Look out!’ cries my eight-year-old daughter, Sofia.
I turn on my sun lounger. Heading towards us at a steady, but determined, pace is an enormous camel. This isn’t going to be a normal half-term holiday.
The creature comes to a halt a few yards from the entrance to the children’s swimming pool and begins munching on a large bush.
The Mazagan Beach & Golf Resort is a grand 500-room complex 60 miles west of Casablanca
It is clearly hungry, rather than keen to join the merriment in the pool, where Sofia and my elder daughter, Marina, 11, are having a ball paddling under the man-made waterfalls and hurling themselves down the water slide.
We are staying at Mazagan Beach & Golf Resort, a spectacular 500-room complex 60 miles west of Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city.
Built in 2009 — at a cost of £300 million by the South African hotels magnate, Sol Kerzner — it’s a vast Moorish-style palace overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
As well as an 18-hole golf course designed by Gary Player, there’s North Africa’s biggest casino, which opens 23 hours a day.
Some people might think a family break in Morocco is risky — with travel warnings in place for UK holidaymakers visiting some nearby countries — but we feel immensely safe.
My wife, Montserrat, and I have taken a punt on Mazagan because of all the activities it appears to offer.
Hump around: A stay at the beach resort means a chance to ride camels along the sands
First comes tennis, with lessons from a friendly coach, Khalid, who encourages me to play with the elegance of Federer, rather than the brawn of Nadal. Soon, however, he seems to find me more useful working as a ball boy while my daughters are honing their forehands.
Moroccans love all things equestrian, and we go riding on the beach on horses from the hotel’s stables. It’s Sofia’s first time in the saddle, and she trots off happily on a beautiful grey called Storm, with an instructor riding next to her, holding carefully on to the reins.
Soon, Sofia feels brave enough to try a camel ride. After we dress up in the robes and headscarves of Saharan tribesmen, Sofia gingerly mounts her camel and hangs on for dear life.
Some people might think a family break in Morocco is risky but we feel immensely safe
As our guide, Othmane, leads our caravan along the beach, the startled looks of children playing in the sand, and their waving parents, make us feel like the circus has come to town.
One afternoon we take advantage of the free childcare at the Kidz Club and visit the hotel’s impressive spa. I opt for an hour-long massage, performed by a burly woman with the body of a prop forward, but hands so tender they leave my weathered skin as soft as a ripened peach.
My wife visits the hammam, a Turkish-style steam bath, after which she is moisturised with olive oil soap, scrubbed with a rough mitten and then covered with a full-body clay mask, before a reviving massage. All this for £40.
The hotel is a 15-minute drive from El Jadida, an elegant port that still has fortifications built by Portuguese colonisers who held the town for more than 250 years until 1769.
We visit the Portuguese Cistern, an underground vault that was used to store water in case of sieges. Its stone pillars and puddles provided the shadowy backdrop for a riot scene in Orson Welles’ 1951 adaptation of Othello.
Historic: El Jadida’s Portuguese Cistern is a vault that was used to store water in case of sieges
It isn’t the history of El Jadida that fascinates my daughters, but the sights, smells and sounds of the souk.
For the girls, the live chickens, goats’ heads and dazzling array of colourful spices are a real eye-opener. Once acclimatised, they haggle with a Manchester United-supporting stallholder and secure a hefty discount on a pink bag.
While the hotel has all the usual pizza and pasta options at the buffets, we persuade our girls to try a traditional dinner at Morjana, one of its four a la carte restaurants.
After a selection of mezze dishes of fried courgette, carrot and roasted aubergine, we devour delicious tagine stews of sea bass and chicken.
I had thought that Moroccans, as Muslims, would be teetotal, but they nevertheless, produce some decent beers and wines and we enjoy a bottle of Medaillon, a fruity sauvignon blanc.
The girls don’t quite know how to react to the post-prandial entertainment. Amid a crash of drums, a belly dancer strides into the dining room, wearing a pair of outlandish golden wings.
‘Shakira!’ Sofia exclaims as the dancer starts shaking her hips in the manner of the nubile Colombian pop singer. They aren’t sure where to look as the scantily clad dancer gets up close and personal with various diners.
For this holiday we had been thinking of going to the Canaries. But Morocco, with its year-round sunshine and flights half the price of those to the Spanish islands, provides an enchanting alternative — as long as you’re not alarmed by the odd stray camel.