Getting to Morocco

“You get what you pay for.”  Seems fine when you’re talking Ryan Air or Wizz Air and you get a $50 ticket to somewhere.  Cue the fees for luggage, seat selection, food, looking to the left - all things to be expected when you have a cheap ticket.  But this should not have been our mantra in getting to Morocco. After all, you may not have heard of Eurowings - nor had I - but we paid over $300 each for a one way ticket. That’s not cheap, and thus the saying should not apply.

In the Uber ride to the airport, I got a text message that Eurowings “regrets to inform me…..” of a delay.  No big deal, it was 15 minutes.  However, we checked in, got to the gate and were told it was a two hour delay, and then a four hour delay, and then 4 hours and 20 minutes.  What tha?!  When we asked what our options were, we were told that we had to get to Dusseldorf (our connecting airport) and then figure it out.  Really, what if they can’t do anything for us there? Seemed a bit suspect, but what are you going to do. That’s the same information they gave everyone on the plane, including our new friends Iza and Bryan (Polish and Italian). Oh - and lest I forget, we got a 50 Zloty voucher for food at the airport to pass the time (about 10 bucks).  Nevermind that you could only use it at one place, and that place was NOT the Shark Bar which is our favorite hangout (note: the Shark bar was not there - it’s been killed and will reopen as something far worse than our beloved airport meeting point.) Also worth noting, the voucher could not be used on alcohol.

We decided to go and get lunch with Iza and Bryan and it was the best way our day could have gone after the bummer that was missing our connecting flight to Marrakech. They live in Sydney and obviously had a much further distance to be traveling than we did. They have been dating for some years. He’s a chef and she works in hospitality. He has quite a few tattoos and so I asked if he would tell us about them.  To which he rolled up his sleeve and said “these footprints are of our baby girl Zoey.  She died at three months.”  Open mouth, insert foot.  The tattoos which were visible to us were of foods and a large dicing knife - obviously culinary related stuff. That’s what I thought he’d tell us about. There must have been something warm about Sam and me that he felt comortable sharing about the other tattoos - the heart beat, a beautiful phrase about love and the footprints.

Iza and Bryan

We finished lunch with Iza and Bryan and finally boarded and made it to Dusseldorf.  Here we were met by the team that is customer service representatives for Eurowings.  We went to the Eurowings transfer desk, and spoke with an employee who could be one of the least pleasant people I’ve ever met.  She was not helpful in offering options. When I asked if there was another airline we might travel with that day in order to make it to Morocco when we expected to, she offered “go ahead and try and send Eurowings the receipt.” I asked if they would for sure reimburse us and she didn’t really offer and answer. She said we could stay the night at the airport hotel and travel to Frankfurt in the morning, and go to Marrakech from there.  Or we could take a train to Frankfurt that night and leave from there to Marrakech in the morning. After offering these less than desirable options, she just stared at us. We decided that we’d take the hotel that night, and fly to Frankfurt and then Marrakech in the morning.  We asked about food vouchers, and she told us we could eat dinner and breakfast at the hotel.  Just before we left, we asked her name in case there were any problems (after all, our entire new itinerary was hand written on a torn piece of paper) and she wouldn’t tell us.  She just said “tell them the person at the transfer desk.”  Right.  On to the hotel.  

Our "itinerary" from Pamela at the Eurowings transfer desk

When we settled at the hotel, I wanted to let people know right away about the experience we had had with Eurowings.  First thing I did was tweet about it.  I expressed my disappointment with the company and the fact that we missed a day of our holiday.  But that wasn’t all.  The super pleasant lady at the transfer desk - I’m calling her Pamela - gave us a 2 inch by 2.5 inch piece of paper that said it was the customer relations numnber for Eurowings. I was prepared to call and lodge our complaint and see if they had any other options that Pamela may not have given us.  I dialed the number and spoke with a young man briefly.  I told him our situation, and he gave me an email address to write to.  I questioned this and said, “I have this paper that says you are the customer relations for Eurowings, I’m wondering what you can do to help me in this situation.” His response was “there isn’t anything I can do for you, you have to email.” I hesitated and then responded “well if you can’t do anything for me, how is this listed a customer service number?” His answer, “I ask myself that every day.” WHAT!?!?  Stunned, I paused and looked at Sam, who could only hear my end of the conversation, and then responded, “well this is terrible customer service and does not make a good name for your company.” All I got in response was, “indeed.”  So Eurowings……… I’d avoid at all costs.

Sam grinning and bearing it in Frankfurt before our last leg...

We made it to Frankfurt the next day with no complications and then on to Marrakech.  We were definitely ready to be there.  We’d spent 30+ hours in airpors and missed an entire day of our holiday.  Not to mention, due to our late arrival, we missed a walking tour we had booked for that morning - no refunds. We also lost a nights lodging since we were staying at the luxiurous Sheraton Dusseldorf airport location.  Whatever, we made it.

Almost… We landed at 2:20 in the afternoon, and hadn’t cleared customs and gotten outside until 5:10. It could be the longest, slowest customs line I’d ever been in.

Once we got outside, cue the rat race. Luckily I had just read about taxis in Marrakech. They never use meters, so negotiate a price before you get in.  There’s a “fixed” price from the airport posted - 100 Dihrams - but that number is used loosely.  The first guy we encountered wanted 3x the price we were told to pay, then when we brought up the fixed price, they applied it per person rather than for the entire car. They surrounded you and kept saying things like “lady want a taxi, want a taxi.”  These are not unfamiliar things to travellers - however, when you say yes, negotiate your price and you start moving away from the row of taxis cued up, and the guy you’re following meets his friend and you have now three more people riding in the taxi, things get hairy. We backed away, ditched that guy and rebooted.  Returning to the taxi cue, we declared our price and kept moving until we found someone willing to give us a raide at that rate.  Only later did we find out that we had in fact still been taken even through aggressive negotiating.  Welcome to Marrakech.

We finally arrived at our Air BnB which was delightful, and our host met us to make sure all was well.  Faical was the first Moroccan we had real engagement with and he was nothing but delightful.