Kenzi Club Agdal Medina - All Inclusive

The Kenzi Club Agdal Medina is not a medina hotel, it is a resort set at its gates. You find it in the Agdal tourist zone, south-west of Marrakech, on Avenue Mohammed VI: a broad plot laid out around its pools and ochre riads, ringed by palms. The address belongs to the Moroccan Kenzi group, which runs it under an all-inclusive club format. The stance is clear on arrival. Here the establishment is the destination, not the base: you come to settle in with the family, and you head into town when you feel like it rather than out of obligation.

The 310 rooms are spread across nine single-storey riads linked by planted paths. The bulk are around 30 m² deluxe rooms, with about forty family rooms and about twenty larger junior suites around 50 m². All have a balcony or terrace, opening onto the gardens or the pools. Decor plays comfort rather than character: warm tones, plain furniture, air conditioning, and a bottle of water on arrival. On the table side, the package covers three buffet meals in a mostly Moroccan and Mediterranean restaurant, plus a bar and themed evenings. You eat your fill without surprise on the bill, which is exactly what you expect of an all-inclusive.

The strength that brings you is the water park. At the resort’s core, several slides drop into a lagoon, next to a large heated pool and two more basins. It is a rare set-up in Marrakech, and it changes things with children: they spend the day here while parents hold the sun lounger. The rest follows the club logic: a kids’ club with workshops, mini-golf, a play area, two tennis courts, a gym and daytime and evening entertainment. The O Spa by Kenzi and its hammam round it off, this time as an extra, with massages and treatments by appointment. Travellers back it widely (8.4 on Booking, on more than 1,700 reviews), with a mention for staff and cleanliness.

The trade-off is that of every club of this format: the charm is standardised. The nine ochre riads hold their rank, the rooms are comfortable, but you are far from the intimacy of a guesthouse. Wi-Fi, limited to common areas and rated lower than the rest, shows the age of the place. The typical day builds around the resort more than the city: pool and slides in the morning, kids’ club in the afternoon, buffet dinner and evening entertainment. Anyone wanting to explore Marrakech’s souks, gardens and museums day after day sees the rhythm turn in circles fast, and loses the all-inclusive value as they eat out in town.

That leaves the location, rather clever: reckon about ten minutes and £4-6 by taxi to Jemaa el-Fna. So you can slip out for dinner in the medina and come back to sleep in calm, which few resorts of the Marrakech belt allow. It is the right compromise for a family holiday where you want all-inclusive and pool without cutting off from the city. The fiche naturally finds its place among the addresses where children have their water park. From around £123 a night depending on the season, you pay first for the comfort of a stay where everything is settled upfront.