.... has anyone any experience of Casablanca? It might be a nice trip, or would it?
MarcusH poses this question in his #8. I stress that the following experience was a VERY long time ago. In 1979 my wife and I pointed our Paro south to Guernsey for duty-free avgas - San Sebastien - Faro - Casablanca - Agadir. All went well until Casablanca, where air traffic was using a mixture of heavily accented English, French, and Arabic. Once down, the formalities took over an hour. Five policemen arrived to search the aircraft while we filled in endless forms, fortunately I had fluent French.
Meantime the man in reception was preparing the great dirham ripoff. It was illegal to import or export the Moroccan dirham, which must be changed at the frontier. Since the airside bank was closed, we had no dirhams for the landing fee which had to be paid before we were allowed landside. He refused sterling notes, we had no US dollars, so he grudgingly accepted Spanish pesetas worth more than double the landing fee. They went into his pocket and the receipt was written on a grubby piece of an old cargo manifest. We waited a further hour for the bowser which was parked a short distance away. (Long afterwards a freighter crew told me that a tip or bribe was advisable if one wanted fuel in less than four hours, so perhaps we were well treated after all. And fortunately we had a fuel carnet).
Our reception at Agadir was just as bureaucratic, though we enjoyed our week at Club Med when eventually we got there. No way would I repeat the Casablanca experience, and our faithful Paro would have no trouble returning to Faro in one long haul, but leaving Morocco took almost three hours, with more form-filling, passport-stamping and trekking around various officials in their offices. Having paid our landing and parking fees I went to exchange my remaining dirhams only to find the airside bank was closed although I was told it would be open. Back to the fees office, where after much discussion two soldiers were detailed to escort me landside where I was able to change dirhams to pesetas for only 30% commission. It was a relief to hear the wheels retracting at last, and at Faro a beaming Portuguese marshaller waved us onto our stand, took us in his 2CV to Customs, and dropped us back at the aircraft in 20 minutes. Leaving for Portimao was like starting our holiday all over again.
Again, this happened a long time ago and maybe today's GA visitors to Morocco are greeted with a red carpet across the apron. Good luck with your trip, Marcus, wherever you end up!