Family of 4 in one hotel room?

You can ask for a roll away bed for the 4yr old.

You have to book for four, but let the hotel know the ages of the children and request a small bed or rollaway for the older child and a crib for the baby. Then the hotel can put you into a room large enough for the extra beds (they may not have a crib, anyway).

In Europe kids count. Show up for a double room with 4 people in France and you are turned away; in Italy probably although they are a little less strict. Someone posted not long ago on another forum of arriving with an 18 mos old baby and being turned away from the hotel as they had no triple available. Not what you want to have happen with little kids on the trip. You have to indicate how many will be in the room. It doesn't matter if you plan to sleep one or more kids with you in bed. The search engines for rooms usually ask for adults and kids and may also ask the ages of kids. You can ask for a crib/cot and a small bed for the kids and some quad or triple rooms have a fold out or day bed in the room. You might be able to get a triple and add a cot for the baby BUT you have to indicate how many you are.

With two son, we always booked family rooms. Europe does not have the American culture of book a room and pack it.

Stephanie,

As the others have suggested, I'd tell the hotels what the composition of your group will be, and they'll provide a room appropriate for that. You're basically renting a double room, but will need a bit more space to accommodate a crib and roll-away.

Booking.com has the option of selecting the number of adults and children. When you put in the number of kids, it will ask you for their ages.

The results will reflect that, along with any other filters you use for the search. Noodle around with it to see what you can find.

Personally, I only use it to find lodging options. Then I go directly to the hotel to book.

As everyone said above, in Europe kids count, so you "officially" need a room for 4, not 2. But given that your kids are small, you may do best e-mailing the hotels directly and saying what you want ("a room for 2 adults, a 4 year old child and a 1 year old child"). That way, they can tell you how you will be accommodated, and you probably won't need a quad room (one suitable for 4 adults), which will cost more.

We have taken more than a half dozen trips to Germany, Italy and Switzerland with our kids who are now 4.5 and 2 and have never been charged for the extra bodies (except a nominal amount for breakfast for the older child once or twice). Like you, we usually use apartments but we stay in hotels at the start and end of our trips. We always contact the hotel directly when booking and politely ask whether they will accommodate all of us (giving the kid's ages) - we never assume. I don't think I have ever been denied a room because of the kids and I know for certain that we have never been charged for the kids.

We traveled with a 'PeaPod Travel Bed' for the youngest until she was a little over a year and on our last trip we took a Baby Bjorn Travel Bed for her. Both beds are very small and light and the PeaPod even fit in our bags. Every place we have stayed had a baby bed available, even if we told them we were bringing our own. Once we were given a triple room with space for the baby bed. Extra bedding for the baby bed has never been an issue, although I always prefer to travel with a crib sheet of our own. Many places have even left toys in the room for the kids to play with while we were there.

We usually stay at smaller family-owned properties and have always found the owners more than accommodating to our kids. We do a lot of research before booking a hotel, so maybe we are just selecting the family-friendly places from the start.

If you use search engines like booking.com, I would search with AND without the kids, then contact the hotel directly, explain how your family prefers to sleep and ask whether they would be willing to accommodate you. At this age, I find it limiting to include the kids in my accommodation searches but you may also find something perfect and within your price range that gives you an extra bed so you can get the 4-year-old out of yours for a night or two.

Hope this helps!

If you tell the hotel the composition of your party of course you won't be turned away when you arrive with that size party. I can assure you that if you book a double in France and show up with a couple of kids you will almost certainly be turned away if they don't have a quad available (at higher price of course.) The key is to book for the size of your party. You might get away with sneaking a baby in here or there, but book a double and show up with a carload and you put your night's sleep at risk.

Thank you all for the great suggestions! I agree contacting the hotels directly sounds like my best option to avoid a chance of being turned away, and also (hopefully) avoid paying for a quad room if the hotel ok's us in a smaller room.

my army friends who were posted in Germany talked a lot about the culture of the "family bed" that she did adopt (their kids were like 3 and 1 at that time......she felt it was a normative expectation in Germany that little ones would share their parents bed