Breakfast at French Hotels
 

Is it just me, or does it seem like the breakfast at ***French Hotels, say in Paris, are not such a good deal? Seems like the ones we had in Italy were better and also included in the price of the room.
I'm seeing 10E and 13E prices at some of these hotels.

Do most of you guys skip the hotel breakfast and grab something down the street?

We've stayed in Paris hotels for as long as 2 weeks at a time and never do breakfast there. I can't imagine sitting in a little breakfast room usually having rather mediocre croissants and plain coffee and horrible orange juice when there's a whole world of brasseries right outside my doorstop with people watching, fresh air, and far better coffee and food for less money.
We did do breakfast at Relais St. Germain, but even there the cheese consisted of those little pre-wrapped baby Bonbel things.
Yes, Italian breakfasts are usually a far better value.

Hi Cato:

From reading the board I would answer your question by suggesting you skip breakfast and get it somewhere else.

For 10e-13E you can have a nice lunch on a prix fix menu.

Leave your hotel and get out into the streets. Find a cafe, order a crossiant and coffe, sit down and inhale life. Now, you're good to go.

You can buy fruit from the market and eat it along the way. Then you can stop at a crepe vendor. Then if you're still hungry or need a 'sweet fix' you can stop at a patissiere. You get the idea.

We passed on our hotel B and the one morning we had a full B was the day of our flight home. It cost about 7-8E at the corner cafe, this was May'06. You can enjoy it and sit back and watch how the Parisians live.

The only suggestion I have for you is, if it's included in the price of your room, and you can't receive a reduced rate for not eating it, then take advantage of it.

But I wouldn't pay 10-13E for it unless you're looking for fine B dining each morning.

Enjoy Paris,
Di

Thanks NeoPatrick & DiG. Good tip about asking to see if its in the price of the room. Expect its not usaully included, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

I don't eat breakfast, so in one sense, it's kind of irrelevant to me. But I've never stayed in a Parisian hotel that had breakfast "included" in the room rate--meaning that it really wasn't an extra fee that you could choose to take or not. Those fees aren't that unusual nowadays in French hotels, though, for breakfast, so it is kind of the norm. I think they make a lot of profit on breakfast, so if you don't like it, don't pay for it and eat at a cafe or something. In big cities, it usually isn't that difficult to find a place to eat outside the hotel, not too far away. If I'm staying in a hotel in a more rural area, I do usually have it at the hotel for convenience, but in Paris, that isn't really a factor too much -- although it can be convenient to eat breakfast and then return to your hotel room to get your "stuff" for the day before venturing out. If any hotel is quoting you a price for breakfast, you can assume it is not "included" in the room rate (which is usually not true, it's an extra fee). It really depends what you want for breakfast, though, for if you have a hotel that has a full buffet-style breakfast, you probably aren't going to find such a thing easily at that rate elsewhere. If it's just coffee and a croissant or bread and butter, which is typical, that's nothing special except the coffee may be better than you'll get at a cafe, if you like black coffee, which isn't readily available in cafes (except expresso, but not many people want that for breakfast). If you like milk in your coffee, it's easy to get that in a cafe, of course.

Hotel breakfasts range from coffee, a pastry and a slice of baguette to a sumptuous buffet. It depends on the hotel, and so does the quality of all of the above. Going out will be less expensive though you're unlikely to find a sumptuous breakfast buffet on the street. A "complete" breakfast in a cafe is likely to cost 8 to 12 euros, perhaps a bit more, depending on where you are in the city, and won't really be all that complete. There's a certain pleasure in having breakfast delivered to your room, with the warm milk that comes unbidden with the coffee and hopefully, a smile. Anyway, you don't have to do the same - eat in or go out - every day.

If you book through a third party consolidator site, you can often get a rate that includes breakfast, and is cheaper than the hotel's rate without breakfast. You may or may not be able to find the exact hotel you want.

Try
http://www.ryanairhotels.com
http://www.hrs.de


Another one I noted that looked interesting is http://www.alpharooms.com . However, this one, along with several other consolidator sites, apparently does not do an actual booking in many cases, but makes you wait for a few days until they tell you if the rate is actually available or not.

I ended up not using any of these sites for our stay in Paris in February at a 3* Mercure hotel, and we got a good rate that doesn't include breakfast. My experience (sample size of 2 so far) is that Accor hotel buffets are excellent and varied, although I haven't tried this one yet, of course. But still this hotel has a charge of 15 Euros per person for breakfast, and it's a bit hard to justify. I guess it may be justified if we end up only getting two meals per day, which is generally the case if we have a large breakfast. And with coffee drinks, juice, teas, cheeses, meats, fruits, breads and pastries of all sorts, and yogurt, it's easy to get up to 15 Euros worth of food. If your hotel doesn't have all of that, I can't see that it would be worth spending that much money.

