trubey

Wow. I am really glad that someone else decided to keep track. I had been feeling guilty about shutting down my site.

As far as searching, I found that to use the term "join" with any of your other search terms to be the most important word. Virtually all group cruises will use this word on their pages.

For your own cruise, I offer these suggestions: Holland America and/or ship name, try with the month spelled out and the month using the abbreviation, then try some affinity groups like Christian, band, and, poker.

susana.

I just did a search and found my old thread. There were not many responses, so I recommend that you also do a search on this forum using the keyword Casablanca. It might help you find more info.

However, my original thread is:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=223291&highlight=casablanca

susana.

Perhaps Morocco is just not my favorite place in the world. After doing a lot of reading on Casablanca, we had decided that we could skip it and do the tour at Agadir, instead. And you read what happened.

We were also doing the transatlantic. This was really fun for us as we live in the Azores. We had flown to Lisbon to board and had been aboard for about a week (with stops in Spain, Morocco, Madeira, and the Canaries) when we had a day on our own island. So, instead of all the exciting options, we went home to say hello to the dog, check e-mail, etc.

I did love the last week at sea.

If you do take a ship's tour, you might warn your fellow passengers of the tour guide's scam. I tend to think that it might be very common. susana.

In the last month, I had stopped reading this board, but just got an e-mail notification to this thread I started quite a long time ago. Since then, I have been to Agadir and can offer my advice.

As I got no advice from this thread, we decided simply to go on a ship's tour as we were a bit nervous about being out and about in a land where we did not understand the language at all.

My advice is don't have great expectations for this day. We sailed with HAL and took their excursion to a small town, whose name I no longer remember, but which was supposed to be a great example of the old walled towns and markets.

The ride there was quite interesting. Although the countryside itself was rather dull, we did have two stops along the way which were good. One was when the bus driver pulled off the highway and showed us a most unusual (for us) sight. There was a herd of goats, in a tree—they climb for the fruit.

We also stopped at a small restaurant for a bathroom stop and a drink. It was a pretty little place.

We then went to the market. I loved it. I wanted to stop at each stall and buy everything—from handmade shoes to spices. However, the guide kept hurrying us along. When we came to a stop, he told the group that we could have a choice. We could either stop in the market here and buy their over-priced goods or we could go with him to a shop afterwards where the prices and quality were much better. Of course, the group voted to follow his suggestion. And then, we were all so very, very disappointed. His recommended shop was nothing but the same old tourist shop that you'd see everywhere—with ridiculously high prices. We also stopped in one shop at the market where they sold us massage oils, however, there I did pitch a fit because of an obvious bait-and-switch attempt.

I do have some wonderful pictures of the marketplace. If I were simply giving a slideshow of my day, you might look and be envious. However, the day just left a bad taste in my mouth.

As I write this, I am trying to remember what other cruisers who had done the city on their own said about the day. Unfortunately, I don't remember.

susana.

Any one been here this summer? susana.

Can we help each other in a thread about Agadir. Has anyone been there and not done the ship excursion? I'd like to find out about the distance from the port to the center of the city, what we should/shouldn't miss, any suggestions on alternative travel (bus, taxi, etc).

I'll be there in November (doing the Prinsendam transatlantic) but actually, anything you can offer that would be of use to another cruiser would be appreciated.

susana.

Please note that I've also started a thread just like this for Casablanca. We have had pretty good success in the Europe board with these.

I can't believe we still haven't gotten to the bottom of this!:rolleyes:

No, it's just behind us. susan.

That was such a great picture, I had to go to their web site. Now I'm going to be one of those obnoxious people who sends silly e-mails to anybody they ever met. My favorite one was . . . (oops, better not say).

susan.

Where we live we have only primitive septic tank systems. Although ALL the locally available paper disintegrates immediately upon hitting water, every loo I've ever used in Europe has a wastebasket with a lid for paper. You get used to it. Makes sense, to me.

lane

Top or bottom, I can never reach the darn paper anyway so I take it off the little roller thingy and leave it on the shelf where the sink is.

lane

that's why they call it the "water closet" . . .