Riad Dar Essassi 23

The man working there was really nice, but don’t stay here if you need sleep. There’s no quiet time: people shouted until 2am, then it started again at 6am. The rooms were very dirty, with bed bugs, and the sheets looked like they were never cleaned, with stains and hairs all over them. It smelled of drains the whole time.

The staff are nice and the building itself is nice too, but the room with a private bathroom on the second floor had tons of bed bugs. It was also really noisy inside. Edit: When we told the owner, he said he’d treated the room and showed us pictures of new furniture he’d bought.

The terrace has a beautiful view, the hotel is nice, and the staff were excellent and welcoming. It also looked like the photos on Booking.com. With better cleaning, this place could easily rate higher. Our room needed more attention: the bed covers and pillowcases had visible stains, and there were cobwebs behind the door, so it seemed like it hadn’t had a deep clean in a while. We got a room key but no key for the main entrance, so we had to knock whenever we came back. That was a minor inconvenience. The riad also didn’t feel very kid-friendly, since some guests were drinking beer and smoking on the terrace. We stayed at Dar Essassi in Marrakech and had a generally cool experience. The staff were always helpful when we needed them.

Our room was up on the terrace, and we had almost the whole terrace to ourselves. The space was beautiful and traditional.