The Dar Ahlam may be one of the most interesting hotels we’ve ever stayed at. It’s built into an old kasbah (1) that has been renovated and expanded into a four star hotel with 18 rooms and suites (2). There’s no check in process, they simply led us through a warren of tiny hallways to our room. We soon found out that there are also

• No room keys or locks
• No menus
• No reservations for dinner
• No meal times, or limit on the number of meals you can have
• An open bar throughout the day
• All activities – cooking class, massage (3), guides, etc. – are included.

It was about 3:00 by this time, and we hadn’t had lunch, so we were escorted to a table and asked what we wanted to eat. It turns out that this isn’t as open ended as you might think; they apparently have a relatively limited repertoire (although they don’t expose the list), and they also make guesses in advance about what you might like and start preparing it for you. For instance, we had fish for dinner the first night, which we definitely wouldn’t have asked for.

Getting to and from our room was a challenge: we continually got lost, going into dead ends or corridors that seemed to lead to other corridors. After maybe 20 tries, we were able to do it with no mistakes.

As I mentioned, the building is a warren of tiny hallways with small rooms, dead ends and corners filled with artwork and craft pieces. Many of these sets are quite picturesque, though dark and hard to photograph.

Our room is a bit of a disappointment. It is very cute and simply furnished. It is also very dark, and has only a small and not-very-comfortable loveseat to sit on. If you’re trying to read a book and need some light, forget about it. There is enough closet space, which is fortunate, because there is literally no room to open the suitcases and get anything. There’s also an enclosed patio with two lounges, which we used for a few minutes. The only part of the room with adequate light is the bathroom, so you can put on makeup or shave without slicing your face.

The hotel, on the other hand, has lots of nice sitting areas. Some are the little nooks off the halls, which are furnished in more traditional styles. There’s a very contemporary large living room-like area, where the staff is always ready to get you anything you want – drinks, snacks, etc. And outdoors has dining tables scattered all around the grounds, so that each of our meals has been in complete privacy, whether indoors or outdoors.

We scheduled three activities for Saturday: I went for a walk around the neighborhood with Fuad, a guide, early in the morning, then Sally and I had a private cooking class at 11:00 and prepared our own lunch, and finally we each got massages at 4:00. Kind of filled the day, along with eating breakfast, our self-prepared lunch, and then dinner. Lunch and dinner were both tejine: chicken for lunch, and lamb for dinner. As mentioned in an earlier post, tejine is the standard meal throughout the country. It always has a variety of vegetables, and often adds a meat such as chicken, beef or lamb.

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(1) A kasbah in Morocco derives from the Arabic term for a fortress or citadel, but has grown to mean a block-shaped building with towers at the four corners. It is a common style used for expensive homes and hotels.

(2) Actually 9 rooms are in the kasbah itself, the other 9 are in another building on the grounds.

(3) We found out the massages were not included when checking out, but $60 for a 45 minute massage at a resort is very reasonable.