Today, the ship docked in Casablanca, and I took a city tour.
Casablanca, Morocco.
Visiting Casablanca was on my bucket list and was why I took this cruise, today I arrived at Casablanca and did a coach and walking tour around the city.
Unfortunately, the coach tour I booked was not very good. We saw very little of Casablanca, spent far too long at the Mosque, and even parked for an hour so people could shop. The woman who was the guide for our tour was terrible. She liked the sound of her voice far too much and did like to describe in great detail how one should cleanse oneself before praying in the mosque. At one point, she started screaming at a woman in the Mosque, who was listening to her but wasn't on her tour. She had 39 people on the coach, eight of whom were French; she spoke in French 90% of the time, cracking jokes with the few French people on the tour whilst ignoring the majority of English people.
When we got off the coach at the Mosque, she left me and Jean to fend for ourselves and at no stage checked to see if anyone was lagging behind. I and another man were able to help Jean walk around the Mosque, which was very nice, but out of the 5-hour tour, we spent 2½ hours at the Mosque. This was far too long, and the time could have been spent looking around Casablanca, the closest we got to Riks Cafe was as we passed it in the coach. After yesterday's tour in Tangier, this was terrible and not worth the money spent. The guide did not receive a tip when the tour finished a half hour early.
My limited view of Casablanca after the tour made me disappointed in it. It is a relatively modern city. It's not clean like Tangier, and the market we visited was covered in fish guts and rubbish, unlike yesterday's very clean market. I was happy to buy and eat food from the Tangier market, but I wouldn't have eaten anything here in Casablanca.
When we were dropped back at the port, there was quite a long walk back to the ship. A man did eventually help Jean by pushing her back to the boat in a wheelchair whilst I walked alongside, but when we got to the vessel she still had to climb up the very steep and narrow gangplank back to the ship. I can't believe that there is no way to get disabled people in wheelchairs or those with walking difficulties back onboard without having to walk up the steep gangplank. Even if they had a walkway that doubled back on itself like some other ports, it would have made it more accessible.
I was glad I went to Casablanca, but I won't revisit it. Morocco seems like a beautiful country with very nice people, but Casablanca is not a good example of Morocco. Tangier was a much nicer and more exciting place to visit; it felt safer, was cleaner, and had some real history.