My experience in Tangier and a review of SolChasers

2 Sep

Well I’m sitting here in Tokyo and one of my friends in Spain asked whether she should use Solchasers to do a trip from Spain to Tangier, Morocco. Thus that prompted me to write a review as to why she should definitely reconsider. This is based solely on my experience with Solchasers tour company and my time in Tangier.

The trip was very reasonably priced and included a ferry ticket, a hotel and a day of sightseeing. They were very accommodating and available in regards to their customer service. We were able to get to Morocco with and no problems until we stepped off the boat. We were greeted by two men who insisted we take a taxi with them as they were are tour guides. Lucky for me I have common sense and knew a man was supposed to be waiting with a sign of my name ensuring he was the correct tour guide. We quickly found him and hopped into a comfortable van after a little bit of arguing. We never got stickers from the company so although he had a sign with my name on it (as well as the other members in my group), he wasn’t convinced it was me.

We began our tour of Tangier. This consisted of our tour guide pointing out hotels, the beach and some new construction for about 30 minutes. We also stopped to ride some old camels for $2. We had lunch at a nice restaurant that was included in the price. Afterwards was when things went straight downhill. We visited two souvenir shops, a rug shop, a spice shop and a food shop. It was extremely obvious that our tour guide got a large commission on each shop we visited. We had to sit down, listen to the shop put on a show of its items and were of course quoted outrageous prices. Everyone was irritated by this point. She was even so kind as to offer us an opportunity to come back with her family for a fee. It was very rushed, disorganized and not as advertised. 

We stayed at Hotel Almohades in Tangier. The hotel was very nice, clean and modern. Dinner was included and it was pretty much the same as lunch. We went out that night to get henna, eat ice cream and go to a club for a few minutes. The club started playing 90’s rnb and hiphop upon our arrival which was interesting.

The next day we took a trip to the medina since we were unable to do much shopping the day before due to the rush. As a women, I cannot recommend other women travel to Tangier without a man of some sort. It was stressful and slightly dangerous. We were offered a tour and once we turned it down, were called Black whores, slaves and a few other derogatory terms. He then followed us around and we had to run to ditch him. All the priced we were offered were 50% less than when we were with our tour guide. The carpets they were selling for $60-200 were somehow magically $15-50 when we were without her. 

The tour ended with us being picked up on time and brought to the dock to catch our ferry. Overall there isn’t much going on in Tangier and I’d recommend visiting other parts as it’s basically a tourist trap for the hoards of day trippers from Europe.

10 Responses to “My experience in Tangier and a review of SolChasers”

  1. bjanelli October 14, 2013 at 9:47 am #

    Hello,
    I was sending you this message, to see if you could kindly change the title of this post or take it down. When you google “solchasers” your post shows up on the top of the search and it affects our image. I’m sorry that you had this experience with our company, it sounds like you were frustrated with Tangier, which is common as it is a very busy place. It would be much appreciate if you could even just change the name to “Don’t Travel to Morocco” or something to that extent.
    Thanks,
    Brad Janelli
    It would be much appreciate if you could take down or change the title of this post. Thanks Again,

    • jbrieo October 14, 2013 at 10:36 am #

      I will change the name to a review of a Solchaser as i’m not frustrated with morocco as I was with your company. I’m sure my readers appreciate honest reviews as should you.

  2. Carlos Heredia October 14, 2013 at 11:23 am #

    thank you very much! I appreciate it

  3. Read Full Report October 19, 2013 at 6:34 am #

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    • jbrieo October 23, 2013 at 1:47 pm #

      I’m glad you like it and thank you for reading!

  4. Travel to Morocco June 18, 2014 at 6:08 pm #

    Hi jbrieo,

    I am really confused with your blog about Morocco and I hope to get an answer from you about several things:

    You said that the price was good and everything was going fine until you arrived to the port of Tanger, a port full of people that are trying to sell you anything and full of buses and taxis that are trying to get clients.. You knew, probably because the travel agency told you, that you had to wait for your private driver with a sign with your name on it. Then, when you went out from the port were trying to take you to his taxi but thanks to your common sense… you obviously didn´t go with them knowing that a private driver was there with a sign with your name who quickly shew up. Then, where was the problem??

