Hi,
Does anyone have experience with a New Jersey based company named Vacation In Paris? They have some very nice choices but I am just wondering how accurate the photos are particularly a studio on rue Mandar and a loft studio in La Marais. Thanks for your help.

No experience with this company, but we just stayed in a darling studio one street over from Notre Dame. If you are willing to walk up lots of stairs in an historic building with a completely modernized apartment, leave an e-mail address and I'll give you details. The landlord was excellent, and the price was right.

We stayed in the Rue Mandar studio last year. Ed was wonderful to deal with. We found the studio to be our least favorite of places we've stayed. To us, it seemed very tired, furnishing-wise, the curtain in the bathroom kept falling off the wall, and there was a not great smell in the bathroom. We did report these to Ed after our return, and he did apologize for the bathroom situation. The location was good.

I would recommend visiting www.vrbo.com where there are over 300 apartments listed for Paris

I had some exploratory dealings with them, but did not rent because of problems getting accurate information on the apt. I was interested in. Specifically, the one I was interested in (which is on their web site called Sorbonne or something) did not have a photo of either the bedroom or bathroom, which is pretty important. Nor where there any customer comments at that time (which I take with a grain of salt, anyway, but still wanted to read them).

I inquired and they said they just didn't happen to have any photos of those rooms, but said they have a representative in Paris occasionally and the next time, they planned to get some. I found this suspect since they should have required them of the owner. I did not rent from them because they refused to give me a written contract spelling out terms (deposit, etc), said they just worked loosely and didn't have a standard contract. I did not find that professional.

I think they now have some contract and perhaps more standard methods from reading other's posts on here.

Anyway, I went elsewhere, but later saw they had posted the photo of the bedroom on the one I was interested in and I could see why they hadn't before -- you could tell the room was barely larger than the bed. They still did not post any of the bathroom. I liked it otherwise but didn't think it was worth what they wanted ($150 then, $170 now).

That apt. no 28 is still on there and they have removed the bedroom photo which made it clear how small the room was to show only a photo of the bed (I guess thinking some people will assume the room is a lot larger). They still do not have a photo of the bathroom on there, several years later.

In short, I think they are being a little sneaky from that case, so assume things may not be quite as wonderful as they look.

Amendment -- I see they do have two photos of the bedroom on there which I think were the ones I was thinking of. I am trying to be factual in my comments. They both do not show you just the bedroom in full, however, but the one with the door halfway closed gives you the idea.