Dave.....with all due respect, warm milk in morning coffee or tea..ugh. It makes a distinctive taste that makes it quite different. I guess it is a matter of taste. There are many hotels that "offer" breakfast and that is the key word that denotes it is "included".Also many hotels that do charge will give it free if one books on the internet.

I think it depends on how you like to wake up. I'm one who wants my coffee while still in my pj's. That's one reason I like Hotel Bonaparte where the rate includes a tray delivered to the room.

If a hotel doesn't offer room service, I weigh the cost of their breakfast against the "value" of being able to walk down to the lobby and bring coffee back to the room. If it's too expensive, I'll throw on some jeans and head to a nearby cafe. But I do miss my coffee while getting dressed later.

I was wondering the same thing? Our hotel is Les Jardin Du Marais Home Plazza in Paris but the breakfast is not included in the room rate. The price is 10 Euro per person extra per day about $25.00 for two! Has anyone eaten at this hotel and is it worth it? We are first time travelers to Paris May 28 to June 4 and don't really know what to expect or how much things cost. I have budgeted only 80 Euro=$100.00 US per day for meals with drinks, I hope that's enough?

Do not wish to put a damper on things but I feel your $100 dollars a day is rather optomistic. I live in London which is said to be expensive but my experience is that Paris is MUCH more so. Nevertheless a VERY beautiful city.

80eu isn't much in Paris, but it can be done. Don't count on "large breakfast". You'll do better with a big lunch. Breakfast is typically coffee and pastry (croissant). For lunch you could go two ways. You can save by doing "picnics"---bread, cheese, wine, etc. Sidewalk crepe vendors aren't expensive. Or you could do your "big meal" at lunch, then go to a pizzaria for dinner.

I thought my budget may be a problem. We will be in Europe for 14 nights and after buying new suit cases,clothes, Shoes,Airfare,Hotels,Train tickets and almost 3 weeks off of work there will only be about $2,200.00 left for food, sights,inner city transportation, supplys and extras! In Munich and Salzburg breakfast is included in the price of the room so I figured 80 Euro would do? In paris my plan was to eat a big breakfast ( cheap if possible?) have a small snack for lunch (sandwichs,chips and wine in a park) then have about 50 Euro for dinners? I hope we don't starve?

LeighTravelClub--Paris more expensive than London?! That's very far from my experience or the experience of anyone I know.

Mr. Dreamer--It can certainly be done, especially if you don't mind picnics from grocery stores and takeaway places.

Paris more expensive than London? You've got to be kidding.

Paris is filled with really charming and wonderful hotels for under 150 euro per night (that's about 100 pounds). The options of really nice charming centrally located hotels in London for under 100 pounds is almost nil. The comparison of prices for similar 3 or 4 star hotels is staggering.
Last summer we spent 10 days in London and 10 days in Paris. We rented apartments that could easily be compared in both of them, and do similar meals in terms of how "upscale" they are. In other words our expenses or lifestyle in the two cities is pretty much the same.
Our daily average in London was $ 609. Our daily average in Paris was $ 347. While theatre brings up our average in London -- we don't average $260 a day on theatre!!!

One way to eat very well and stay on budget is to shop at the "gourmet" carry-out places like Gargantua in the 1er, or the food halls of Bon Marche or Galeries Lafayette.

Gee, at a 2-star Ibis Hotel, you get an unlimited buffet for 6.50. Looks like the 3-star hotels are ripping people off big time.

Our hotel includes breakfast, which consists of (per person) a basket of 3 breads, usually from a selection of croissants, crusty rolls, pain au choc, mini-brioche, or apple, a pot of good coffee w/ hot milk, a nice orange juice and all the little 'fixings' (butter, cream cheese, honey, jams...). The bread is fresh not stale, the coffee is good, and the convenience is perfect. They will also bring it up to the room, and have the door-hanger where you can add extra items if you want something cooked (for a price). Some websites show the breakfast at 6-7E, but we book via email and they include it in the room rate, which is less than the public rate so I know they aren't just adding it in. We don't eat large breakfasts at home or when traveling, so it is just what we want. When you stay in a pricier hotel in a pricier location, the breakfast will be pricier, too.

I hardly know any urban hotels where the breakfast is a good value--Paris, London, NY, F'furt, or Tokyo. Regardless of whether it's continental or American style, I seem to be able to find equivalent fares with less budets outside of the hotel. (The only exceptions in my experience are Israeli hotels and resort ones like Maldives where you don't really have alternative dining sources).

Having said that, I love those miniature Bonne Maman jams? My best French breakfast experience is 1st class Eurostar--where the attendant asks you &quot;white or red&quot; at <b>10AM!</b>