Tour Operators - Your Morocco Tour

I admit that I was a little concerned about Desert Majesty at first. Like every other Sahara tour company I researched, I couldn’t find a lot of legitimate accounts of people traveling with them, except for a couple that said “They’re great” and a couple that said “Beware” or “I wouldn’t use them”. In retrospect, I’m really glad we took our chances and booked with DM. Felicity, Abdelhadi and Said (our driver) were some of the most helpful and legitimately nice people we’ve ever met (in any country) Our tour was a lot of fun, and we would have been happy with them if they had just provided the basic level of service, but they continually went above and beyond to make our trip great. Our car was essentially brand new (Land Cruiser Prado), our driver was young like us (and spoke good English, especially for a tour guide), and we loved the diverse sites, senses and cultures that we were exposed to. While the scenery and destinations themselves were amazing, what made Desert Majesty special to us was their people, and everyone’s willingness to do whatever it takes to make our Morocco adventure enjoyable (and possible). At first, I was nervous about money-gramming money to someone I had never met in Morocco, but Felicity (owner) was very helpful, and I even talked to her on the phone before booking the trip. While we were in Spain, she even emailed us to let us know about bad weather in Morocco, making train service interrupted and making sure that we were aware of the situation. Since we were nervous about getting a sleeper car for our train-ride to Tangier, we asked her if it would be possible for her to buy us tickets. Not only did she call, but she also went down to the station to personally book the tickets to make sure we had them. During the trip, our driver always made sure we were comfortable, whether that meant making sure we had water, got to stop for photos, had adequate time to look around, etc. At the end of our trip, Said helped us inside the train station to pick up the pre-paid tickets. We were surprised to find out that weather near Tangier had again caused the train to be cancelled (and ONCF wouldn’t refund the tickets to us). Meanwhile, we had non-refundable hotel reservations for our short stay in Chefchauen, and travel the next day would cause us to lose more than half of our time in the mountains. Abdelhadi (co-owner and guide) recommended traveling as far as Rabat, then taking an early bus to Chaouen, meaning that we wouldn’t miss as much. The problem with that was that the train didn’t arrive in Rabat until midnight, and we lacked hotel reservations and the ability to speak French/Arabic. After talking on the phone with Felicity (who was outraged that ONCF wouldn’t refund the money, and had already headed to the train station in Rabat to argue in person for our money back), Abdelhadi came back to us and said “Here’s what you will do. You will take the train to Rabat, where Felicity will meet you at the station, and then you will stay at her house tonight. In the morning, you can take an early bus to Chaouen, and that will be it.” An amazingly gracious offer, we politely declined, hating to put her out that much. After an hour of looking for other alternatives, we couldn’t come up with any that were better. After Abdelhadi and Felicity’s continued assurance that it would be no problem and they were happy to help us in any way, we accepted and hopped on the train, bound for Rabat. That would have been amazing enough, picking up strangers from the train station at midnight to have them sleep in your house. Unfortunately for everyone, our train broke down mid-way. After a 3.5 hour delay (and no phone to call Felicity with) our train arrived in Rabat at 3:30 am to a nearly deserted station and town. Sure enough, there was the owner of Desert Majesty, waiting with umbrella in hand (for almost 4 hours) to save us from the train trip from hell. Not only that, but she had succeeded in getting a full refund for our cancelled tickets (quite a feat as well, as apparently Unicorns are more common than refunds in Morocco). She hailed us all a cab, and showed us to her place, which she had just recently moved into. We were even more amazingly taken aback, when we found out she was giving us her bedroom (the only double bed) and was sleeping on a make-shift setup in the smaller second room. In the morning, she even offered us breakfast, but we insisted that we had to treat her, as a small token of our appreciation. She helped us to the bus station, where we got squared away with tickets, and then had a quick meal before departing. Abdelhadi even called to check in on us and make sure we had made it on our way. As mentioned before, there are a lot of companies who can show you the sights and sounds of Morocco. While the landscape is always going to be the same, who you decide to travel with makes a big difference in how happy you are at the end of your trip. I’m happy to say that we made it back in one piece, and got to enjoy every part of our vacation, thanks to the above and beyond help from the owners and staff of Desert Majesty. Again, there are a lot of \\\\\\\"false reviews\\\\\\\" that are a sentence or two, bashing every tour company. Hopefully the length and relatively decent English in my post will assure you that it\\\\\\\'s authentic, but if you\\\\\\\'re considering a Moroccan vacation, feel free to send us a Private Message. Also, you can check out some of the photos from our Moroccan adventure on our Flickr account at http://www.flickr.com/photos/56578794@N00/sets/72157623354218474 -CD and SK