All-Inclusive Marrakech: Camels, Berbers & a Flying Trapeze

We booked a pool and some winter sun. We got an expedition. Actually several.

That wasn’t the plan. Back in November 2022, a Travelzoo deal landed in my inbox showing that for £1,200 for two, flights included, we could get six nights all-inclusive at what was then called the Iberostar Club Palmeraie — since rebranded as the Iberostar Waves Club Palmeraie — on the edge of Marrakech. Winter sun, cocktails, a sunbed with our names on it.

Mel’s brother and his wife were keen to come too, and as we’ve done many adventures with them, we guessed we probably would do more than just flop and drop by the pool. It also meant something else entirely: the more activities we booked to fill the days, the more Morocco we kept discovering outside the hotel gates.

By the end of the week, we’d ridden camels at sunset, driven ATVs through a dust storm of our own making, drunk tea with Berbers in the Atlas Mountains, and watched my brother-in-law take one look at a trapeze bar and decide the pool bar was calling his name instead.

This is the trip we never turned into a proper travel plan. It’s also, in hindsight, the one that taught us the most about what an all-inclusive holiday is actually for. And what it isn’t.

How Much Does an All-Inclusive Holiday to Marrakech Actually Cost?

For us: £1,200 for two people, covering return flights and six nights all-inclusive at a 4-star hotel. £200 a night including everything was a deal to be had. We found it through Travelzoo (one of those emails you almost always delete) and booked the flights ourselves through British Airways, which mattered more than we expected at the time.

Checking back in September 2026: the same route, same hotel, same six nights in November were showing at £1,299 for two — a BA sale price running until the end of the month, but close enough to what we paid in 2022 that it’s still a fair benchmark for budgeting your own trip.

Flying BA rather than a budget carrier gave us two things a cheaper flight wouldn’t have: departure times that didn’t demand a 3am alarm, and a contribution toward tier points and Avios, paid for on our BA American Express Plus card. Neither of those show up in the headline price, but if you’re the sort of traveller who’s slowly building toward a free flight or a lounge pass, it’s worth factoring in.

We’ve written more on how to make that card work for you in our BA Avios companion voucher guide, which is worth a read before you book anything.

Activities were extra, and we booked almost all of them ourselves through GetYourGuide once we’d landed, rather than through the hotel’s excursions desk: more on why below.

What’s the Iberostar Waves Club Palmeraie Actually Like?

Honestly? A perfectly good 4-star hotel that never once tried to be a 5-star one, and was mostly better for the honesty.

The gardens are the best thing about the property: wide, green, properly maintained, with the kind of shaded walkways that make an afternoon glass of something cold feel earned rather than indulgent. The pool areas have space to actually spread out, which matters when you’re a group of four trying to claim enough sunbeds. There is also a quiet pool, away from the beat of the music at the main pool.

The staff ran a full programme around the pool and gardens including salsa classes, boules, a flying trapeze rig we’ll get to and threw themselves into all of it with more enthusiasm than the four of us managed most afternoons.

The rooms were where the 4-star rating held its line most firmly. Comfortable, clean, functional. And undercut, every single day, by a faint drain smell that no amount of open windows quite shifted. It’s a small thing. It’s also the kind of small thing that colours a whole stay if nobody mentions it, so we’re mentioning it.

Food and drink was the other place the “all-inclusive” promise wobbled. The spirits were all local rather than recognisable brands, which is fine if you’re not fussy, less fine if you were picturing a specific gin and tonic or whisky. I love a decent malt whisky, but the local variety was a little like the medicine you have to take. The food itself was edible but repetitive fast; enough so that we ate out twice, which is not something we’d normally do on an all-inclusive trip we’d already paid for. Having said that, the evening magic of the Medina is a must do if you visit Morocco.

Here’s where the hotel actually costs you something you don’t see on the booking page: it sits a few miles outside Marrakech, with nothing much around it. Every single outing – Medina, Atlas Mountains, desert camp, ATVs – started with a twenty-minute taxi just to get anywhere. Marrakech Menara (RAK) airport is a 30-minute taxi ride, on the other side of the city. Convenient enough once you’re used to it. Slightly marooning if you’re not expecting it.

