In true Travelling With Mother style, our journey to Marrakesh started with drama as our train to Manchester was delayed by 30 minutes, which would meant missing our connection to the airport and arriving almost an hour late. In a split decision moment, I called the other half to come back to the station and drive us to the airport instead. In the end, we got to the airport 4 hours before our flight, which was a good thing as the new security scanners at Manchester Airport seemed to be particularly sensitive and about 40% of bags were being selected for manual searches. It took over half an hour to get through security as mum’s bag was one of those selected. 

We had lunch in the Aspire lounge in terminal 1 which was pretty decent and gave us time to relax before boarding the plane. Conversation almost instantly turning to planning our next holidays over plates of chicken tikka masala with rice and chilled glasses of rosé. 

The arrival process at Marrakesh is interesting, although the border official was more interested in faffing about with his phone than completing any of the formalities. You need to show printed copies of your boarding passes on arrival and departure from Morocco so that’s something to bear in mind. The boarding passes and passports were checked multiple times to get out of the airport, and the same when flying home. 

We’d booked a package with Tui including private transfers, but it really wasn’t clear what was happening when we came out of the airport. It didn’t help that our flight arrived 40 minutes early so we were there before our driver. There was a Tui stand to left as you come out of the airport so we headed there, but with no uniformed staff, I wasn’t certain we were in the right, although it turned out ok in the end and half an hour later we arrived at the adults only Riu Tui Blue Tikida Garden hotel. 

A pretty solid 4 star all-inclusive, the Tikida Garden has a main bar with 2 buffet restaurants and an a la carte restaurant. Only 1 restaurant is open at a time with breakfast and lunch served in La Majorelle and dinner in The Restaurant. The Culinarium a la carte restaurant was closed for maintenance when we were there so our a la carte meal was served in La Majorelle. 

Meals were fine, and fairly consistent with hotels of this standard catering to multiple nationalities with different tastes. The quality was good, if the combination of dishes a bit weird to British taste. All of the salads and veggies were excellent. The coffee from the pool bar was served hot hot, which I always appreciate. 

The hotel had 5 pools, but be prepared for sun bed wars. Despite signs around the pools saying any reserving of beds before 8am prohibited, there were plenty of beds with towels on them long before 8am and usually overnight. No one pool gets sun all day, so you need to be strategic depending on whether you prefer morning or afternoon sun or are happy to move around throughout the day (depending on availability of beds!).

We had quite an action packed itinerary so only had limited time around the pool anyway. We did a full day excursion to Ouzoud Waterfall in the Atlas Mountains which was 10 hours door to door, with 3 hours travelling each way. 

The journey was scenic as we passed small towns and villages. The scenery improved as we got nearer the falls with dramatic canyons through the mountains, fields of spring flowers, all yellow and pink and purple. It was actually a lot more lush and green than I was expecting. Olive groves and corn fields as well as loads of sheep farms, with the odd donkey. 

We arrived in Ouzoud and were split in to groups by language. We only had 3 of us in the English language group so we were on our way pretty quick. The first viewing platform had a view from the top of the falls with monkeys all around, being fed by tourists (which always annoys me). Locals sell peanuts and podded peas to tourists, but these monkeys are wild animals and shouldn’t be dependent on food from tourists. Tourist money also encourages the capture and exploitation of animals so it’s best to avoid any animal related activities, however innocuous. 

Our guide gave us a bit of information about the falls, Berber heritage and culture. The falls are the second highest on the African continent and the views get more spectacular as you get farther down in to the ravine. 

There’s little shops and restaurants all down the pathways but the retailers were respectful and didn’t harass us to come inside or buy something. Maybe because we were with a guide. You don’t actually need a guide to explore the falls, it’s a really easy circular walk down in to the ravine and back up the other side but if coming from Marrakesh, a tour with transport and guide is probably the easiest way to do it. 

There’s little pontoons at the bottom of the falls that take you close – or even in to – the waterfall, depending on how wet you want to get! You can even dive off some rocks and swim, if that’s your thing. The pontoon is about 30 diram (£3) and you’re only on it for about 5 minutes. We did the pontoon at around 1200 and by the time we were having lunch overlooking the falls, the queue for the boats was snaking along the waters edge. The wait can be up to an hour and a half in high season! One thing I did notice was the amount of rubbish floating in the water and along the paths of the ravines – make sure to take your rubbish home guys!

We stopped off at one of the many restaurants along the cliffs and lunch consisted of a set menu of salad, chicken, beef or vegetable tejine with mint tea and satsumas. It was a good meal and at 130 diram (£13), reasonable value for what is a tourist trap. Again, our little group of 3 allowed us to beat the crowds so had a table with front view of the falls. 

After lunch, we walked back up the other side of the falls with a brief stop at a viewing platform with monkeys and a very unkempt horse being used for photos with tourists. The poor thing, its hooves all deformed and clearly not in a good state of health, but tourists still happy to give its captor money for a photo. Seeing fat tourists riding up the steep sides of the ravine on the backs of tiny donkeys also made question humanity and how we value animals. 

There’s a lot of activities in Morocco that involve animals, especially camels, and I had to research hard to find one that didn’t. Even when walking around the souk, it wasn’t easy to avoid monkeys on chains or snake charmers selling photo ops. The best thing we can do as tourists to end animal exploitation is to avoid and not give these people our money. 

One animal exploitation free activity is a hot air balloon ride above the dessert and with spectacular views across the Atlas Mountains, I would highly recommend it!

Our trip was operated by Butterfly Balloons, which I’d picked because of the small group size – there were 14 of us in the basket. I was also really impressed with the set up at the launch site which had a large tent with comfy sofas and some of the best public toilets I’ve ever used – ever, never mind in Morocco! I think I’d go back just for the loos!

We were picked up at 0530 and driven by a maniac through the dark dessert to the launch site. The driver being the only negative part of the whole experience. After a cup of tea, we watched the balloon inflate before gently soaring up into the cloudless sky. The flight was so serene and smooth and as the sun came up from behind the mountains, I admit to having a tear in my eye. It was a truly memorable moment, and being able to share it with my mum made it all the more special. 

There were around 50 balloons up at the same time, all at around 3000 feet but it didn’t feel precarious and was so calm. The only dramatic bit was landing in a random field, narrowly avoiding the power lines! I admit to being a little apprehensive about this trip but it was wonderful and I’m so glad we did it. Plus, we were back at the hotel by 9am so still managed breakfast and a full day by the pool. 

Of course, getting home wasn’t quite as serene and our flight was 90 minutes late but delays just seem par for the course nowadays! Hopefully mine and mum’s next trip together to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand will be less disrupted!

Date of trip: April 2025

Price paid: £600pp for 5 nights all inclusive including flights from Manchester and private airport transfers, booked via Tui. Ouzoud Waterfall trip was £17pp and the balloon ride was £100pp, both booked with Viator and 20% cashback via Topcashback