Riad Palais des Princesses & SPA

Cleo★ 5

My mother and I spent just shy of a week in Riad Palais des Princesses. I am delighted by the experience we had and the price we paid (the cost for two rooms plus our return flights was around £1,000). The accommodation is beautiful and exceptionally clean. There is a luxurious feeling within it. The location is a stone’s throw from Marrakech’s famous market square (Jemaa el-Fnaa), fantastic hammam experiences and lovely rooftop bars. The customer service plus check-in and check-out processes are wonderful: professional, welcoming, efficient, helpful and reliable. The relief I feel when I realise I can fully trust a business is immeasurable - especially when I am on holiday in a foreign country. It helped me to truly relax and feel confident that we would be well-cared for. A lovely employee gave us a tour of the riad prior to personally showing us to our rooms. The riad was incredibly kind to organise for my room and my mother’s room to be close to each other (one above the other with a ten-second walk down a staircase between us). Each room is beautifully tiled and has internal windows and window shutters. They each have a TV that gives access to streaming services, a heating and cooling appliance, an en suite shower and toilet (and basin), a (free) safe and mini fridge. It costs 15€ to be collected from the airport by a driver who takes you as close to the riad as possible by car. An employee of the riad then meets you there with a hand-pushed cart to transport your luggage and guide you to the riad down a busy market alleyway. We paid for those services for our arrival and departure and are grateful for them. We travelled with minimal luggage and feel incredibly thankful to the gentleman who pushes the cart - with consistent diligence and a smile on his face - because it must be such a physically demanding job. I don’t think I have ever been as happy or keen to give someone a tip as I was to him. In hindsight I wish I had given him more. I didn’t enjoy the manicure and pedicure I received from the riad’s in-house spa - it was far from what I was expecting - and I don’t think the breakfast is worth 15€ per person per day, but those are simply my personal opinions. There could have been a language miscommunication or cultural misunderstanding with the spa about the services I expected that, in hindsight, I could have immediately queried instead of thinking it was politer to be patient and wait for the experience to meet my expectations. It is somewhat impossible to find breakfast options before 9am outside the riad, so its offerings from 7am were convenient for my mother and me; if you highly enjoy Moroccan cuisine, love cereal or eggs, have a sweet-tooth or can eat lots of fruit then I imagine you will enjoy the buffet spread. The utter highlight of our holiday was meeting and befriending the riad’s resident cat. Her name is Mimi and she is a graceful and glorious princess. We fell in love with seeing her every day - playing, patrolling, showing affection and sleeping. She helped to make our time at the riad incredibly memorable. I highly recommend staying in Riad Palais des Princesses.