This was an amazing trip which surpassed our expectations. We would definitely recommend, especially for this price!
My partner and I went on this trip late March, it was definitely a good time to go.
There was a lot of driving, but at the end of the day we wanted to go to the Sahara and that’s not close to Marrakech! There is a lot of amazing, diverse scenery on the way too.
We stayed in the Medina in Marrakech before the trip, and were picked up just outside the Medina (about a 10 min walk from our Riad) at 7am. We were messaged the pick-up point at 6pm the evening before.
There were 16 of us in the minibus - a mix of English, French and Spanish speakers - and we did most of the tour with just this group, however there was a second minibus (same company) who we met with a few times.
On the first day we went to the stops mentioned, as well as some view points on the way through the Atlas Mountains and other places. The highlight was Aït Ben Haddou, it was an amazing Ksar with a lot of history and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The guide here cost 30dirham per person, but the tour was well worth it.
We then went to lunch in Aït Ben Haddou. We were ushered into a restaurant, but decided we wanted to go elsewhere, we found much better value (and what we were actually fancying) a minute down the road.
The evening of the first day we stayed in a family-run hotel. It was nice, the food was delicious, and we had Moroccan entertainment after dinner.
We were up at 6:45 and left the hotel at 7:30. We had some more good stops and viewpoints, including a family of traditional carpet makers, Todra Gorge (amazing scenery here) and stopped off for lunch on the outskirts of Tinghir. The food here was nice, and was a fairly good price (this was obviously a bit of a tourist trap, but there was nowhere else nearby).
We went for a walk during a bit of free time after eating and the scenery was just something else. We got some of our best pictures from the trip here.
Back in the minibus, we continued on to Merzouga, where we met the camels and went out into the Sahara. We took a soft bag each, which was hooked over the camel’s saddle. This was a great experience, and we got some great photos. We also did some sand boarding whilst the sun set.
After this, we headed over to the camp, where we had dinner at about 8pm, then did some stargazing followed by some Moroccan entertainment around a fire. This was a great day - but very tiresome!
It didn’t get too cold overnight - about 15°C when we woke up. I was glad that I had a jumper in the morning, but I only needed that for about an hour.
There was an electric outlet, but only 6 sockets in a communal area to be shared by about 30 people.
In the morning of the last day we woke up for the sunrise at 6. We got some more photos and headed back to Merzouga by camel. We had breakfast at Merzouga and then headed back to Marrakech in the minibus, making a few refreshment stops on the way.
We would definitely recommend, especially for this price! (We found out there in a luxury version of this trip for about 2x the price - the only difference is the desert camp. The luxury is a lot nicer, but the standard is still nice and plenty good enough - plus more social.)
We took 700 dirhams between the two of us and returned with about 100 - though we were careful with it, and also saved about 160 on the first day lunch.