I would like to wrap up a booking for 6 days, single traveler, in a Paris hotel. The two biggest sights I would like to see are Notre Dame and the Louvre and plan a day trip or two. My price range is $150 to $200 per night, but would prefer to be closer to the $150. I have checked RS Paris and several of the hotels he mentioned are booked or seem to be priced higher than stated in his book. Checking Expedia, I have come up with a decent list and wonder if anyone has had any experience with these hotels. Also, I notice the Expedia Price is almost always lower than the price on the hotel website. I have booked directly with hotels in other countries but the prices were very close. Right now, over 6 days, there is a difference of $100 to $125. Would you recommend booking through Expedia or ??? Anyway, here are some hotels I am considering: If you have any experience I would appreciate your feedback. The Hotels: Home Latin; La Petit Belloy Saint Germain and Hotel Paris Rivoli. As the prices go up closer to $200 there seem to be a lot more hotels, and I am also considering some of them. TIA
Hotels in Paris are expensive. I ran into the same problem as I am staying in Paris for five nites in Sept after a RS tour. Last year I stayed in Paris ( on a RS tour) at the Hotel Tilsitt Etoile a few blocks over from the Arc de Triomphe and it is near a metro ( which is very important). I booked the same hotel for this year's stay and for a single traveler I am paying an average of 154 Euro. The rate is different on some of the days but for the five nights it averages out to 154 Euro per night. It is an nice hotel and the rate includes breakfast. I checked into three other hotels that I know of and they were more money. I hope this helps.
Thanks, will check into it now.
I have never booked a hotel through Expedia but I do use booking.com a lot. Regardless of how I booked a hotel I always emailed the hotel directly to confirm the booking and then there was no worries.
While I have never stayed at either hotel, I have checked the ratings and reviews and the Tilsitt Etoile that Ann recommends looks very nice but the location is not nearly as good as Hotel Paris Rivoli for what you say you want to see. Hotel Paris Rivoli is walking distance to Notre Dame and if you are a walker also to Louvre. If you're not long walker then it's pretty close to two metro stops on the 1 line which will get you anywhere and it's also on the bus line that goes by the Louvre (it runs along rue Rivoli).
EDIT: I stayed in an apartment pretty close to the Hotel Paris Rivoli and I absolutely loved the location. It's on the edge of the Marais and close to the river so was great area to wander around with lots to see.
Ray,
Check out the Hotel des Nations Saint Germain on Rue Monge.
http://www.paris-hotel-des-nations-st-germain.com/en/home/
We stayed here 10 years ago and it looks like it has been remodeled since then. It is on the Left Bank near the Rue Monge Metro stop, a BNP bank, the old Roman Arena and you can see Notre Dame from the balcony 5 blocks away. Nice cafes and markets as well as the Sorbonne nearby. <80 euros and buffet breakfast was included for us but I think it costs now.
Good luck.
We stayed at the Hotel Cluny Sorbonne in the 5th, in a room for 2 people for about 100 euros per night. I don't know if a single room is less expensive than this but it's worth checking. The double room is in your budget, at least. The hotel is a 10-minute walk from the Seine and a couple of Metro/RER stops.
Thanks for the good thoughts and suggestions. I am open to quite a bit and got some good ideas. Hopefully I will book something by tomorrow at the latest.
All three of the hotels are well located. And probably have relatively basic small rooms but I think that the locations are worth the compromise with respect to room size. At Le Pettit Belloy, you can expect that your room will be about 140 square feet and I think that is a good size for one. And if it matters to you, there is no lobby in the hotel. No experience with the others. I would book through Booking.Com and as another poster suggested contact the hotel after booking to make sure that your reservation has been received. I have two bad experiences with Expedia -- one hotel reservation that was correctly transmitted to me and incorrectly transmitted to the hotel and a similar thing with a flight. Just bad luck on my part, I am sure but enough to have made me think twice about using Expedia. And in Expedia's defense, I got full refunds with a minimum of effort.
I haven't had a problem with Expedia but a friend of mine has. Usually they offer a very similar price ($2 difference per night when I booked my last hotel and checked with Expedia first.) But in Paris the differences are often $10-$15 per night (Expedia cheaper.) That adds up when you are staying several weeks in a country. Also, with one of the RS hotel recommendations, the hotel website said it was booked, but Expedia said it had 2 rooms open and I could book....at a cheaper rate than the hotel website. Wonder what was going on there? But I did manage to book my hotel and feel set. Now I can start the fun part of doing preliminary planning about my 5 days in Paris! Thanks for everyone's thoughts and ideas.