The only non-European holiday I took with my parents when growing up was to Morocco where we spent one or two weeks at the Hotel Arabian Sands on the Atlantic coastline. I’ve looked for the place since but can’t find any reference to it online or work out its location from looking at satellite imagery of the Moroccan coast although I know I saw it had been photographed and renamed many years ago. The internet is apparently not forever.

The hotel was a sprawling complex of white, thick-walled buildings with a swimming pool, a small shop, and not much else. My brother and I had a bunk bed in the same room as my parents.

The hotel was isolated with no town anywhere near of note. A few hundred metres from the hotel was a small selection of shops and a restaurant that we visited occasionally. The restaurant had quite a large number of Barbary apes running wild in it. Despite having a reputation as a fussy eater I was the most adventurous person when it came to dining and I remember tucking into shark and swordfish on two visits while everyone else ate more “normal” food.

To get to the restaurant and shops there was a long, straight road lined with salespeople trying to hawk their wares. I remember one day we were heading to the shops with an American family with whom we’d made friends (no idea of their names but I think they were from a US airbase in the UK) with and my dad had told us all to keep walking, don’t stop, don’t interact. We duly did that and reached our destination to find my dad had been waylaid and was surrounded by a group trying to get him to buy souvenirs of some description.

As its name suggested, the Hotel Arabian Sands was close to lots of sand that made up a very golden beach facing the Atlantic. There was in fact a second beach just to the south of where we were that was fenced off and protected by armed guards as it was used by the royal family. The beach was lovely and the waves were fantastic fun to jump in.

Initially we would spend reasonably equal time in the hotel swimming pool and on the beach (both of which were used by locals as well as hotel guests) but following the discovery of a drowned local boy in the swimming pool (who my mum and another nurse tried in vain to save) and the subsequent non-cleaning of the pool despite his body having been in the water for some time the English families boycotted it.

I don’t recall doing much while on our Moroccan holiday. While these days I like to make sure I’m exploring something of interest every day when I’m away my family were much more content to lay around, reading, sunning, swimming, and drinking. There was a day trip to Tangier from the hotel on one day but I couldn’t go as I was taken ill. The rest of my family still went while I discovered the mysterious pink liquid that the American family we’d got to know had on them called Pepto-Bismol.

The highlight of the holiday in Morocco at the Hotel Arabian Sands was an evening of entertainment and dining that we attended with the American family (parents and two girls). It started outside watching horsemen ride up and down firing guns into the air, then there were opportunities to have photos taken with snakes. We then retired to large tents where we sat on cushions around low tables and ate from huge plates of couscous, bread, fruits, etc. As the evening progressed different entertainers would move from tent to tent to perform allowing us to see up close people on beds of nails, fire breathers, singers, acrobats, and belly dancers. A great excursion in what’s been to this point still the only place in Africa I’ve visited.

This, though, was no movie. We drew back the curtains to our cabin – after we were dressed; you only make that mistake once – to the industrial port of Casablanca.

My wife and I don’t mind an industrial port when we’re cruising, especially if it’s one with brutalist buildings or any loading and unloading activity. Look, we’ve all got interests that other people think are weird. What about you and that thing you do when you think nobody’s looking? Yeah, exactly. We are perfectly happy to sit and watch the cranes move, and listen to that little buzz of commercial enterprise that keeps the world ticking by, content to read a book and glance up at a distant clang and clatter of metal on metal signifying who-knows-what. However, this was a new port for us, and a new country for my wife, and also a new continent for my wife too, and so we had plans away from the hustle and bustle.

The closest my wife had come to Africa before had been views of it from a distance. Once from atop the Rock of Gibraltar, and once a little nearer while cruising through the Suez Canal. I had not only been to Africa before but it had also been Morocco on holiday in the 1980s, but Casablanca itself would be new to me, and even if it hadn’t been then enough decades had passed that it would have felt like it.

We’d booked an excursion through Princess Cruises as we wanted to make the most of our time in Morocco and didn’t want to risk any issues with getting back to the ship as we’d heard that traffic could be problematic. It would be. Our plan for the day would take us to see some highlights of Casablanca but to start with we would be heading north along the coast to Morocco’s capital city where in addition to a tour we’d be having a traditional Moroccan lunch.

First off, we needed to walk through part of the commercial port area of Casablanca to find our tour bus and there was actually a point of interest there for me to photograph. No, not a crane or a truck being filled with grain. I mean, I do have those photos but despite all the evidence to the contrary I do employ some level of editing for this website.

