We arrived in Essaouira from Marrakech and was pleased that Dar L'Oussia was easy to find. We were taken to our room on the 2nd floor on arrival. The room was lovely, great size, king sized four poster bed with rose petals on the bed and in the bathroom. The room had a seperate toilet and a wardrobe with a safe, which only worked occasionally. The room had a tv also. This is more of a hotel than a riad, as there are many rooms. The receptionist was very pleasant and helpful. There was a large roof terrace where you could sunbathe and take breakfast, which was served between 8-12. It consisted mainly of bread and pastries, with jams, orange juice and coffee, which was always luke warm for some reason. I did send some back and asked for it to be hot, which they did bring without issue. There was a restaurant but we didn't eat there. There was a nice bar but not usually staffed and was very quiet. The mojitos were overpriced and not very good. I really enjoyed our stay here, but although it was evry nice, the bedroom did smell damp and there was no towel rails to hang damp towels, which just added to the smell. I believe the room was damp, as all my clothes felt damp after being hung in the wardrobe, but i wouldn't let it put you off, it wasn't a really bad problem.

This is a great little riad. Good food. Friendly staff. Nice terrasse for a little aperitif or breakfast. The only bad point is the noise. But that would be the same in any Riad. The courtyard makes any little sound 10 times louder.

Perfect location!
Clean room!
Good service!
Hakim & Medi are very gently at the bar!
A great place to stay in Essaouira.

Has good location near Bab Sba, with views of the bay from its rather nice roof terrace.
However, it is well overpriced (1400 DH, nearly £90 for a so-called luxury - see below) double. Booking by phone, I was told that only luxury rooms were available, but as I later discovered, this was clearly not true. A more realistic price would have been about half what we paid.
When we arrived (around 2.30pm), our room was still being cleaned, so we ordered lunch in the patio area. The food was okay (nothing special) but I was rather put off by the bamboo place mats that were put before us: they were encrusted with old food.
The room certainly could not be described as luxurious. It had one or two attractive bits (cushions, candles) and was of a good size, but had none of the mod-cons usual for the price (such as air-conditioning, TV, room safe) and had only one small window overlooking the interior courtyard.
|After a hot and fairly noisy night, I queried whether the room was “luxe“. It eventually turned out that it wasn’t, and they offered to move a TV into the room to compensate. When I declined this offer they eventually moved us. The genuine luxe room was nicer, but still didn’t have air-con or, more importantly, a room safe - the one thing you really need in Essaouira, as you don’t want to go off to the beach with passport, credit cards etc about your person. To add insult to injury, we were finally billed for two nights in a luxe room, leading to another wrangle.
There were other signs of lack of maintenance - rusty balustrades, dead rose petals in the central fountain of the patio, a rather grimy carpet in the room. In short, poor maintenance and service, and inflated prices marred what could have been a nice hotel.
On the plus side: good breakfasts and roof terrace.