Hi,

I am from the USA and I want to travel to Amsterdam and Paris. I have been looking at hotel websites and I was wondering if the mattresses are comparable to those in the USA. I am used to a thick mattress with or without a pillowtop. I know that it varies based on price range, but I was just wondering. Plan to spend about 100 euros on a room per nite.

I'd say in general yes, mattresses are comparable. But just like in the US, it will depend on how old the mattress is and what quality mattress was purchased.

For €100, you will be staying in a hotel in Paris comparable to $100/night in New York, which is probably about a 1-1/2 to 2-star. Mattress could be fine, or not, at that price range. Only way to be more certain is to spend more on your hotel.

We usually stay in your price range in Paris (and elsewhere), and have never had a bad mattress yet. If you check the reviews on France.com (tripadvisor.com and venere.com), you will see comments by hotel guests. Someone usually mentions the mattresses. It will give you an idea whether or not you want to stay at that particular hotel. I know France.com lets you search by price. I haven't used the other two sites.

Despite what you hear elsewhere, two star hotels in France are just fine. They are clean; the service is usually good; the beds are good; there are hair dryers and you will have a private bathroom. You won't have a shower curtain and I suggest taking your own washcloth if you don't like the little European wash mitts. You won't have a large room and probably no room service. I don't honestly know about room service because I've never wanted it.

You may get what you pay for, but we go to Paris to see Paris, not spend time in our hotel room drinking from a minibar.

Have a great time!!

The hardest thing for some to adapt to is not the bed, but the the bolster style pillow some of these rooms have, with the bottom sheet wrapped up and around it.

SalB is right, you generally get what you pay for but in our most recent hotels in the 1-2 star range we had no problem with the actual mattress. One had a detached headboard, however, that would hit the light switch when you rolled over, unexpectedly turning on the light. It made for lol, but we fixed it before actual bedtime.

well, I've had a lot of uncomfortable mattresses in hotels and not just in 1-2* ones -- in all countries, France, Poland and the US. It doesn't have anything to do with the country, in my experience.

I've had too-old saggy ones, but more ofen too-hard ones. The thickness wasn't ever very different anywhere, that I noticed, I thought mattresses were pretty standard unless you buy cheap cot type mattresses or those expensive pillowtop things.

I don't think there's anything you can do about it as you don't really know until you get there what it's like. I would not expect great things from a 1* hotel but 100 euro should get you a mattress of avg. quality.

I think the last poster has a good point. What kind of mattress you prefer is important. I can't stand the soft ones - for me the harder the better and I find almost all hotel mattesses too soft.

The other thing is that in some hotels they now seem to have mattesses about 4 feet high - and when they pile this on a box spring I'm so far off the floor I feel like a small child - my feet don;t come anywhere near the floor. And I'm 5'9" - what does a short person do?

My husband has a bad back and needs a firm mattress. At times the mattresses have been way too soft. In these cases we've asked for a bedboard for him and have found hotels to try hard to accommodate us with one. So if that's your problem, you can always try that. As someone else said, 100 euros is budget level. But budget doesn't always mean a bad bed. Then again, maybe we've just been lucky.