Our TripWorthIt™ Score of Iberostar Waves Club Palmeraie, Morocco

Read what these pillars mean and how we score them in our TripWorthIt™ Guide

The property scores well, not least because of the gardens and space. What surrounds it doesn’t score well – waste land and nothing really to do. And that gap is exactly what pushed us well beyond the gates most days, which turned out to be the best decision we made all week.

The Medina, On Foot and Unplanned

We gave ourselves one day with no bookings, no guide, no plan beyond “walk toward the noise.” The Medina delivers on that instruction better than almost anywhere we’ve been. Copper pots stacked shoulder-high. The specific, sharp smell of a tannery before you’ve even seen it. Someone calling out a price for oranges that had nothing to do with the price you’d actually pay. We got lost twice, on purpose the second time, but it is amazing how safe you feel walking round the small dark alleyways around the Medina. Although to be fair, there was one section we came across, where we were told the area was not for tourists (we were busy filming and taking photos) and felt a little unwelcome, so scuttled back up the alley.

It’s the one part of the week that needed no activity desk, no driver, no booking reference: just good shoes and a willingness to not know where you’re going next.

What’s a Berber Tea Ceremony Like, and Is the Atlas Mountains Trip Worth It?

Yes – and it’s the day that quietly became the heart of the whole trip.

The route out of Marrakech climbs fast, and the landscape changes with it: red earth, then terraced green, then rock. We stopped in a Berber village where a family showed us how their rugs and pottery are made, then sat us down for mint tea poured from a height none of us could replicate afterwards, however many times we tried. The Berbers we met that day were some of the warmest, most unhurried people we’ve spent time with anywhere in 61 countries. No performance to it, just genuine welcome for four slightly overheated tourists who’d turned up in a minibus.

This was also the day of the drive to Setti Fadma, a small riverside village in Al Haouz Province where we stopped for lunch. The drive itself deserves its own warning: switchback roads, a driver who treated the white lines as optional, and four of us gripping whatever we could reach, especially when he chose a mountain pass with seemingly infinite drops either side. We were, all of us, quietly relieved when the engine stopped. The lunch that followed – by the river, unhurried, nobody in a rush to get back in the car – was worth every second of the drive that got us there.

Camels at Sunset, Then Dinner Under the Stars

We’ll say it plainly: this is the moment that made the whole trip worth it, and neither photographs nor a paragraph does it full justice.

We rode out into the desert in the last hour of daylight, the light turning everything the colour of the sand itself, and arrived at camp just as a second group of camels crested the dune behind us in silhouette. Riders and animals both cut black against an orange sky, exactly on cue, entirely unplanned. Dinner was tagine and flatbread eaten by firelight, followed by drumming and traditional dancing that pulled all four of us up onto our feet whether we’d intended to dance or not. Cold air, warm fire, a sky with more stars in it than any of us see at home. We still talk about it today.

ATVs, a Proper Camel Trek, and Why We’re Still Finding Sand

Two more days, two very different kinds of exertion. The ATVs were, without exaggeration, some of the most fun we’ve had on any trip: and also the dustiest. 40 minutes flying round dirt roads, revving up and slowing down. Towards the end, we were let off our leash and allowed to beat each other round an impromptu dirt track course with cambered bends. Such fun! We finished that afternoon coughing dust out of places dust has no business reaching, laughing about it the whole taxi ride back.

The camel trek, a longer and more proper outing than the sunset ride, was a slower kind of good: hours in the saddle, wearing traditional dress and head coverings, conversation drifting in and out, the Atlas Mountains sitting on the horizon the whole way.

Book the ATVs if dust doesn’t bother you. Book the longer trek if you want the version of camel riding that actually earns the word “trek.”

The Flying Trapeze (and My Shoulders)

The hotel’s activity programme included a flying trapeze rig hidden in the gardens, and I said yes to it before I’d properly looked at how high it was. The staff there were so kind and careful, but the tuition was brief and limited.

