Published on Mar, 2025
First, the positives. The travel experience from the hotel to the train, to the van in Tangier, to Chefchaouen, and back was seamless. The drivers were all on time, some contacted us with WhatsApp to let us know where they were, and were very pleasant. The high speed train was fun. Also, our tour guide Mohamed was great. He grew up there and gave us the history of the town and navigated around crowds to show us the great spots. Highly recommend him. Also the scenery driving over the mountains was beautiful. It was very green, which was unlike the other areas of the country that we had been to.
For the not so positives, we chose to do a small group tour instead of a private tour, which was a mistake. I thought it would be fun to go around with a couple of other people and the price of doing a small group was considerably less. However, the other people in the group were not fun and dragged us down so that we didn't see nearly as much as we could of. Two women stopped to take pictures of each other in front of every blue wall that they saw (and as you know, there are lots of blue walls in Chefchaouen). They spent a ton of time in shops, and all that made us late to the restaurant and service was slow. It was unbelievably frustrating. I would have rather paid the money for a private tour, so keep that in mind when you book your trip. The other thing is that if you even think that you might have motion sickness, take something before you get into the van. You are driving over the Rif mountains and the road is switchbacks for miles. There is also some road construction which means the road isn't always smooth. One of the women in our van (one of the ones taking all the selfies and pictures in front of every blue wall) vomited all over the back seat. Luckily we pulled over in a great little spot with grazing sheep and a rainbow while the others cleaned up the van. Overall, I recommend this tour and I'm sure many people have had great travel mates in the small group, but I really wished we had just paid the extra money.