The decrepit hulk of the Marrakech caught our eye as we walked from Caribbean Princess to the port entrance. The ferry was purpose-built in the mid-80s to meet increased demand for a France to Morocco car and passenger service and, when the occasion warranted it, to act as the royal yacht of Morocco. She was built by the French shipyard of Chantiers de l’Atlantique which has also built ships for most of the major cruise lines at some time or other. Despite the apparent small size of her she was capable of carrying over 200 cars and 600 passengers when she operated, which she did up until 2013 when her parent company went into administration. She was sold at auction and moved to Casablanca where clearly some plan was in mind for her but she’s largely rotted in situ since then. This 2011 account about a trip aboard Marrakech from Sete to Tangier is absolutely fascinating for both the experience and the photos of the ferry’s interior spaces which look more 1980s than 21st century.

We found our bus, boarded, and set off for… the traffic of Casablanca. It was gridlock for long periods and at one point we saw one guy get out of a car at a junction then stand in the middle of the road to halt other vehicles largely paying not the slightest bit of attention to lights or road markings until such point as the driver of his car could move. He’d clearly got fed up of waiting for someone to show some consideration and common sense. We at least had the luxury of knowing that our bus was bigger and tougher than the cars around and they eventually moved out of the way enough for us to get to some more open roads.

Things were far more sedate in terms of car numbers by the time we reached Rabat and there was a far cleaner feel to the environment. Our guide had explained that a lot of work had been taking place for the Africa Cup of Nations but Rabat is also just considerably smaller than Casablanca despite being the capital since 1956.

For part of the drive to Rabat we’d been hugging the coastal road, along which there was a small fortress which Morocco neither needed nor wanted but which the French and Germans still squabbled over. This was Fort Rottembourg, after the German engineer who oversaw the late nineteenth and early twentieth century building’s construction, also known as Fort Hervé after an early French casualty in World War I. The fortress served no real purpose and was a persuasion project by the Germans at the time to try to keep a hand in Moroccan affairs while the French were doing similar things elsewhere. The guns were never fired in anger and the fort’s usefulness if it had needed to be utilised is generally considered to be next to nothing. The fort is now the home of Morocco’s National Photography Museum.

We arrived at the medina of Rabat, the historic walled city district, and passed one of the original doors to it.

And then it was time for a short walk through just a small part of the medina to the riad hosting the restaurant that we would be dining at. If you like cats then you’ll like Rabat. If you don’t like cats then you should seek help.

Dar Rbatia was opened as a restaurant in 1989 although the building dates to the eighteenth century. It was lovely inside; compact yet capable of seating nearly two hundred diners even though it only seemed to be hosting our tour group on this day in the main enclosed courtyard area of the ground floor.

The meal in Dar Rbatia comprised several courses and soft drinks and water were provided too, all served centrally to each table for those around to take what they wanted. A salad and rolls was followed by a tagine, then cous-cous, then fruit, and finally mint tea – poured from high because… well, I don’t know – with a cookie to finish it off. It was all delicious.

In the next post in this 2024 transatlantic cruise series our tour continues with a look at some tourist highlights of Rabat.

The remainder of our time in Rabat would be spent hitting a few tourist highlights.

While they weren’t part of what most people might consider highlights, I was particularly taken by some of the doors we passed as we headed out of the Medina to catch our bus.

The appreciation of fancy doors didn’t stop once we reached the first place to look at. This was the Kasbah of the Udayas. A kasbah is a citadel or ancient fortified part of a city, typically found in old North African cities. The large door you see below is known as the Great Gate and while it looks impressive with its large size and intricate decoration the gate was mainly simply that: decorative, serving no real defensive purposes as it was already positioned within the boundary of the kasbah walls.

This kasbah was built in the latter half of the twelfth century but was effectively abandoned by the end of the century too. A new kasbah had begun construction around what is the area of the Medina we’d been in earlier in the day, but this too was abandoned. While some elements were added to the Kasbah of the Udayas over the centuries it wasn’t until French colonial rule in the early twentieth century that restoration was made.

It was also during the French colonial period in Morocco that the Andalusian Gardens were added to the kasbah. As the name suggests, these formal gardens were inspired by Moorish gardens in the Andalusian region of Spain. They were beautiful, and cats seemed to enjoy the place too as saw many around.

After enjoying a slow walk through the gardens and admiring the various plants and trees there we headed through to a viewpoint beside the river Bou Regreg, the source of which lies in the Atlas Mountains. On the other side of the water was the city of Salé.

