18 Sep 2025
There were parts of the experience that were good, but the negatives outweighed the positives for our tour. Mostly, it's very clear that a great guide makes all the difference for this tour, and we got unlucky with one who was not good.
Our day was flipped from the usual sequence, so we visited Tetouan first. The views in the drive were lovely and the tour there was pretty good. Our guide did his best to juggle giving explanations in four different languages for the different members of the group. We spent over two hours touring Tetouan, and then instead of having a lunch break there, we drove directly down to Chefchaouen. Luckily we had brought some snacks with us, otherwise we would have had a very hard time. We arrived in Chefchaouen at 2:30 and our guide did take us directly to a restaurant for lunch. After lunch, our guide gave us a brief introduction, but then he proceeded to lead us around on a long walk in the sun and afternoon heat with almost no talking about what we were seeing or where we were going. The blue city is very pretty and we got some nice pictures, but it was not much of a tour. He did share a few bits of history and culture, but it was a few minutes scattered throughout more than two hours of walking. By the end, everyone was exhausted, and then we had the whole long drive back to Tangier (and no more water when we got back to the van, which was a small thing that would have helped a lot).
Our tour was a disappointment, but if it had been the normal sequence and we'd had a good guide for Chefchaouen in the morning when it was cooler and then had a chance to eat lunch at a reasonable time, it might have been a very different experience.