Jessica N.
Yelp
I really wanted to give El Morocco Inn and Spa a better review due to the relaxing hot spring pool and jacuzzi, friendly staff and potential they have, but I barely feel right leaving this 3 star review and it is more of a 2.5. We stayed Sunday through Thursday (the longest we have ever stayed in the area) and barely made it. A positive is definitely the hot spring water, but the first night it had a strong chlorine smell which I guess is good to know it is clean, but made our skin itchy and did not smell nice. They have several outdoor lounges, however lots of them looked pretty flat and could use some love and there was not really any shade around the outdoor pool except underneath the building by the guest rooms. They have a sauna upstairs, but the stairs were very dilapidated and the railing was very loose, so we did not venture upstairs to use it. You can only get pool towels while the staff is there until 5 or 6pm, so if you are an overnight guest and need a dry towel after 5 or 6pm be sure to ask for one before the staff leaves. They have a small kitchen-ish area open 24 hours with water, their moroccan mint tea lemonade, coffee pre-measured in French presses of 3 different strengths and they do offer a bagged breakfast with the choice of a plain bagel with several topping options like cream cheese, tomato, onion, hard boiled egg and avocado or a small pastry or yogurt or instant oatmeal and maybe a couple other options I did not choose. They have a small indoor room that plays Casablanca on a loop which is charming and a large amount of DVD's to choose from to take back to your room for your viewing pleasure. They allow day guests and smoking in an area across from the only private inn room behind the main courtyard next to their spa rooms (which happened to be the room we booked. We were offered to switch rooms due to the smoke, but decided to stay in it and only had 2 brief incidents where the cigarette smoke blew our way). They have locker rooms, a clean bathroom and an outdoor shower area that has a door for privacy. Now onto the room itself which again was off the back of the property and had an additional fee due to it had a small private outdoor area. The outdoor area felt very dirty and there was no shade at all during the day, so we never hung out there and the path coming off the main property did not connect the whole way to our room and there was several feet of uneven dirt to walk through to get to the gate for the room (they should add paving stones or even a gravel path would be better then the uneven dirt) and it left our feet dirty getting back to the room. The bed was like a brick or a rock and was so uncomfortable, possibly the worst bed I've ever slept in and left my back and body super sore (maybe to encourage the hot springs, but was super terrible). There were 2 of the loudest air conditioners in our small room and although they did cool off the room, the light on the main one was so bright along with the noise they made when they kept turning off and on, it made it even more difficult to sleep on the uncomfortable bed. I know they cannot control nature, i.e. the crazy noisy birds, but I could not not mention the flock of birds that would congregate outside our room from around 10pm-4am and have full on rambunctious debates. I never knew birds were that active at that time or had that much to say. The shower in the room was not usable for my husband as it was so small and did not work well for me either as the shower head was pointed at the wall above my waist and could not be adjusted and I was barely able to rinse off the soap below my waist and used a cup to help rinse my legs and feet (hotel guests are allowed to use the outdoor shower which was nice except having to walk through the uneven dirt to get back to the room.). The grounds overall were clean, but the property could use some updating. We did peek into 2 other rooms when we were considering switching rooms due to the cigarette smoke, but they looked like they needed a lot of TLC/updating too and the carpet was not as fresh looking as the private room we had so we did not change rooms. The staff was super friendly from the check in area to the housekeepers. They do offer a late check out if no one is checking into your room the day you check out for an additional fee. I hope they are able to refresh the property and switch out the mattresses as I would not recommend an overnight stay at this time.