Bill took one look from half way up the platform, decided the whole thing wasn’t for him, and climbed back down. Which, in hindsight, might have been the wiser call. I was first up, having been eying it for 3 days, despite my long-held vertigo tendencies. After a couple of garbled instructions in French from the guide, I jumped. The catch worked. My shoulders, for about thirty seconds afterwards, were fairly convinced they’d left their sockets entirely on the way there.

It was, without question, the highlight of the week for me: the kind of thing you’d never plan for on an all-inclusive trip, and the exact reason it’s worth checking what’s actually included before you write a hotel off as “just a pool.”

Booking It Yourself vs. the Hotel Desk

We booked almost everything through GetYourGuide rather than the hotel’s own excursions desk: the Atlas Mountains day, the desert camp, the ATVs, the camel trek. And we’d do it again. It gave us more choice of operator, clearer pricing upfront, and reviews we could actually check before handing over a card. The hotel desk works fine if you’d rather not think about it. We wanted to compare, so we didn’t use it once.

Is Marrakech Worth It as an All-Inclusive Base?

We went in expecting to spend the week horizontal by a pool with occasional winter sun as the main event. We left having barely used the pool at all, because everything more interesting was a ten-minute taxi away and we kept taking it.

That’s not really a complaint about the hotel: the gardens, the staff, the trapeze rig all did their job. It’s more of an observation about what “all-inclusive” is actually for, if you let it be a base rather than the whole holiday. Morocco outside those gates is beautiful in a rougher, less polished way than the resort brochure suggests, and the Berber families we met along the way were some of the most genuinely welcoming people we’ve come across anywhere. Go and just flop by a pool for a week, and you’ll have a perfectly nice time. Go with a plan to leave the grounds most days, and you’ll come home with a week’s worth of stories instead of a tan.

We rarely go back to the same hotel or resort twice. We liked this hotel for what it provided (a reasonably priced deal in the sun), but I’m not sure that we’d go back.

You’ll find more of the trips that taught us that lesson over in our Been & Scene’s travel archive. This one’s a fair example of the pattern.

FAQs: Planning an All-Inclusive Trip to Marrakech

How much does an all-inclusive holiday to Marrakech cost?

We paid £1,200 for two people, covering return flights from the UK and six nights all-inclusive at a 4-star hotel, booked through a Travelzoo deal in 2022. Prices move with the season and the deal you find, but that gives you a realistic benchmark for a similar package.

Is the Iberostar Waves Club Palmeraie good value?

It depends what you’re comparing it against. The gardens and grounds are genuinely lovely, and the activity programme is generous. The food and drink is where an all-inclusive budget hotel shows its ceiling: local spirits only, and a menu that repeats faster than you’d like. We scored it 2.5/5 on TripWorthIt™’s Hotel Offer pillar for exactly that reason.

How far is the Iberostar Waves Club Palmeraie from central Marrakech?

A few miles outside the city, with nothing much immediately around the hotel itself. Every trip into Marrakech or out to the Atlas Mountains started with roughly a twenty-minute taxi, which is worth budgeting for both in time and cost. We’ve stayed at other hotels / riads around Marrakech that provide easier access to the things you might want to do beyond just relaxing at the hotel.

What happens on a Berber tea ceremony / Atlas Mountains day trip?

Expect a drive up into the mountains, a stop in a Berber village to see rugs and pottery made by hand, and mint tea poured properly — from height, into small glasses, more than once. It’s typically part of a longer day trip that can also include a stop for lunch in a village like Setti Fadma.

Is camel riding in Morocco worth doing?

Yes, and there are two quite different versions of it. A short sunset ride into the desert (often paired with a dinner camp) gives you the postcard moment with minimal saddle time. A longer camel trek is a slower, more physical outing across several hours if you want the fuller experience.

Should I book excursions through the hotel or independently?

We used GetYourGuide for everything and would again — more choice of operator, visible pricing, and reviews to check beforehand. The hotel desk is the easier option if you’d rather not compare providers yourself.