dwdvagamundo

I also would book through aparthotel, or another legitimate service like those you can find on Tripadvisor under "vacation rentals"?

I would not take a chance of being turned away or having my apartment cancelled with just myself and my spouse. As Menachem says, If I had ten people to be responsible for, I would make sure that the lodging is solid.

fuzzbucket

You have to be careful with listings advertising "apart'hotels" because the illégal apartments have all migrated to the légal apart'hotel websites.

You will be all right in thèse légal apart'hotels:
Citadines
Adagio
Le Roi de Sicile
Hôtel Résidence Henri IV

Benefits include being able to store your luggage if needed, maid service, desk clerks on duty 24/7, reliable elevators, kitchenette, laundry facilities, Citadines Richard Lenoir has air conditioning...

fuzzbucket

If you are looking for a "gîte" outside of Paris, it could be légal if not rented more than 120 days out of the year.
I'm not sure you have enough time to find a suitable gîte because most have already been rented by now.

Scootoir

Please consider fuzzbucket's list and book apartments for your family in one of those. 24/7 reception could be very helpful to you if your family needs medical or other assistance during your stay. I've considered the Hotel Res. Henri IV which has air conditioning, luggage storage, and elevator. Photos online show a rather charming place.

bostonwa

I want to drop a quick line and let you all know how the trip went before the trip's 6 months anniversary comes up.

The trip went wonderful. Everyone came home alive and no one got lost so it's a big success (J/K). But honestly, it was a low key, non stressful vacation that we managed to take my mom to see Europe for the first time along with my dad who has dementia. The kids all enjoyed the experience. Here's a quick summary:

Lodging: Résidence Villa Daubenton by Happyculture It worked out very very well. We had the whole floor to ourselves as the floor had 2 family rooms and 1 two people room. So my brother's family took one room, we took one and my parents in the other. Very big room with kitchenette, clean up service, Netflix and free bottle water even. Good location as well. The fact that we were staying at this place was 1/2 of what made the trip a success.

Itinerary: We did one major planned activity (e.g. walking tour, cooking class etc.) every other day or so.The in between days were for chilling out and each party can decide what they wanted to do ad hoc. This again worked great especially given that my daughter and husband both threw up overnight on consecutive days and ended up chilling out in the hotel for 2 of the days.

Some highlights of what we did:

• Day 1. Arrived in style from the airport with an entire tour bus to the 10 of us through shuttledirect.com. Great experience and worked out perfect for our party especially with all our luggage. Took the same service back to the airport at the end of the trip.
• Day 2. Walking tour with a Chinese speaking Parisian guide through "Get Your Guide". The intent was so that my mom can better understand some of the sites that we see. It was a wicked hot day. Everyone did well even the 3 years old and my dad. But if I were to do it again, I will probably opt for a hop on hop off bus instead to get an overall feel of Paris.
• Day 4. Secret Food Tours Paris Montmartre through Secret Food Tours with our guide Jim. Jim was very resourceful and entertaining. It was a lot of fun to gather and taste food throughout the tour and eat what we have gathered at a sit down restaurant in the end. We were soooooo stuffed. Bonus was that we got to see Montmartre which we wouldn't have done otherwise. Spontaneously, we even did the "street train" to tour around the area and visited Sacre Couer
• Day 5. Visited Garden de Luxumberg and just let the kids chill
• Day 6. Took river cruise in the evening. Husband and I went to see a comedy – “How to become Parisian in one hour” and enjoyed our date night.
• Day 7. Visited Louvre at night. A lot less people at night so it was great!
• Day 8. Took macaron making class at http://www.cooknwithclass.com/paris for my husband, myself, my brother and sister in laws. The 8 and 6 years old girls joined us too. They were supposed to have their own cooking class for kids but the instructor was sick so they got to join us. Worked out great. The macrons were so tasty and the class was fun.
• Day 9. We took the train to Versailles with half of the party and just walked around casually and enjoying our time.

Food: It was not difficult at all. The 10 of us ate together for dinner for half of the time. I had made reservations before leaving for Paris just to make sure we have somewhere that will take us. But we also managed to find restaurants while there that took us in and served very tasty food. The meals are indeed long so that can get tricky with the kids being patient but we just made sure to bring along little things with us for them to play with or color and it certainly made time go buy a bit faster for them.

One of the restaurant owner was so nice and even turned on cartoons for the kids to watch while they enjoy their desert and the adults enjoying our meal. It was nice.

My husband and I took my mom to a Michelin 2 stars one night. We all enjoyed it fine but agreed it was really not that impressive. But good to at least to check it out. May be next time we should do a 3 stars.

Preparation: We have checked out almost all the books recommended by you all in this thread and read to the kids. That really helped them to get excited to see the Eiffel Tower , The Louvre, Mona Lisa etc. Thank you for all the great suggestions!

Flight: The flight over to Paris was British Airways/AA. Parents, make sure you check out if there were any inflight entertainments. We assumed it would at least have inflight Wifi as that’s what AA typically has so we can have videos for kids to watch on our own devices. Nope. Only the good old little tv hanging from the ceiling. Our kids have flown long distances flights and generally do great and are familiar with their little inflight entertainment systems. If we had known there is still such old planes with not even Wifi inflight, we would have downloaded movies onto our ipad. That was something we would make sure we prepare better next time.

Other than that, the trip was wonderful and I am glad that we made it happen – family of 10 aged from 3 to 71 and even with a dementia patient. It is definitely a family memory that cannot be replaced. A lot of planning had gone into it but all worth it. We might be able to do one more trip before dad can no longer travel so need to get thinking now. But I want to make sure that you all know how helpful you were and thank you all for your advices! Hopefully this little report will be helpful to some as well.

nukesafe

Thank you for coming back to tell us how it went. So glad that it was not the disaster some naysayer members predicted!