First time arrival at Tangier

[Keith]

I shall be making my first visit to Morocco next month. We have to get a ferry from Algeciras to arrive in Tangier in time to catch an 11:00 am train from Tanger Ville station. Fortunately in April I think we gain a nominal 2 hours because of the difference in time zones between Morocco and Spain.

I'm hoping a 9:00 am ferry from Alegeciras will give us plenty of time.

The problem is the order of events when I get there. I understand that I cannot buy Dirhams until I get to Tangier but I will need Dirhams to pay for a taxi to the station.

Can I buy Dirhams at a reasonable rate in the port or will I have to walk into town to find a bank (it looks like about 1.5Km on my map)? I suppose an alternative would be to get a taxi driver to take me first to the bank and then to the station. My French is fairly decent. Will that be understood by taxi drivers?

I'm just a bit confused about the best order to do things and I won't have very much spare time so I don't want to get it wrong.

Any suggestions much appreciated.

Regards
Keith

[Never_Mind]

Your cabbie will be happy to take your Euro Trust me on that one.

If you have a debitcard or visacard you can withdraw dirhams from the ATM that are in the port of Tangiers. There are banks in the Port too. They will be so happy to change your euro or dollar. Trust me, they love foreign currency in Morocco

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Never_Mind

Your cabbie will be happy to take your Euro Trust me on that one.

If you have a debitcard or visacard you can withdraw dirhams from the ATM that are in the port of Tangiers. There are banks in the Port too. They will be so happy to change your euro or dollar. Trust me, they love foreign currency in Morocco

Thanks Never_Mind. I shall have a few Euros to hand - not dollars but I could pack a few British pounds as a backup if you think they might be useful.

I think I will try to get some Dirham anyway because I shall be spending most of that day on a train and we'll need to buy food and stuff. It's useful to know that the cabbie will take Euros as a fallback as long as he won't rip me off too much on the exchange rate. Is it likely he would actually _prefer_ Euros to Dirhams and give me a better deal? I have in mind that the taxi fare, port to station, should be around 15-20 Dirham which is about 1.5 to 2 Euros being a little generous on the exchange rate. Do you think he would accept that or expect more? Are cabbies likely to accept foreign coins or only notes? Here in the UK the smallest note is a fiver - around 75 Dirhams - a bit over the odds for the taxi fare. Not sure what the smallest Euro note is.