My hotel in Marrakech offered me the chance to book “Fast Track Arrival” at Marrakech Menara Airport for about £48 each. I wondered why I might need it, but when I checked for reviews online I read that Marrakech’s immigration process is notoriously beaurocratic and inefficient, and travellers report having to queue for 2 to 3 hours!  A friend who went there last month confirmed this and encouraged me to get the “Fast Track” – even if it were £100 he thought it would be worth it.  So I booked it.

When we got to the immigration hall we saw a horrific queue of hundreds of people, and to one side a line marked “Fast Track” which had a queue of about a dozen people was manned by a few ‘fast track agents’ who confirmed our names were on the list.  They gave us landing cards to complete (Iberia hadn’t distributed them onboard) and waited with us until it was our turn to face the slow (and as it turned out, racist) border guard.  The fast rack agent stayed with us right to the terminal exit, because there were still three inefficient checkpoints to get through.  It was definitely £48 well spent!

I took a chance and didn’t book Fast Track for my departure because I was told it’s mostly helpful in reducing the queue for check-in, but Business Class normally has a shorter queue anyway.  I ended up getting to RAK late, just over an hour before departure time.  There was a short queue to enter the terminal building (only passengers are allowed in), then a short queue for luggage x-ray (bizarrely I was repeatedly pressed on whether I had a drone in my bag!) and then a 3 minute wait at check-in.  From there we had to show passports and boarding passes to some police at the entrance to Departures, who told us to fill out an embarkation form and then go back to them to have all my documents checked again.  Then there was a Customs desk, where all hand baggage was searched by hand, and then we went through personal security where we and our handbags were x-rayed, before we joined a line for our passports to be stamped.  We were very fortunate that there weren’t more people in front of us – I could see the mobile queue barriers set up ready for hundreds to snake back and forth across the hall!  After passports there was just one more random security man asking to see our documents before we were able to enter the departures concourse, and make our way to the Pearl VIP lounge, which is used by Iberia and several other airlines for their premium passengers.

The Pearl VIP lounge is up one floor from the duty free area.  It’s a good size and didn’t feel at all crowded, with a few computers available for use, free wi-fi, and plenty of reclined snooze seats facing the large full height windows. Views of the apron are partly obscured by the metallic islamic-styled architectural cladding over the building.  A local had told us that the airport has been judged “the 5th prettiest in the world”, and while it does indeed look attractive from the outside, I really can’t imagine how anyone who had spent 3 hours queueing to get into the country would feel the urge to write a glowing review of how pretty the place is!

The Pearl lounge has a buffet dining section, with a range of non alcoholic drinks, but I found that by asking a member of staff, alcohol is available and can be brought to your seat.  I must say that this man who helped me was just bubbling over with a genuine desire to help and to please.

One final piece of advice: I only discovered when I got home, with 1,000 Dirhams in my pocket, that the Moroccan Dirham is not convertible. So if you have some left you might want to look around the tax free shops before you get your flight.