All-inclusive holidays are all the
rage as budget-savvy sun-seekers strive to get the biggest bang for their buck. It’s an option that initially costs a bit more than half-board, but
because you’re not forking out for food and drink and coffees and ice-creams all the time, it
can ultimately work out cheaper, especially for families.
All-inclusive makes for a carefree, cash-conserving escape, which is exactly
what we’re all looking for – and exactly what I found at Club Med Marrakech.
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| Beautiful, lovingly-tended gardens and pools abound in Club Med Marrakech |
A musical blast from the
past
It’s 1.45pm in late November, the temperature is 23C
and I’m enjoying my daily half-asleep half-hour siesta on the rooftop terrace
of an extremely des-res duplex apartment in Club Med Marrakech.
Sparrows chirrup and doves coo, water tinkles in the
fountain in the garden below and a gentle breeze rustles the palm fronds. I
hear an
unseen orange from a nearby tree land on the
pristine lawn, though it could be a lemon. All is blissfully peaceful, until .
. .
From the speakers by the pool, a familiar overture
rents the air, startling the sparrows and the doves, who shoot the crow. It’s Italian pop princess Sabrina Salerno’s 1987 splash hit Boys
(Summertime Love), the signal that very shortly the Name That Tune quiz will
begin.
Determined to improve on my pathetic performance in
the previous day’s general knowledge quiz (it was in French, and I speak only
the Del Boy version), I hot foot it to the packed poolside terrace and grab a
free beer.
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| Looks like a wedding reception, but it's lunch alfresco on the lawn. Below, those with a sweet tooth will be tempted at every meal time. Bottom, mint tea and all sorts of alcoholic and soft drinks are available all day and night long at no charge |
Well worth the weight
The four-star Club Med Marrakech, set amid gorgeous
gardens, is an all-inclusive year-round resort where every snack,
gourmet meal and drink is free. Being a one-dish-a-day man at home I find the
lavish buffet spreads intimidating at first. However, given a free run at
fabulous and unlimited gratis grub, I soon get stuck in and end up having to
loosen my belt a couple of notches, eventually returning to Dublin half-a-stone
heavier after a week in the north African sun.
An omelette, fruit, pastries, orange juice and coffee
are delivered to my door every morning. Lunch leaves me semi-comatose, hence
the early siesta, and dinner – an epic undertaking – is decadence gone daft. There’s
a different cuisine each evening, including Moroccan, Asian, Italian and
Oriental, and I’m up and down like a fiddler’s elbow to the serving stations.
A word of warning: go easy on the delicious
but volatile lentil and bean tagine – although hot during the day, it gets
chilly at night in winter and you won’t want to sleep with the windows wide
open.
In July and August the temperature often hits the
melting mid-30s, with 10 hours of sizzling sunshine daily (in August 2009 the
mercury touched 56C one afternoon). The Ambre Solaire in the Club Med shop only
goes up to factor 50, so redheads should bring their own axle grease or bed
down in the shade of a parasol or palm tree, where seemingly telepathic waiters
will deliver a cooling drink within 30 seconds of you simply thinking about it.
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| The resort's riding school is a huge favourite with children. Below, if you're not a skilled horse rider, you can go for a leisurely tour of the grounds on a camel |
Clip-clip, hooray!
Name That Tune starts well, and I’m four points in the
lead at the halfway mark. Then, as the songs become progressively more obscure,
I start to slide. Meanwhile, the elderly French couple two tables away are
forging ahead. Fair play, I think – until I notice that the husband
is sneakily googling under the table. Mange tout, mange tout!
Quiz over, I set off for the gym at what feels like a
brisk pace, but am passed by a camel train and a little girl on a Shetland pony
from the resort’s riding school. I’ve already declined the offer of trotting
out on one of the school’s magnificent white horses – as I’m eating like one, I’d probably break the poor creature’s back or leave it bandy-legged.
The gym’s attached to the Cinq Mondes spa, where the
fancy-sounding treatments include the Taoist Fountain of Youth and Radiance
Facial, the Ko Bi Do Imperial Youthfulness Ritual, the Divine Lightness Ritual
(in my case, the Divine Heaviness Ritual) and the Brazilian Slimming Treatment
which, according to the brochure, “restores firmness and elasticity to the
buttocks”. I’ll take their word for it.
