Deb you just asked the question that I want to know about the dress code for men, hope it won't be too long before we get an answer

Hi, can anyone who's been before tell me if it's like Luxor? We took sweets, pens and hair scrunchies then and they went down a treat, what't it like in Agadir? I know when we went to Turkey, it wasn't appropriate to give little nicnacs like this away, but in Egypt they were so grateful for it.

Thanks very much everyone, we go in 12 days so will report back!

P

Hope you have a good holiday and have some good things to say about it when you get back.

Returned from here yesterday and what can i say except we all loved it. (The complaints must be about a different hotel). I was prepared to eat out most nights when we left but had no need to, the food was fantastic everything that you could want. Yes the rooms are basic with no extras but all we did was sleep in them. The staff are brilliant and the animation team could not work any harded than they did. The whole place was spotless and constantly being cleaned. We met lots of people that were on their 3rd or 4th trip there, 1 person we met was on his 11th visit which says how good it is.
Hope you all enjoy your holidays as much as we did, we will be returning here in the future, all i need now is to win the lottery.

Welcome home, glad to hear you had a great time. Our is creeping up on us fast now, only got to wait till July the 12th, and cant wait. Its nice to hear a good report. Could you tell me if there is any air con in the rooms and also the dress code for the men in the evenings please

10 weeks tomorrow for me - the more i read on the occidental the better the place sounds

bring on me bronzy!

Hi
You lucky things, i want to go back.
The dress code for the evenings is whatever you want goes, some people dressed up others had on jeans and t-shirt, it did not seem to matter and nobody looked out of place, the only time we dressed up was when we went to the seperate restaurants, (only tried the chinese and the pizza, food in main restaurant was so good and varied that we felt no need to try anything else). One tip is take something warm for the evening, most of the entertainment is outside and it gets very cold.
Hope you have a good a time as we did

for that. Did you take any photos

Sorry, I forgot to ask you is there hairdryers in the rooms or did you take your own

hairdryers haha

ders more important things then dryin your hair on ya hols lol

the sun will dry it for you, what you gonna do when you go in the pool?

take your own - you just need to buy an adapter for about £2

Thanks, yes I think I will, got enough adapters but when your taking 4 teenage girls with you and all got to do hair i think its best

if i was a mum id prob agree with you lol

but im a young wee little nipper (yer right im 25 now)

its gonna be roastin but i am figuring out how girls/woman think everyday and im getting there haha

We had a great week ! Sorry this is a bit long but we both keep thinking of stuff to add!

The food is OK (not Harrods but not quite Butlins either) and the entertainment team are fantastic. So here are some tips:

On arrival at the airport, as you make your way out of the exit, either hang on to your luggage (cos coaches are literally feet away) or have 50p handy for the luggage touts (really! you'll almost be fighting them off but I could't be bothered for the sake of 50p hehe). Same on the way home too. Just look determined.

On arrival at the hotel, a bell boy will take your luggage to your room - really useful as this hotel is full of 3/4 storey blocks and you'll be up and down stairs like a yoyo. Again either have 50p handy or say "vist me at end of the week" and tip them 20 dirhams then (£1.33).

Hairdryers - I took my own but was told you can rent them from the hotel.

Beach towels - DON'T take your own! Waste of baggage allowance, you can get them free (just 200 dirhams £13 deposit which you get back) from the hotel at the entertainments office. We got our deposit back on our last day and split it as a tip between waiters/bellboys/maid.

Maid service - is every day. You can have clean towels every day if you want (just leave in the bath), but there's a card in the room asking you try for every other day or so (citing environmental reasons).

Showtime in the Amphiteatre - this uses strobe lights so if you get migraines, avoid.

FOOD: We were fine tummy-wise - just avoided ICE and ICECREAM. We heard of a couple of people taken ill but that was all. I ate plenty of cakes and was fine even though I have a really delicate tum (and I only used 1 imodium all week! Sure the creme brulee caused that).

The food was great for the first couple of days but did get a bit repetitive. Breakfast was best - cereals, bread, fruit, yoghurt, croissant, doughnuts (not good), pancakes (lovely), and fried breakfasts (I avoided the sausages as they tasted just like Doner kebab meat!).

Visit the buffet restaurant (Oasis) on a Friday evening, even if you have an ala carte meal that night! They lay on candles, flowers etc for a moroccan evening.

As for the a la carte ones... book up asap - you can only book one per day (under the Burber Tent 10am-noon)and they book up really quickly so if you leave it too late, you'll miss out. The Moroccan books up quickest, whereas the easiest to book is the Chinese so you could leave that one til last. You'll get tickets when you check in, just hand these over to the girls taking bookings.

Mediterannean = fish and steak, nice. Chinese = was OK! Moroccan = does what it says on the tin but bit disappointing. Pizza - if you end up missing one, I'd miss this (but it makes a change from the buffet if you can book it). Oh, the pizza place does brilliant home-made burgers from 1-4pm (also open 10pm-1am, not sure what they serve then though). And if you tip the waiter 20 dirhams on your first day, next day he'll have your drinks ready! Brilliant ;o)

WHATEVER YOU DO, hang around on a Friday night as they lay on fabulous entertainment in the evening (won't spill the beans though but we loved it).

