Paris - please suggest hotels to stay
 

Hello,
My wife and me will be travelling to Paris in June. Please suggest some hotels (which are conveniently located, safe, economic and comfortable). I am not looking for a luxury hotel, but rather for a economic hotel which ticks most of the boxes.

Try the Hotel de la Place du Louvre***, it's about €225/night in mid-June. Or you could try the Parc Saint-Séverin****, it's a little more, but still economical for Paris. You might find a deal at the Hotel de Varenne in the 7th. It's been totally renovated.

Hotel Michelet L'Odeon in Saint Germain des Pres, 2 star hotel, EUR145 per night inc breakfast.

I like the Hotel Langlois in the 9th arrondisement. I have a feeling you want something that is more in the 2* hotel budget, though, as you stress economic. I know a few but they are acceptable, not what I'd call super comfortable. Goes with the territory, I think there is a correlation. The Langlois is comfortable, but is a 3*.

I also really like the 3* Hotel Raspail which is very conveniently located and priced well for that area and its level. I loved the hotel and my room mostly, and the location, but the mattress was a bit hard, actually. A lot of hotels in Europe and Mexico seem to have hard mattresses, I've noticed.

We stayed in the Hotel Port Royal, which is in the 5th arrondisement, near the Gobelins metro stop. This is a very inexpensive hotel, sort of a backpacker's hotel. The cheapest rooms have shared bath, but we got a room with en suite bath (with shower) which is 88 euros in low season and 93 euros in high season. The room was quite small, but very clean and comfortable and with a nice bathroom. The staff were helpful. We absolutely loved the neighborhood, and I would definitely stay there again.

We didn't take their breakfast, so I can't say how that was.

The one thing I would advise is that you bring an extension cord with multiple outlets. The only usable outlet in our room was high on a wall, with no table nearby to hold the phone or camera battery we were charging, and we could charge only one thing at a time. We put a chair under this outlet and our charging cord just barely reached it.

I love the Hotel Aviatic St. Germain, where I'm staying right now. It's a 3-star close to Montparnasse, convenient to 3 or 4 Metro lines, buses, plenty of restaurants nearby, rooms recently redone. It might be a little far from the Seine for first timers, but it's a lovely hotel, and affordable, especially if you get one of their internet deals as I did. Great A/C and helpful staff, too. This will be my 4th time staying here. I keep meaning to stay in another district, but gravitate back here because it's so lovely and convenient, and on a not so busy street.

The Saphir hotels near La Motte Picquet Grenelle metro stops are easy walks to Eiffel Tower and very economical. Small rooms but clean and with a safe. Tiny bathrooms/showers. When booked on the Saphir website you get breakfast included.
No air conditioning, just fans, which could be a problem in June maybe? Also check "Hotel First" which I believe has A/C.

...and by economic I'm talking in the 80Euros per night range with breakfast, per room.

For your criteria you can't go wrong with Accor Hotels such as Novotel, ETAP, Sofitel, IBIS, etc.

They are all over Paris and are modern motel-type places of the American style Holiday Inns - dependably decent plumbing and all the facilities - weekends and August can even have special prices as the normal business travelers ain't there.


www.accorhotels.com

http://www.accorhotels.com/gb/city/h...or=SEC-41-GOO-[ppc-ach-mar-goo-us-en-fr-phr-sear-aw-loc]-[ach-V2996-Paris]-S-[accor%20hotels%20paris]&xtdt=23331830

We have stayed at the 2-star Hotel Familia several times. Their current rate for mid June is 129 euro ($177) for a standard double room and the rate, I believe, includes breakfast (croissant, o.j., coffee). The rooms are small but comfortable, air conditioned, clean, have private small shower room.

another thought - go to www.booking.com for a listing of available hotels in Paris for your dates. It's a reliable website for booking hotels and you get to see photos, pricing and reviews of each hotel. You can book online with booking.com or you can go to the individual hotel's website to check prices and to book. Personally, I prefer to book a hotel with at least a 7.5 rating from booking.com - the higher the number, the better. Good luck and do let us know what you decide.

I would echo the www.booking.com suggestion, with two caveats:

First, don't forget to take location into account, since some "bargains" are poorly located relative to where you would like to stay.

Second, cross reference the 7.5+ (I would try for over 8) against the tripadvisor reviews for the best candidates. In my experience, tripadvisor is more accurate on reviews but you will be hoping to find one that has a high booking.com score AND favorable tripadvisor reviews. Since every hotel has some number of bad reviews on tripadvisor, usually attached to some horror story review, my gauge is to have the number of reviews in the top 2 categories (excellent and very good) outweigh by a large margin (e.g.,4:1) the bottom two categories (poor and terrible).

Sound insane? Probably... but in your budget range you can find a HUGE quality difference between hotels and your job is to sort the data to get to the best level of quality in the best location while staying within your budget.

Not sure what boxes you want ticking, but I've stayed in these that are clean, comfortable, reasonably located and have free wifi:
http://www.cosmos-hotel-paris.com
http://www.hotelamericain.com/

thanks for your inputs. i do search on booking.com, but i like to take suggestions here, because people who have travelled can suggest hotels which are located well. the boxes i want to tick are - economic (as i will not be staying in the hotel for most of the time), clean, safe area, good location.

i am thinking of a hotel in this area - 66, rue Pere Corentin, 75014 Paris. is this conveniently located nearby any major attractions?

Check it out on Google Maps and the interactive map of PAris public transport:
http://www.ratp.fr/plan-interactif/

And the answer to your question is, no, not really. You'd need to be looking at the lower arrondissement numbers (i.e., the "14" in the postcode - there are 20 arrondissements, arranged in a spiral with the lowest in the centre, so 14 is out on the edge of the city)

Many tourists stay in arrondisements 4 through 6 to be near a fair number of major attractions. So the postcode of those hotels would end 04 through 06.

Or - even better - consult a map.

I can tell by the postal code (the last two digits) that hotel is in the 14th arrondisement. No, it would not be consider central or convenient for sightseeing.

Do you have a street map of Paris?

I disagree about the 14th not being central or convenient. The 14th includes the whole Montparnasse. A large area, sure, but the best part of the 14th -- where the literary figures used to hang out (not dropping names, but Sartre, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joyce, and on and on). Walk in one direction, you can visit the Catacombs. In relative walking distance to the Musee d'Orsay, and of course the Luxembourg Gardens, as well as the Montparnasse Cemetery. Many famous cafes and restaurants, and the Breton creperies that line rue de Montparnasse, like Crêperie Josselin. Great outdoor markets line streets like the one on Boulevard Edgar Quinet.

I did check the location of the hotel you mentioned, and yes, that one is pretty far out -- in fact the other rim of the 14th. You can still find plenty of relatively modest accommodations towards inner Montparnasse. Still, so long as the hotel is close to a Metro or on a bus line, you shouldn't dismiss it out of hand.