Riad Khouloud

STEAL inside the room while you're out and about x fes. ABSURD. I read late about other similar reviews..... avoid it..... not counting bathroom and dirty towels.... shame, doing so help tourists to get away..... absurd

Trip Advisor doesn’t offer my category of traveller. I traveled with my adult daughter (age 23).. so nit family with teens, Mother and daughter. I picked this place based on reviews that said excellent location and it was not a good location for our needs. I am a world traveller, and have travelled independently with my daughter since she was born. She is now almost 23 years old. We have visited Morocco before, and much of Africa and the Middle East, and never felt this uncomfortable. We spent much of our two days/2 nights locked in our room. The owner was very kind when we arrived, and offered tea. He also offered many ideas of what HE felt we should do in Fez, Chefchaouen and making our way back to Marrakech through the desert. He was very insistent that we hire him for all of our side trips even though the prices were not good for me, and based on the fact that I already had stuff lined up through friends that we have in Marrakech. I had already booked a half day guide through trip advisor to get us around Fez as my daughter wanted to revisit some places that I had taken her in Fez before. The area of this Riad is in the old Medina, so to try to navigate to the tannery or new Medina or Jewish Quarters (Mellah) was not safe, nor would it have been easy. He was very insistent that because this was HIS city and we were HIS guests that we only use him for services as my friends are from Marrakech. Like I said, I have traveled Morocco extensively as an independent mother with my daughter and know the lay of the land and the prices. My good friends also would not steer me wrong as they are Moroccan. He became every angry every time I would be outside the room and not commit to a tour with him. We ultimately locked ourselves in our room for the 48 hours that we were stuck there. The only two times that I felt okay there weee when I asked him for help to find a place to get a meal… we have tried to find somewhere but this riad owner doesn’t have maps of his area or how to get to/from his riad. We tried to walk and find something but ended up by the old used clothing market, and two kind university aged young men spoke with us in broken English and suggested that we turn around and leave that area because it was not safe for us to continue on. I believed them as we already had a bad feeling about getting lost where we were. We returned and literally hadn’t eaten in 24 hours, so I bravely asked the owner if there was something close that we could order some chicken or meal for my daughter. He worked up and said he would take us. And he seemed cheerful and chipper to do so. We walked to a place that was indeed excellent, and cheap and a lot of food and a local food spot. Of course I offered to buy him dinner with us for his time and trouble. He said he would go to a coffee bar close by and come back for us and take something to go. He came back 45 minutes later, and ordered a big dessert thing to go and we all walked back. My daughter went into our room and I went back to thank him and offer him a $100 MAD tip (about $10 USD) on top of the $50MAD dinner and he got angry again saying “See, you should trust me and I will take you to the Desert, etc.”… I retreated and we locked in again for the night. We tried to sneak out in the morning for our day tour. He saw us and challenged me because we weren’t coming up to the terrace for breakfast. I lied and said we don’t eat breakfast. The tour guide would not meet us at the road because he said the owner had a bad reputation and he didn’t want to get into a challenge with him. There were a lot of red flags. We left very early the morning that we were to leave and I was happy to be able to leave the key and not have any challenges. I paid for everything the night before when his cousin was there and of course in front of others he is picture perfect behaviour. I’m left my backpack in our room and pulled the door to the road closed and it locked because no one was up. I realized and had to ring the bell to get back in for it. It took three tries for him to finally come let me in and then he was rude when I apologized that I had left something. Our driver was going to come help me after trying to get in for almost 20 minutes, but he also didn’t want to approach this riad for the reputation of the owner. We couldn’t get away fast enough from this place. My Moroccan friends, the guide we had in Fez, and the driver that we hired to pick us up to take us to the Blue Gate to meet our taxi for the desert ll suggested that I make reviews for this place outlining our experience and absolute feelings of fear and being uncomfortable, but I opted to wait until we were actually out of Morocco because of his hot/cold behaviours and feeling concerns for personal safety. Although this is a beautiful old Riad, I would not recommend this accommodation to ANY female travellers. I would also not recommend this location at all. I wonder if the reviews that I read were made by non-travellers to boost his scores. There was a Spanish couple staying when we weee there and they too were having a tough time navigating for food and basic needs as well.

We were offered a better room than we booked as a kind gesture from the manager. The room was big and had two floors as a suite, but it felt not too cleaned but ok, no insects or anything like that. The bathroom needed a little of renovation but the hot water boiler was working and the sope was offered ;) Using Google Maps watch out finding this place, becouse it's not pionted at the right street, close but not where it accually is.