Riad Palais des Princesses & SPA — Hotel in Marrakesh Prefecture

From research, it's been advised to stay at a Riad if you ever visit Marrakech to get a sense of the 'Moroccan living experience'. Made the booking via Booking.com. Quite an affordable price for 4 nights. You have to get there on foot...the cars can only go so far. But there are people around to help carry your luggage up to it. The people were very friendly. We met Kamal on our first night. He was a very friendly and lovely person and took time to explain the map of Marrakech and gave advice on places to visit. We were served Moroccan tea and a snack while awaiting our rooms (others that were waiting as well) to be ready. I love how the rooms are not given numbers, rather names. We stayed in 'La Vizir'. It was so impressionable how the wall spaces were created as opposed to typically adding a lot of tables to cater for space.

Breakfast was lovely. Buffet daily. Nono in particular was always cheerful when she greeted guests.

Our room was cleaned daily, bed remade and towels and soap replaced daily as well which was nice.

Oh, they're so helpful in helping with your luggage, I have to specially applaud it. Wifi was okay, no problems there.

And Cleopatra the house cat, quite charming and royal.

Would stay here again on a next visit to Marrakech.

The only thing is for trips, due to walking access only as a result of the structure of the whole area, not just the Riad, you'd have to liaise with your activity tour guide on a different location for meet-up and you wouldn't have the luxury of being picked right at the door of the accommodation like others but just a minor inconvenience. I took a star off rooms as there was no tea service within the room-...

The hotel needs to warn visitors ahead of arrival to come in through the front entrance (Google maps points you to the back entrance). We had a terrible experience with some locals who told us they were employed by the riad to assist us in finding the riad through narrow confusing streets and later harrassed us aggressively for a lot of money. The riad staff told us this was commonly experienced by those who were led by taxis to the back entrance.

On arrival the hotel staff told us that the room would be ready in an hour, we decided to step out and returned in 2 hours however we were made to wait another 30 mins before we were shown our room. For the first 2 hours since we entered our room we did not have electricity, this was particularly annoying considering it was around 40 degrees outside. This wasn't a riad wide issue, but just in our room.

We also used the hotel laundry service. They were helpful in expediting it since we were leaving early morning the next day. However we realized a bit too late that they had lost one of our shirts.

The riad has a policy of mandatory silence from 10pm to 8am, however we heard constant chatter and doors opening and banging shut until midnight. The rooms are absolutely not sound proof and very closely spaced.

The riad is well decorated but we felt it was too commerical. We had stayed in other riads during the trip which were more warm and authentic. Wouldn't recommend this place unless you want to stay right near the main square...

We recently stayed at Riad Palais des Princesses during our family trip to Marrakech. As it was our first time staying in a riad, we weren’t entirely sure what to expect — but here’s a quick rundown of our experience.

First off, the location is great, and the staff were friendly and welcoming (specially the breakfast staff and the night time receptionist sorry didn’t ask for their names).

We appreciated that they shared a WhatsApp number for the reception, which was really helpful… at first. For the first couple of days, they were responsive, but after that, no one was replying — which got frustrating, especially when you’re travelling with kids and the riad doesn’t have a lift. Having to run up and down to reception isn’t ideal when you’re juggling little ones.

We booked a family room with one double and two single beds. The double bed side was fine, but the room with the two single beds had an air conditioning unit with a mind of its own. It worked when it wanted to, and though the staff kept sending someone to fix it, it never stayed fixed — and honestly, it got a bit tiresome after a while specially when it was 45 degrees outside.

The riad itself is fairly clean, though not spotless. It’s probably better maintained than some others out there, but again — this was our first riad stay, so we didn’t have anything to compare it to.

Overall, the riad has potential and some good points, but a few practical things (especially for families) definitely...