In the beginning stages of looking at booking a trip for 2 families (group of 4 & group of 3) with teens for May/June 2025. We would love to see London - 3 nights/Paris - 3 nights/Rome - 3 nights. Was thinking of planning ourselves, but finding hotel rooms with 2 beds for our group has been challenging. Also thinking of booking tour group, but don't want to be in tours all day. Want plenty of independent time & don't like idea of long stretches on crowded bus.
Suggestions?
You will need more than two rooms, whichever route you take (independent or tour). European hotels very rarely sleep 4. Especially in big cities. We are a family of 4, and we traveled with two more last summer. Finding lodging was a big challenge for 6. It will be more challenge with 7. Just being honest.
When we travel with our teens, we often get two rooms. My teen is 6’1 and a sofabed just won’t work! How you split your group is up to you, but it will be easier to find two double rooms and a triple room.
This does not answer your question but for 9 nights, I honestly would keep it to 2 cities and do a day trip or 2 out of them. To me Paris and London are easily done together as the Eurostar train between city centers is excellent. However if Rome is a must then you should do what pleases you.
When you are figuring times - 2 nights in one location gives you one full day to tour.
You can definitely plan this yourselves and if a group tour doesn't appeal, then do what works for your group.
3 nights = 2 full days at each stop with every 3rd day being a travel day as well as days 1 and 10 being travel days. That means you're leaving yourself with 6 full days and 4 half days to sightsee. My first suggestion is rank your priorities and pick 2 destinations at most. Try the Premiere Inn chain for London. I can't be as helpful with Paris or Rome but some hotels may not have 2025 info up yet so try your dates using 2024 to get an idea of types of hotels and rooms available.
I was thinking 11 nights total (overnight flight for 2 days coming and going) and then 3 nights in each city traveling to next on day 4. For example, if we arrive in London on a Monday morning we would not leave for Paris until Thursday morning giving us 3 full days in London.
Thx for the info thus far!
Since you're at the beginning of planning, and it's a first trip, perhaps a suggestion, since you have all major cities. Perhaps consider a small town/village instead of three busy, bustling cities? Just a thought. You are starting early and have lots of time to plan a revise your itinerary. Have fun!
“I was thinking 11 nights total (overnight flight for 2 days coming and going) and then 3 nights in each city traveling to next on day 4. For example, if we arrive in London on a Monday morning we would not leave for Paris until Thursday morning giving us 3 full days in London.”
I plot out my trip based on where I will be sleeping. Based on your info, you really only have 9 nights “on the ground”:
Night 1 arrive London: check in, light sightseeing
Night 2 London: sightseeing
Night 3 London: sightseeing
Night 4 Paris: travel from London half day, half day sightseeing
Night 5 Paris: sightseeing
Night 6 Paris: sightseeing
Night 8 Rome: flight from Paris half day
Night 9 Rome: sightseeing
Hopefully this shows how little time you truly have in each place. Traveling from Paris to Rome could take a big chunk of the day, considering how long it takes to get to the airport, how long you have to be there before the actual flight, actual flight times, how long it takes to get from Rome’s airport to the city. This could easily be 6-7 hours.
That said, I will echo the recommendation to pick two of the cities and spend more time in those two places. If Rome is one of your choices, start there before it gets too hot. Then fly home from the second city.
Suggest two cities for the short time
I would second Allan’s recommendation for Premier Inns in London. They are very clean and comfortable, quite reasonably priced, and are all over London in good locations. I will be staying at the Premier Inn County Hall, which is in South Bank, in late March for five nights, and I’m only paying £141 a night.
Breakfast is not included but you can add it on for a relatively low price. An additional benefit is that they have family rooms available. These allow you to get three people in a room. But I don’t think any place will allow more than three unless you rent an Airbnb or apartment somewhere.
Brainstorming more options, with no personal experience: university dorms? Upscale (family rooms?) hostels?
Your group is big enough you might consider private guide for specific day tours you’re interested in?
Also consider appartments. I have used both Booking.com and VRBO.com, but other sites can probably help you too.
I'm afraid I can't answer your questions about rooms (as we're also in the first-time planning stages with our two sons, who are also over 6', and will be 23 and 18 when we go), and in my little bit of researching, I'm finding the same things - the rooms are very small there!! In Rome, I found a place run by nuns and they actually have a room or two with four single beds, which I thought was kinda neat.
And I, like you amuse663, am running into the challenge of trying to squeeze a lot into not a lot of time (we're thinking London, Amsterdam, Munich, Florence AND Rome - whew). The folks here on this forum are exceptional in giving great advice, I've learned. In the coming days, my family and I will have to discuss either dropping a city (or two) or re-configuring our plans...but, it's still so exciting nonetheless!! :)
I wish you the very best - keep us (me) posted on what you decide to do!! I'm struggling a bit because I feel like I just don't want to miss anything!!!
I think we've decided to just do 4-5 nights in London and 4-5 nights in Paris. There's so much to do in each and cool day trips (Stonehenge, Cotswold, Versailles, etc). It's also a very short train ride between the two cities.
For anyone else looking we found two bed rooms in these hotels in London: Melia White House or Melia Kensington, The Pelham, Bankside Hotel, Rubens at the Palace & Sofitel London St. James.
For Paris we found Les Jardins du Marais or Les Jardins d'Eiffel.
Wise choice to slow down and provide the opportunity to create wonderful memories. Both destinations offer huge menus with items to meet a plethora of interests. Lao nice both have excellent public transport options. Give thought to renting apartments for the benefit of having a kitchen as a place to start the day with a breakfast. One less meal to expense and makes for easy meeting of everyone’s favorite breakfast foods. Plus you have fridge to store foodie purchases to nibble on in the evenings. The way to sate teens is with"…….. FOOD!
Night 1 arrive London: check in, light sightseeing
Night 2 London: sightseeing
Night 3 London: sightseeing
Night 4 Morning Paris: travel from London, arrive about 12:30, 2/3rd day sightseeing
Night 5 Paris: sightseeing:
Night 6 Paris: 2/3rd day sightseeing, 9:15pm evening flight to Rome arriving 11:15pm
Night 8 Rome: sightseeing
Night 9 Rome: sightseeing
Night 10 Home
