Two Passports

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Chris & Jen ·

October 2026

Casablanca: Inside the Hassan II Mosque, and Lunch at Dar Dada

Our first time in Morocco. We stayed in Casablanca rather than heading for Rabat, and the day started at the Hassan II Mosque. We went inside, and it was jaw-dropping. The rest of the tour, less so. Lunch was at Dar Dada in the old medina.

On the preview post we asked whether everyone was right that the thing to do in Casablanca is leave it and spend the day in Rabat. We stayed, on the ship’s Casablanca In Depth tour, and it started at the Hassan II Mosque.

The Hassan II Mosque

The mosque was the first stop. The minaret is 210 metres tall, the second tallest in the world, and the building stands partly out over the Atlantic on land reclaimed from the sea. The esplanade around it holds eighty thousand people. The prayer hall inside holds another twenty-five thousand.

It is not old. It took seven years to build, from 1986 to 1993, to a design by the French architect Michel Pinseau for King Hassan II, and it was paid for largely by public subscription: something like twelve million Moroccans gave towards it. The cedar is from the Middle Atlas, the marble from Agadir and the granite from Tafraoute, and thousands of Moroccan craftsmen spent years on the carving, the plasterwork and the tiles.

One of the mosque's entrances: a huge patterned metal door under a horseshoe arch of carved stone and tilework, with smaller doors either side and a polished stone courtyard in sun and shadow — One of the doors

Go inside

Non-Muslims can go in, but only on a guided tour, and this is the reason to take one. We went in. Jaw-dropping is the only word for it.

Jen standing at the foot of one of the prayer hall's giant polished stone pillars, which rises to a carved white capital, with carved wooden galleries behind and visitors crossing the marble floor — Jen, for scale

The building is meant to take in the elements. Water is the obvious one: Hassan II wanted it built on the water, “because God’s throne is on the water”, which is why it stands out over the Atlantic. Air comes in through the roof over the middle of the prayer hall, which slides open to the sky. It weighs 1,100 tonnes and opens in about five minutes. Fire is the light: the chandeliers are Murano glass, from Venice. At night a laser at the top of the minaret points towards Mecca.

Looking straight up at a carved and painted wooden ceiling dome in red, gold and brown, with a lit chandelier hanging beneath it and tiers of white carved arches around it — Look up

Tall lattice windows lit from outside along the dark wall of the prayer hall, with star-shaped openings above and a pale carpet running across the floor in front — The prayer hall

The New Medina

After the mosque came a walking tour of the Habous quarter, which everyone calls the New Medina. It is not old either. French architects laid it out between about 1917 and the 1930s to house Casablanca’s fast-growing Moroccan population, in the traditional style, on land given to the habous, the religious endowments, which is where the name comes from.

The guide’s theme was the five things every Moroccan neighbourhood has: a mosque, a source of water, a communal bakery, a hammam and a Koranic school. We came away remembering three of them and had to look up the other two.

The tour also took in a synagogue and a Catholic church. We are still not sure why they were on it; neither struck us as remarkable.

A narrow whitewashed lane running under a series of stone arches, with a minaret visible against the blue sky beyond — Under the arches

A shop front heaped with olives in turquoise and pink plastic tubs, black, green and red, with hand-written price cards, and shelves of jars and bottles behind — Olives by the tub

Lunch at Dar Dada

Lunch was included, at Dar Dada in the old medina: a restored house built around a tiled courtyard. When it opened in 2019, a Moroccan paper ran it under the headline “Casablanca finally has a good, beautiful Moroccan restaurant.”

A brass plaque reading Dar Dada, Moroccan Cuisine, on a pale plastered wall edged with white tiles, with large green leaves in front — Dar Dada

The courtyard of Dar Dada, looking up at two storeys of white scalloped arches and wooden balconies with iron railings, under a hanging chandelier of glass globes — The courtyard

It was good, and a little bewildering. Half a dozen small dishes arrived first, then the chicken tagine with olives and preserved lemon, then dessert.

Three small Moroccan salads in cut-glass dishes on a grey place mat, a red cooked tomato and pepper salad, an orange spread topped with sliced chilli and a dish of courgette, with a black and white tiled table beyond — Salads

Chicken tagine with green olives and strips of preserved lemon, scattered with parsley, in a green glazed earthenware dish — Salads

Casablanca or Rabat

A split verdict. The mosque is a show-stopper, and on its own it is a reason to come to Casablanca. The rest of the tour was not overly exciting. If we did this port again, we would look hard at Rabat, and at whether there is a way to fit the mosque into the same day.

What we’d tell you

Go inside the Hassan II Mosque. You can only do it on a guided tour, and it is the reason to come.
The rest of the tour was the weak part. If you can see the mosque some other way, Rabat may be the better day.
The ship docks in the commercial port, among the cranes and containers. That is normal for cruising, but here the port adds nothing to the day.
You will not need dirhams on the ship’s tour. Lunch was included, and we did not need money for anything all day.
It is a full day. The tour used every one of its seven and a half hours.
The finish is tight. The tour gets back thirty minutes before all-aboard, and it felt rushed.