Don't buy in the hotel souk (weekly, Wed I think), visit the real souk (El Had - absolutely HUGE!) instead and you'll get stuff at under half the hotel price. We were haggling for a backgammon set - hotel man wanted 550 but we got it for 260 with a box of dice outside the UniPrix shop (also worth a visit for postcards etc but is a bit more expensive than if you barter at the souk or outside).

Oh, the hotel "nut man" sells gorgeous nuts! Tasty tasty very very tasty

Their spice seller "Dell boy" is a bit of a pain but you can avoid him by going round the back of the pool by the mediteranean restaurant! Or just buy 50g (as he lurks when the souk is on! He WILL find you! LOL).

OH BARTERING - start at a third and meet roughly halfway. If they don't come down enough, just smile and say you'll look elsewhere and start to walk away. They'll soon drop their price. And Saturdays are a great day for bartering - say you're going home tomorrow and have no money left, they know EVERYONE goes home on Sundays and they cut really keen deals on Saturdays. Wish we'd known that earlier I know some people hated bartering but we really enjoyed it and had a great laugh - if you just treat it as a laugh and smile lots, you'll enjoy it too. We even got REAL mint tea (nice, not at all like the toothpaste/chewing gum tea they serve in the hotel, YUK).

Get bottled water from the Lobby bar (open til midnight). Oh and they do the best fruit juice here - at the other bars, orange juice means squash! Yuk on your first couple of days but you get used to it Keep your water bottles to top up from the dispensers around the site any time. The beer was VERY, VERY drinkable and so too was the rum and Rose wine (red was a bit too and I didn't try the white). They even have diet coke

Gym was rubbish tbh. Tennis courts, boules and crazy golf looked good, but we didn't use them so don't know how you go about booking them. And they're not floodlit (we wanted a game of crazy golf on our last night no chance, too dark!!)

Last day, check out is noon but you can keep your room on for 300 dirhams (£20). Whether you keep it on or not, your wristband is cut off when you check out, although you get a voucher for lunch/drinks in the Oasis. Then you have to pay after that (although we left at 3 so didn't end up paying).

They have a bank onsite and the exchange rate is only slightly worse so we changed all our money there.

At the airport on the way back, you have to change it all back before you go through to departures (not allowed to take it out of the country) so be warned - have some sterling notes with you (fivers, tenners etc) as they wont have the right money. So we took ours in Euros and bought 2 sandwiches, 1 beer and a fanta for 14 Euros. Jeesh.

TAKE A REALLY WARM JUMPER, the wind comes up off the Atlantic and it can get really chilly at night. And watch the BBC weather reports before you go as it rained a couple of times we were there and I wish we'd had a waterproof - although it blows over really quickly but we got soaked one day going to breakfast LOL

This hotel is ideal for sun worshippers, either sunbed (if you can find one without a towel on LOL, or keep tipping the pool man to reserve you one!) or beach with it's own private bit ("the beach spa" with loos and showers). The breeze off the atlantic keeps the place feeling cool, we only had 1 blisteringly hot day but we could have burnt everyday, even the cloudy one (burnt worse that day, as it was deceptive).

Outside of the complex, there's not that much to do in Agadir. We went on the train tour for a couple of quid, the souk, the museum, the memorial garden, had a few drinks in a few cafes/bars - all interesting walks or you can jump in a local orange taxi for a few dirhams or white Merc to take you further afield.

Oh and don't let the tour operators rip you off... a 2 day trip to Marakesh was £70 with Airtours and yet £104 with Thomson. Shop around - they push the "you're not insured with others" line but the guy outside the tennis courts gates did the same trip for 800 dirhams (about £52).

And be prepared - this hotel is VERY international, brits were seriously outnumbered by germans/french and it got annoying when we were queueing politely in the bars/restaurants and they were barging in. But now you know this, JUST CHILL and ignore them - don't let it ruin your holiday. Some brits we met were getting seriously stressed - either CHILL or learn to be rude and push in too Hey you're on hols!

Now I don't know if I'm just a cynical westerner or... anyway, they are really, really friendly and I think it's genuine but the (westerner) bit of me says it's for the tip! Let me know what you think when you get back.

Have fun :o) I know you will.

PS They love it if you try to talk Arabic with them - shokraan is thank you and salam alaykoom is Good Day (la bes is informal).

PPS If you do go out, keep your wristband visible and you'll get hardly any hassle from restaurants - they know you eat for free at the hotel. If you do get any hassle (there are a couple of beggars around), just say "shokraan shokraan" and they really do leave you alone.

PPPS A smattering of French will help. We spoke french to one guy in the souk but when it came to bartering, out came his pad and paper and you can see all the scribbled bartering he'd had with other customers

Many thanks for a great report.

Mark

nice one for the a top report - will be having another read just before i go to re-cap on some of your tips- 7 weeks now before we jet off!

YIPPEEEEEE!!!!!!!!1

going in august and was wondering whether this hotel has air conditioning. Great review by the way very helpful

We were told all hotels there have air conditioning but we were grateful for the electric panel heater on the first night!!! Then we didn't use it after that (except to dry out our socks ). It's so cool at night, it wont be a problem (well, at the moment, anyway).

thank you for reply, hoping it will be nice and hot in august. found your review very very helpful. will not be taking loads of beach towels now!!

Forgot to say, you can exchange the beach towels for clean ones every other day And it's 100 DH per towel (we had 2)