To the south we could see the Mohammed VI Tower which at two hundred and fifty metres in height is the tallest building in Morocco and the third tallest in all of Africa. We’d be getting a slightly closer look at it when we moved to our next highlight of Rabat.

More artistically-decorated doors and pleasing sandstone architecture met with my approval as we made our way back through the gardens and out of the kasbah to board our bus again.

Our penultimate stop during our time in Morocco’s capital city was at the Mausoleum of Mohammed V. A mounted guard of honour was outside the walled entrance to the spacious, former site of a mosque from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Within the walls my eyes were first drawn to the only part of the former mosque still intact in any way, the Hassan Tower. When it was constructed it was intended to be the largest minaret in the world but it was never completed.

The mausoleum was built during the 1960s and completed in 1971. In addition to hosting the tomb of Mohammed V, the tombs of his sons, King Hassan II (who commissioned the mausoleum) and Prince Abdallah, are also located within the structure. The white marble exterior and geometrically-pleasing designs of the multifoil arches on the rectangular mausoleum was fittingly serene.

Stepping into the quiet interior of the mausoleum we were able to complete a circuit of the gallery overlooking the white onyx cenotaph.

The final stop for this highlights tour of Rabat was to the Royal Palace, or, more precisely, a rather distant view of it. Access is rather limited – as you’d expect of any residence of any royal family – and we were instructed by our guide not to get too close to the main gate to the palace complex as the guards there – of which there was a surprising variety – could get twitchy.

We’d approached the palace across an open public square that was nevertheless devoid of any public and we headed back that way after a few photos, passing by a few fountains and the Ahl Fas Mosque on the way back to the bus.

That marked the end of our time in Rabat but not the end of our day in Morocco or even the end of the cruise excursion which would conclude with some shopping opportunities and a short sightseeing tour in Casablanca.

The drive out of Casablanca earlier in the day had been plagued by heavy traffic and it hadn’t improved upon our return. This did at least give me some opportunities to take photos from the bus, even though it’s not something I typically like doing. It was nice to see large-scale street art decorating the sides of several buildings.

The viewpoints we were taken to both offered us chances to take pictures of the Hassan II Mosque. The mosque was completed in 1993. The building is the second largest mosque in Africa and the minaret is the second tallest in the world. In both cases a mosque in Algeria beats it. The minaret is topped with a laser that shines towards Mecca.

The mosque was commissioned by King Hassan II after initially asking for a mausoleum for his father, Mohammed V. This was subsequently located in Rabat – and we’d visited that earlier in the day – but the king still wanted something for Casablanca and made that request known on his birthday in 1980. The location by the water of the Atlantic Ocean was deliberate but did then necessitate restoration work starting in 2005 after salt water got into the structural supports.

The second viewpoint was at El Hank, looking across the bay back to the Hassan II Mosque and giving more of a sense of scale of the structure when comparing it to the buildings of Casablanca.

El Hank is also the location of the El Hank Lighthouse, which at fifty one metres in height is the tallest lighthouse in Morocco.

It was then time to brave Casablanca’s traffic once more and to see some more street art as we slowly made our way to the shop that would serve as the penultimate activity on this full day’s excursion.

Our shopping opportunity was at a place called Exposition Artisanale, a large emporium that we were assured would allow us to purchase authentic Moroccan items, priced reasonably, and with no haggling required (or allowed). It was located across the street from a clock tower and the entrance to the old Medina and markets.

We bought some souvenirs then ended up chatting for ages with someone who may have been the owner after he realised that we, unlike everyone else in our tour group, were English. He’d been to England before and so wanted to give us a special price for some carpets which made us doubt whether the no-haggling rule was really enforced. We’re sure they were special prices but we’re not really carpet people.

The cruise excursion finished with a couple of fleeting photo stops. Firstly, it was back to the Hassan II Mosque to see it now that the sun had set. We’d hoped we could see the laser but it wasn’t really visible from our position. Then it was to snap the exterior of Rick’s Café, inspired by the place of the same name in the movie, Casablanca.

That concluded our day in Morocco. As we walked back towards Caribbean Princess we could see the lights flashing away in Skywalker’s Nightclub at the rear of the top deck. We freshened up and changed aboard then made our way there ourselves so that we could enjoy some music and keep an eye out for all the people returning to the ship after us. There were still large groups arriving well after our scheduled midnight departure time, likely those on tours to Marrakesh who’d then run into Casablanca’s traffic on their return.

In the next post in this transatlantic cruise travelogue series we’ll spend the day in Funchal, Madeira, finally making it there after an attempt years earlier was cancelled to deal with an emergency medical situation on the cruise ship we were on.