough edges of a port city
- A guide moderates this, but there are a lot of persistent touts ; if you're not used to that it can be a stressful experience
There is already a stronger case for an overnight stay in Tangiers. Also, speaking French (or Arabic) can make things a bit easier/more enjoyable. But still, with just two weeks in Spain I'd stick with Spain.
Posted by
Barcelona + Sweden
4180 posts
Agree 100% with Balso, resist the urge to "Daytrip to Africa", if you would like to see Morocco, then one can spend a fine two weeks in Morocco, seeing places like Fes and Marrakech. If you want to properly see Spain in just two weeks, I would stick with Spain, as this Tangiers day trip can be quite time consuming. I've heard, time and time again, from fellow travelers on this forum that the payoff of all that time and energy is not too good.
Posted by
Portland, OR
9 posts
We hired a guide in advance - we were actually in Morocco overnight, but we hired the guide for a day tour (about 9 AM to 3 PM) on our second day. We went with Tangier Private Guide (https://www.tangierprivateguide.com/destination_8/vip-day-trip_65) who are recommended in the Rick Steves Spain book, and had a positive experience.
It was fairly easy to arrange in advance - we had to send a few emails back and forth, but eventually got everything sorted. They purchased our ferry tickets as part of the tour (for a cheaper price than we could buy them on our own) which was nice.
I started the email thread about a month before our trip; it was about 2 weeks of back and forth before everything was finalized (including getting the confirmation number for our ferry crossing).
I hope that helps! I do agree with others that a day trip will be long, but it is doable. Definitely make sure that you are on the ball in terms of getting your passport stamped on the way over to Morocco, and making sure you are at the front of the line on both sides while disembarking. (We probably spent 2 hours in line/customs on our way back to Spain since we ended up at the very end of the line.)