I opt instead for a neck and back massage that leaves
me nearly comatose. The manicure and pedicure that follow shave only a fraction
off the weight I’ve put on as the beautician clips and files my nails. As I slip my feet
back into my flip-flops, it strikes me that I should have a pedicure more often – I’d have fewer holes in my socks.
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| Club Med Marrakech has its own golf course. Below, 11-a-side ping pong by the pool |
Happy children, chilled-out parents
One of the great joys of a Club Med holiday is that it
can be as lively or as lazy as you wish, or a mix of both. There are sports and
leisure facilities galore, including tennis and golf, and daft games too – 11-a-side ping-pong is mayhem
but great fun.
Couples relaxing by the pools rave about the kids’ club run by 19-year-old
multilingual Frenchman Valentin (the children adore him) who has two
little sisters at home and whose ambition is to be an author. In chilled-out
parents’ eyes, he’s already a best-seller.
In the evenings the free top-class entertainment,
especially the spectacular Cirque show, would demand a big ticket price
elsewhere. It’s weird to note on staff cabaret night that the guy who only a
few hours before was teaching tennis is now performing magic tricks and the
fitness coach is Freddie Mercury.
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| Le Riad is a fabulous five-star resort within a resort. Below, Le Riad ground floor apartment with its own shaded sun terrace and garden |
Dream team
In the bar in Le Riad, the five-star resort within a resort where
I’m lucky enough to be lodging, young Moroccan staffers Simo and Chafik – the Ant
and Dec of the cocktail-shaking world – ask me every evening how my day has
gone and wonder if I’ve ventured into the city or gone on an excursion. On my last night but one I’ve run out of excuses for doing
nothing, and doing it very well, and tell them I’ll be exploring Marrakech in the
morning. They’re delighted, and mark my card on what to see – and what to
avoid.
Simo and Chafik, who join me
most days for lunch,
epitomise the importance that Club Med places on
hiring the most professional, personable and helpful staff, which is why it
gets so many repeat visitors. Italian resident manager Kary, who leads a dream
team, tells me that an elderly French couple who were here the previous week
have been holidaying at different Club Med properties around the world every
year since their honeymoon in 1970. If that’s not the stamp of approval, I
don’t know what is.
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| The massive Jemaa el-Fna square just after sunset. Below, one of the square's many snake handlers seems to know what he's doing |
Cobras, carpets and kebabs
There’s nothing charming about the snake charmers’
pesky pals in Marrakech’s Jemaa el-Fna square. Point a camera at a cobra and they’ll pester you for a “photo
fee”. Ten dirhams (€1) will get rid of them, and you can chuckle as people
taking selfies who don’t have any change get chased around like Benny Hill’s
scantily-clad beauties.
Morocco is a lot more liberal than most other Muslim
countries, but scantily-clad women in public places are a no-no, so dress with
local sensibilities in mind. When you return to your hotel poolside (Marrakech
is 170km from the sea), you can slip back into bikini mode and nobody will bat
an eyelid, unless you’re a big fat hairy fella.
Jemaa el-Fna is fascinating
but chaotic, a World Heritage Site full of peddlers, performers, astrologers, henna
tattoo artists, tellers of tall tales, craftsmen, countless cooks, a smattering
of crooks and even a couple of dentists performing extractions alfresco in
front of curious onlookers. (At sundown the square, which is celebrated in the
Crosby, Stills and Nash hit, Marrakech Express, becomes one big barbecue spot
as scores of kebab sellers fire up their bottled gas grills and feed thousands
of people.)
At the taxi rank opposite the 12th-century Koutoubia Mosque with its
60-metre-high minaret, where the hotel shuttle buses stop, ‘official’
guides sporting homemade buckshee badges will offer to show you the sights.
For sights read carpet shops, perfumeries and homeopathic pharmacies as you’re
led, heart sinking, from one to another.
After half-an-hour it feels like you’ve been
kidnapped, so pay the guide the 100-dirham ransom and he’ll disappear, leaving
you to soak up the spectacle, sounds and smells of the souks (markets) at your
leisure.
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| One of the umpteen carpet shops into which you'll be steered by the 'official' tour guides. Below, the city's souks are worth exploring |
Not to be sneezed at
Don’t be a smart alec when it comes to haggling or
you’ll run the risk of offending the stallholders. Just about every price in
the souks can be negotiated, but be realistic – this is a city where a barman,
for example, has to house, clothe and feed his family on
the equivalent of around €500 a month. That’s not exactly living the life of
Reilly, so don’t bargain as if you’re in the marketplace in The Life of
Brian.
