Riad Swaka

The rooms are very clean, and breakfast is good. It’s a little hard to reach the place, and you can only get there on foot. Don’t trust the staff’s recommendations or you’ll be “robbed”.

The staff at Riad Swaka were amazing, so welcoming, polite, and helpful. It can be difficult to find, but get in touch and they’ll send someone to meet you. Inside, it’s beautiful, with traditional rooms and a lovely roof terrace offering plenty of places to sit both indoors and out. The location is great for the souks and main square.

Samir and Abdul, the two managers, were great. They made sure we had what we needed day or night, whether we had questions or needed a car booked. The food was good too: amazing freshly made hamburgers, refreshing Moroccan salad, and excellent fresh-squeezed orange juice at breakfast. I also appreciated having a Nespresso machine in the room so I could enjoy coffee quietly before waking the family. The room was decent and clean, though worn and in need of some fixing up. The beds were firm but comfortable. Unfortunately, there were two leaks. The toilet leaked slowly from somewhere at the back, where we couldn’t see, leaving a puddle. One night, water from the ceiling above the bedroom drenched two of our shirts. Thankfully, none of our electronics got wet. We told Samir, and it was fixed by morning. The pool was right above our room, where the ceiling leak came from. The shower’s inside handle was broken, so someone had to help open and close the glass door from outside. The worst part was finding that our makeup had been used on multiple days. At first I thought I’d left our things out and forgotten. By the third day, my daughter saw that her brand-new lipstick had been used. It clicks up and doesn’t retract, so someone had clearly tampered with it. My husband also noticed there was less mouthwash than there should have been. He thought I’d used it, but I hadn’t. Then we found fingerprints and dirty edges on eyeshadow palettes we always use with a brush. We suspect the room attendant because they’re the only one with access, but we have no proof and don’t know which attendant. Now we’ll have to disinfect all our makeup since we don’t know what was touched or used. Everything else was great, and this didn’t ruin our trip, but it was disappointing and gross.

We stayed here for a few days before leaving Morocco. The area is calm and not far from Bahia. Service was okay, the rooms were nice, and the rooftop worked well for breakfast. The pool was only deep enough to dip your feet in, and it wasn’t very clean. Breakfast was fine, nothing special.