1Caroline

We are planning to go to Morocco and Spain in the fall. We will be there 15 days with the last 3-4 (yet to be decided) in Barcelona. We had two reasons for doing that (1) we got much better connections by flying out of Spain than we could get from Morocco and since we hadn't been to Barcelona, we thought that would be a nice grand finale to the trip.

It seems the more I research the more confusing some things become. The one that I am trying to find the answer to presently is the best method of getting from Moroco to Spain. We've looked at the possibility of flying and although some say there are good prices on flights in and around Morocco, I haven't yet found those good prices. We have almost ruled out that possibility but if anyone has a suggestion that might work, I'd be willing to take a look at it.

The options that we are considering at this time are either ferry or ferry and train. Again, I there may be something that I'm not seeing, but there doesn't seem to be much difference in the time between the two due to connections, etc. I'm not looking at cost alone, but cost vs time. I think basically it's time to say I'm a bit confused and any ideas or assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Alex251986

My opinion is to fly to Marrakech, or starting your trip from Casablanca going to Marrakech then by your trip visiting Essaouira, then from there south to Ouarzazate onwards to the desert to Fes and then to Chefchaouen to end up the trip in Tangier taking the Ferry to Spain by Tarifa.
Otherwise; miss Spain and enjoy your 15 days in Morocco.
don't complicate things for you, give enough time to every place, and leave Barcelona for your next trip, moreover; make 3 days for Barcelona and go to Morocco Via Tarifa taking The ferry to Tangier and starting your trip from there ending in Marrakech/Casablanca.

thursdaysd

Have you checked whichbudget.com and skyscanner.net to see which budget airlines fly those routes? Vueling looks cheap. For info on the ferry and train route see seat61.com

1Caroline

Thanks to both of you. Let me give you a little more information so you understand our delima . We live near a USAir Hub,so I watched all of the airlines and one day we found a flight on USAir that was a couple hundred dollars less for each of us RT, if we took the direct flight to Madrid and on to Casablanca (rather than Marrakech) which we really hadn't intended to go to. So, we may just land there and take a train on to Marrakech. Then, on the way back we found a great flight from Barcelona to JFK and a good connection on home again using USAir. So, rightly or wrontly, we reasoned that since we hadn't been to Barcelona, we could take that and spend a few days in Barcelona. I think both of us would be okay with 2-3 days this time and if we liked it that much, we could go back again later. The part that we really liked on that flight was the less layover time.

Now, the complexity comes in with the fact that I don't really want to waste time unnecessarily in transit getting from Morocco to Barcelona and it looks to me like it may be just as easy and as fast, though still not really fast, to take the ferry due to layovers with train connections and I'm concerned that I may be missing something here. It looked like we'd have an overnight layover in Madrid if we went via train. If I have to, I will use the time we had designated for Barcelona as transit time, but I don't want to shorten the time in Morocco any more. We did buy the airline tickets as they were a good price for a short total flight time and we had been watching them carefully. The major consideration though when we bought the plane tickets was the time factor with the price being secondary, but good too. Prior to that, most of the tickets at a good price had two stops with long layovers making the travel time 33 hours in many cases. This one had travel time of around 14 hours and also at a good price, so we decided that was a much better choice. At this point, I'm trying to find clarity or maybe confirmation of what I see as my options from Morocco to Barcelona and determine which is the better choice since we already have the tickets. Thanks for your input.

thursdaysd

So what is your issue with flying from Morocco to Barcelona?

1Caroline

Well, I may end up doing that, but the flights I found were a lot more than the ferry or the train and I thought there was a better way to get there. I had always heard there were 'cheap flights' in the regional carriers, but I didn't find any.

thursdaysd

I don't know your dates, but you can fly direct, Marrakech to Barcelona, on a random date in September for 70 euros on Vueling, which looks reasonably cheap to me (60 euros if you fly in the middle of the night.). Certainly better than train, ferry, train and train, likely with an overnight in Algeciras. Haven't checked any other airlines but whichbudget lists two others that fly direct. What is your definition of cheap?

1Caroline

This is incredible! I have looked at the airlines for days and was really surprised that I only found tickets that were at about half as much as our tickets from the states cost. Then, today, I checked again and found some really cheap tickets on Iberia airlines so I bought them. You guys were good luck. Thanks for trying to help me work this out.

cabovacation

1Caroline, I am trying to do the same thing: Barcelona to Morocco and back again. Thanks for starting this thread!