We stayed three nights at Le Fint. Whilst the hotel was obviously quite a plush place when built, our room was perhaps not one of the best, overlooking the next door hotel's staff quarters, pretty cramped, and not particularly clean.

The pool looked lovely from a distance, but was constantly covered by a film of insects and leaves, which didn't seem to be removed at all.

The bar area was ok, and the staff there were fine, but I marked service down as, on the night we arrived, we brought wine into the restaurant from the ar having charged that to our room no problem. On ordering water in the restaurant, a bottle was brought, but on leaving we were accosted by the Maitre de, who very loudly informed us we would have to pay in cash. Ok, I was struggling a bit with my French, but as I hadno cash on me, I managed to explain this to him. He persisted though, and seemed reluctant to let us leave without payment, even though we were clearly there for a further two nights and had already charged bar drinks to the room. We left him to it, and later settled for the water at the bar, but it did put us off eating in the restaurant again. The food was not much to write home about anyway, very bland and clearly aimed at coach parties, who seemed to be the main source of other guests. Breakfast was a bit better, but again not much compared to other places we stayed.

Despite the waiter, and the general ambience of a hotel past its best, this could be a nice place to stay and acclimatise to the desert's edge, but I suspect most people will simply use it as a stopping off point, prior to going somewhere a bit more exotic.

While I did not find the Hotel Le Fint particularly new or just opened, it's strange that it was not listed in the Trip Advisor Ouarzazate hotels. In any case it was a most pleasant four-star hotel at the eastern end of Blvd. Mohammed V, just beyond the Taourit Kasbah (tel. ----). The hotel complex is built around a central court yard with a medium size pool (the water was freezing the day I tried it). The restaurant and bar were very nice and the food was wonderful, both dinner and breakfast. My room was medium sized with two beds and a small balcony overlooking the court yard. The bathroom was standard. No hair dryer or minibar. Post room prices were 500 Dh for a single and 650 Dh for the double.