Wayne_F, Jan. 2023
Unfortunately, I have to give this experience 3 out of 5 stars but I will tell you why. First, since our Riyad could not be accessed by car, we had to meet at another location for our guide. We were asked to meet at another Hammam so we assumed that’s where we would have our experience. When we arrived we were one minute late from the assigned time, but the young man who met us, made it very clear that we were three minutes late, that he was there early and since we were not there, he had to park the van somewhere else. We then went into the van and understood that we were going to another Hammam. It was about a 15 ride through a downtown, more modern area of the city. We were then asked to get out of the van, to walk down an alleyway to our Hammam. We were pleasantly greeted by what seemed to us a married couple who were the managers. They welcomed us and and asked us to sit in a reception area and poured us some lovely mint tea. We then waited at a least 20 minutes before being led to a very small changing room, and were asked to disrobe, to put on a disposable brief, and to put on a thick robe. While changing though, a lady tried to come into our room and we were not yet even robed. After a few minutes she came back in and led us through another door to a very small, tiled lined room with two tile lined benches where we were asked to lie down. It was a steam room but there wasn’t a lot of steam, and it was in this room, we realized we were being scrubbed by this woman. She was very professional. We were two men and was a bit shocked that a woman would be scrubbing us since this was a very conservative country. She took turns scrubbing and rinsing us down. The wait between scrubs was a little awkward but it was fine. The scrubbing was not super intense as what I expected, similar to what I’ve read in a Turkish bath. Following this experience, we were led to another room with two massage tables, prepared for a couples massage. A thin veil hung between the tables and again, two women massaged the two of us. My husband enjoyed his relaxing massage and was snoring for part of it, while I did not. I like a stronger massage and the pressure used was very light. The worse part of the massage was the fact that the entire establishment was very small, and you could hear through the doors, other guest conversations very loudly. There was another group of women behind us, and they were talking and laughing the entire time, so it was not relaxing for me. Another thing I noticed is that some of the towels or sheets smelled badly, like they had not been washed or dried completely. It was a musty and damp odor on the massage table. It was not extremely strong but it was not pleasant. Following the massage, we changed and waited in another room but because there were two young men splayed out in the seating area, we had to stand and wait for our van driver to return us back to old town. The managers asked us to sit but made no effort to ask the other guests to move over so just remained standing until they left the room. We still left a small tip for the ladies for their effort, but, all in all, we were very underwhelmed and would not recommend this particular experience. We especially do not recommend this Hammam. The next time we return, we will want to try another Hammam to change our impression on what better experience we think Marrakesh can give us.