Terracotta tagines, colourful slippers and leather
goods including handbags, purses and wallets are popular buys, as are silk
scarves and jewellery. Colourful spice stalls do a roaring trade, but if you’re
in any way prone to hay fever don’t get too close as a
sneeze could prove embarrassing – and expensive.
If you do buy spices to take home, make sure the bags
are securely sealed and pack them in your checked-in luggage – the sniffer dogs at Dublin
airport go nuts at the merest whiff of anything aromatic in hand baggage.
You’ll definitely want to take photos in the maze of
alleyways that house the souks, but while a picture paints a thousand words, 10
pictures could cost you 100 dirhams, so make sure you have a handy supply of
coins.
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| Spices and, below, tagines are among the most popular tourist buys in the souks |
Adam and Yves
A day’s sightseeing in Marrakech would be incomplete without a visit to the
enchanting Jardin
Majorelle (www.jardinmajorelle.com) and the blue-painted Cubist villa that overlooks it. French landscape painter and amateur botanist Jacques
Majorelle (1886-1962) spent 40 years creating this latter
day Garden of Eden, but when he hit hard times as the result of two
debilitating accidents he was forced to sell it off parcel by parcel. By the
late 1960s it had fallen into woeful neglect.
In 1980, French fashion designer Yves Saint
Laurent (1936-2008) and his partner Pierre Berge were horrified to hear that a
hotel was to be built on the site. They had fallen for Jardin Majorelle during
many visits to Marrakech and determined to save it from the wrecker’s ball, so
they bought it. Their restoration of the garden and the house (it was
originally called Villa Bou Saf Saf, but they renamed it Villa Oasis and moved
in) was a labour of love that visitors will adore.
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| The beautiful Jardin Majorelle is one of the must-sees when you venture into the city |
Damn you, Boney M
All good things must come to an end. At the reception desk, ever-smiling
Eva, from Malaga, and front-of-house manager Raphael, from Paris, bid me a
cheery adios and adieu as I check-out. With time to kill, I sink into a big
leather couch to wait for the airport taxi and soon nod off.
Raphael rouses me from my reverie. “Your car is here,”
he says, in an accent straight out of ’Allo, ’Allo, “and Eva tells me you’re
flying to Dublin. Do you happen to know Fagan’s pub in Drumcondra?”
I happily happen to know it very well. Raphael
says he lived just around the corner for three years when he worked for Hertz,
and Fagan’s was his local. ”Do you know what I miss most
about Dublin?” he asks, and mimes pulling a pint. “Smithwick’s ale.”
Raphael kindly carries my bag to the taxi. A hundred
metres away, the poolside pop quiz is in full flow. As if to rub it in that my
winter week in the sun is over, Boney M are singing Gotta Go Home. I sigh and
roll my eyes. However, halfway to the airport I chuckle at the memory of a mad
moment from my visit to Jemaa el-Fna when a shoe-shine guy tried to entice me
into his chair. I was wearing my flip-flops.
GET THERE
I travelled to Club Med
Marrakech with Morocco specialists Sunway. Club Med has 64 all-inclusive sun
and ski resorts in Portugal, France, Sicily, Florida, the Maldives, Cancun and
many more destinations worldwide.
All offer superb
accommodation, gourmet food, endless snacks and drinks from the bar, fantastic
children’s clubs for tiny tots to early-teens and an impressive selection of
sports, activities and entertainment.
Children under six stay free
on selected dates, and short-stay options are available. Family packages at the
all-inclusive Club Med Marrakech cost from €2,749 for two adults and two
children under six, departing Dublin on September 7 for one week. Call 01 236
6800 or see www.sunway.ie
TOP TIPS
When you visit the airport bureau
de change on arrival in Marrakech, be sure to get some 20-dirham notes and
10-dirham coins for gratuities and “photo fees”. Bureau staff will, not
unreasonably, hand you 100-dirham notes. While this delights taxi drivers – it
would be mean not to tip, even though the transfer is free – it will leave you
€10 down before you’ve even collected your room key.
If you intend using your
debit card at an ATM, it would be wise to let your bank know you’re going to be
in Morocco. For security reasons, many banks will suspend a card after one ATM
withdrawal if they haven’t been informed it will be used abroad.
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| Decisions, decisions: rest on my rooftop for a bit or take a dip in one of the pools? |
