This post is informational only. I am not looking for comments unless they shed some clarity on my statements. This post is about the ferries that operate between Morocco and Spain. On May 1, 2014 I took the ferry from Algeciras to Tangier Med. I am making the post because the information that I found from various sources on the internet were out of date prior to my taking the trip. I did not find the correct information anywhere on the Web before I landed in Algeciras. Not that the information that I found was bad, it was out of date.
This post talks about cost and time of travel. My focus was cost. I was looking for the least expensive cost of getting from Spain to Morocco using commercial resources. I was on a 90 day trip through Europe. Time wasn’t an issue.
There are several options to go back and forth between Morocco and Spain. Most people taking this trip simply want to get into one of the countries from the other. I took the ferry from Algeciras to Tangier Med. There is information about Tangier Med on the Internet. It is a commercial port for shipping. There does not appear to be anything else in the area that pertains to travelers.
The points that I’d like to make are:
(1) There is a great information center in the maritime station in Algeciras where I got good information. There may be one in the Port of Tangier. There were four companies that were making the trip when I took mine.
(2) There is a fast ferry from Tarifa to Tangier City and back that runs several times a day. It cost about 37 euro when I made the trip. There is a free shuttle from Algeciras to Tarifa (and back) for the ferry passengers.
(3) There is a slow ferry from Algeciras to Tangier Med that runs several times a day. It cost 21.50 euro when I made the trip. There is a free shuttle from the boat to the transportation terminal at Tangier Med for the ferry passengers. There you can catch a train (http://www.oncf.ma/) or you can take the shuttle to Tangier City. I took the shuttle. It cose 2.50 euro and took about 45 minutes, dropping me off at the main bus station in Tangier. The suttle comes every hour at the top of the hour from about 6:00 AM until about 11:00 PM. This was at the time of this writing. The transporation center at Tangier Med is very new and very modern and very big. There are places to get food and beverages. The rest rooms were nice.
(4) The fast ferry is much quicker than the slow ferry. However, the problem of time isn’t primarily the issue of transit times, it’s how late the ferry will be. When I was doing the booking I asked the lady at the information counter which ferry she would choose and why and when she gave me her choice she told me it was because they were late less often. I got the feeling that you might not want to depend on ferries to and from Spain and Morocco conforming to your schedule if it’s tight. My ferry was an hour late getting into port and our departure was delayed even more.
(5) From where I was dropped off at the main bus station it was a 4 euro taxi ride to my hotel in the medina. They have to drop you off at the edge of the medina because they can’t get cars into much of it. Get good directions to your hotel/hostel if you are staying in the medina as it is a maze. This applies to all medinas in Morocco. The largest urban spaces in the world that do not contain any automobiles are often found in medinas. Then again, if you are staying in the medina, you’re probably a backpacker and have a grasp that finding cheap hotels/hostels can sometimes be an issue.
Happy travels and good luck to you. You’re going to need it if you’re worried about the cost of a ferry and stay in budget accommodations like I do.