    Then you ride camels had a nice lunch with local food…and your next issue is that in the tour they took you to visits shops. This is the only point in the hole post where I can see something lightly bad taking into consideration that if you travel to Morocco you can see that this is the way that they are but Ok I get the point during a while you were listening staff about ingredients potions, etc and visiting shops… it may be boring but not more than other tours that I have been..

    You said that the hotel was nice clean and modern and that you had a fun night..

    Then the next day you said that you decided to go shopping and visit shops because you hadn´t enough time the last day…but you just said that you were in shops for a long time so…..what means all this??

    Then you said that the locals said racism comments to you..In a country where the 90 % of population has dark skin or are half blood, it is quite difficult to understand.. probably cause you felt intimidated and scared surounded by an unknown culture everything was more intense around you and I completely understand it and I agree that due to is a muslim country travelling women alone is not a common sense thing.

    Then resuming, can you tell me where is the problem with the company that brought you there and with Morocco?

    I am not defending the company but I am defending Morocco as a country and as a culture. I use to travel to Morocco really often because I love their culture and their country. I think that your only problem was that you weren´t prepare for the culture shock that entails going there. By the other hand I feel that you are blaming the company for a lot of things that they are not responsible except for the shopping thing.

    I hope that you do not take my opinion as an attack, I am just trying to explain how does Morocco work and probably is not the most razonable culture in the world but we have to remember that we are visiting their country so WE are the one that have to get addapted to their culture.

    Regarding to the other comment I think that the other person has a personal vendetta against the other country due to she copy your post in other blogs accompanied by hers and I do not think that this is the place por company battles..

    • jbrieo June 18, 2014 at 9:12 pm #

      I get you probably work for Sol Chasers based on your lengthy response to my blog post. My problem was with Sol Chasers not Morocco. When I arrived there my driver was no where to be seen and because we did not have some sort of paper he refused to let us in the van until the other woman intervened. The problem was not with the shops but with the fact that our tour guide was clearly making commission from the shops she brought us as everyone else on the tour agreed. The prices with the tour guide were outrageous but when we all came back alone there was no problems getting a lower price. We wanted to go to other shops but were limited to the tour guide’s commission shops for lengthy presentations about rugs and felt very pressured to buy.

      I have traveled all over the world and have lived abroad. The country is not 90% dark skinned and maybe you have that confused with Nigeria? There is lots of racism throughout the middle east towards darker skinned africans and you will have to do your own research about such as there is plenty information available on that topic. I was not traveling alone but with a group of 5 women. I’ve traveled to other middle easter countries without a problem so maybe this is a Tanger/Morocco problem.

      You are not defending Morocco as most of my problems were not with the country itself but the company and based on your name I can tell you are probably from Spain not Morocco anyways (nice try).I look forward to returning to Morocco again just not with Sol Chasers. For the price I paid, I could book my own hotel and so called “tour” (it was not) of Tanger and still save money. Lesson learned!

      This is my blog so when I want to write about my experiences that is what I will do. If you do not like it don’t read it. It should not be too confusing as this is my personal blog not a math problem 🙂

      • Danielle March 19, 2015 at 9:16 pm #

        Sol Chasers was one of the most unhelpful companies I have ever tried to book a trip with. After 4 days of emailing the company and calling their office, they never got back to me on booking my trip. Thank goodness I did not give them my credit card information. Just based on my experience with trying to book a trip with them, I would not consider using this company to take any kind of tour. I wish I would have read this blog before wasting my time.

      • Daniel November 27, 2017 at 2:15 am #

        Hello! That was a great review! I just sent an email to this company. I absolutely appreciate your help and I won’t use this company. Very good blog! I will recommend it to everybody. Those companies need to learn that they can not do that to tourists that travel from far. They should allow tourists to appreciate the traveling experience.

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