London lodging help!
 

We are a family of 4--my wife & I, and our kids aged 16 & 12--and we have been hoping to arrange a trip in late July/early August which would start in London for ~6 days and finish in Paris for another 5-6 days, before flying back home to Chicago. I'll already be in Switzerland, playing music with friends at a fest in Locarno and will hook up with the family by flying from Lugano to London City airport. We have resigned ourselves to costly airfare--although we're finding that it's much cheaper to drop the Paris idea and just confine ourselves to London and surroundings, booking RT for the family rather than multi-destination. However, the lodging expense is making us reconsider the whole plan. We very much prefer to stay in two rooms or a suite and I'm finding very few hotels which come in at under $300-400/night for these kinds of arrangements. I've used londontown.com and my own search efforts but have yet to come up with a hotel that approaches the affordable/comfortable & clean/okay location combo.

What about B & B's in London? Does anyone have experience with a favorite B & B? I've found a couple of websites which want to charge me $10 just to search B & B's for me (www.londonbandb.com)....is that worth doing? I'm okay with staying someplace less centrally located and tubing our way around the city but....even outlying hotel properties are so pricey! Any suggestions? Can you point us in the direction of a good B & B or other lodging idea?

Thanks much,

John in Chicago

Many people here recommend apartments (flats) for families especially since you typically have more room and amenities. Maybe do a search for London flats or apartments and see what comes up.

for your situation, either a flat or accomodations in one of the university residence halls would be better than two hotel rooms.

LSE and other colleges rent both flats, and rooms on a B&B basis in teh summer.

I bookmarked this site from a Fodor's post a few days ago. Hope it can help you.

http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/vacations/default.htm

We liked Arran House in Bloomsbury for our family of four, including 2 teenage girls. We stayed in a quiet quad basement room facing garden, bath down the hall, full English breakfast, very friendly atmosphere, clean.
www.london-hotel.co.uk. I walked home alone after an evening opera, felt safe. Why not rough it a bit and enjoy this wonderful city? There seemed to be other similar glorified B&B hotels in the Bloomsbury area.

Have you looked at the Citadines chain, both for London and Paris? A 1 BR apart'hotel would provide enough beds for all and might fit in your price range.

Also, can your kids share a bed if necessary and are they mature enough to be have a room that is perhaps some distance from yours? If so, then you could try your luck with priceline. Priceline isn't good if you need a specific room type (e.g. must have 2 beds, must have one bed), but usually hotels accommodate requests if you call after you've found out which hotel you won. But if you've got enough flexibility to take a bit of a risk in booking, priceline can save you lots of $.

For Paris hotels, have a look at the Best Western website and also for hotels in the Mercure chain. Quite a few of the Best Westerns in France are really quite nice, with character and good service and often reasonably priced. Mercure is more chain hotel-style, but can be a good value.

In London, have a look at Jury's Inn, Thistle Hotels and the booking engine superbreak.co.uk (not cancellable).

PS - Someone on tripadvisor was reporting bed bugs at Arran House. You might want to check this out before booking with them.

I can recommend one centrally located hotel in Paris that might fit your budget. The Best Western Trocadero isn't fancy but it was clean, comfortable and some of the rooms (for a premium) have Eiffel Tower views. It's in a great location on the western edge of the 16th arrondissement, close to the Seine. I checked for rates around the beginning of August and found rates of 102 euros per night (no view, pre-book no cancellation), 119 (Eiffel tower view, pre-book no cancellation), 120 (no view but cancellable rate) and 140 (Eiffel tower view, cancellable rate).

What about Travelodge? http://www.travelodge.co.uk They're not fancy, but they are reasonably priced, and there are several in London.

Lee Ann

Probably too late but the Ibis City is very reasonable - around GBP 69 per room per night. Very convenient to tube and has a reasonable french bistro restaurant.

Also consider priceline. I got the Hilton Islington for USD 83.00 per night for October this year.