Paris vacation accomodations for family of five

[gruyere]

My wife and I and our three adult children are planning a special vacation to celebrate our 25th anniversary. It will include 4 days in Paris in mid-June. We are having a great deal of fun deciding on the restaurants we will select. We all love good food and wonderful restaurants and are especially looking forward to this part of the vacation. Egullet is an amazing resource in this regard. I frankly have not found a more useful and engaging site on the Internet.

However we are having less success finding suitable accommodations for a family of 5. Given the special nature of the trip we would like upscale digs. On the other hand two rooms in say the 4 star range approaches 900-1000+ euros per day. I have therefore been looking for apartment style accommodations. To date I have received a reply from Hotel & Residences du Roy (Montaigne, 1er) offering a two bed, two bath unit for 610 euros/day inclusive of tax and service. Does anybody know of this establishment and would you consider this good value? Are there other suggestions for a family of 5? We would like to be somewhat centrally located, but given the efficient Metro system, ‘centrally located’ can be defined as covering a large area in this case.

Many thanks.

[bushey]

Renting an apartment should give you more flexibility and comfort, for a better price, than two hotels rooms. We have friends who rented an apartment in Paris last year for their family of five and it ran about $1800 for a week in June.

If you do a web search on paris vacation rentals you should come up with a lot of options. Here are a couple I've looked at (wishful thinking!):

Vacation in Paris and Paris Apts.

I forget which site had several apartments that looked appealing in the 7eme. Not luxurious by any means, but comfortable.

Good luck!

[haryson]

I have also had problems like this. I have a family of six and have found that an apartment is the way to go. Some Hotels have apartments that you can rent. The hotel blanche-fontaine has one at a moderate price, but you are subject to hotel check-in and out times. An apartment is much more flexible. For instance, I am going to Paris in July and have a 2 bedroom apartment(only taking 4 this time) 1 block from the Champs-Elysees for $720 for 6 days. If in a hotel we would be paying that much for one room. I've found one of the better sights you can go to is:

http://1elgoog.vrbo.com/vrbo/fra.htm

Look in the Ile-De France section for Paris. There is a great variety of places to stay so if your looking for upscale, you should be able to find it there.

Bon Voyage

[KatieLoeb]

Gruyere:

Try this site Via Travel Design. It's run by two friends of mine that specialize in "foodie" vacations in France and Italy. James and Lori are two of the nicest folks in the world, and are utterly obsessed with travel throughout Italy and France. Check out the entire site and see if this is something that would be useful to you.

Have fun!

[Bux]

We're on the road in Spain right now, but my wife, who's a travel agent, suggests Citadines, a chain of apartment hotels. The one near the Louvre is nice and very well located. We'll be back in ten days and can offer more help then if it's not too late for you then.

Try www.pagesjaunes.com or .fr and search for Citadines Louvre. Sorry we can´t be more specific from here.

[gruyere]

Many thanks to those of you who offered help. Your suggestions were wonderful and led to many suitable alternatives. I continue to marvel at the level of knowledge displayed by 'egulleters'.

Following the Paris leg of our trip we are going to the Provence/Cote d'Azur region. After four days there the children head home to Montreal and my wife and I drive to Florence for four days followed by four days in the Chianti area probably near Sienna. At the risk of wearing out my welcome, does anybody have advice on boutique Hotels (4 or 5 stars) in Florence and pleasant country accomodations in the Chianti region?

So as not to confuse the content of this thread I am about to post this request in the Italian forum so if you have suggestions I hope you will post them there.

[marcus]

Many Paris apartment rental agencies will rent for a stay of 3 days or more. If you're really looking for upscale Guestapartment, www.guestapartment.fr, specializes on the Ile St Louis and is very good. My last apartment rented from them was in an ancient building, very well furnished, with a view directly North across the Pont Marie. PSR has a very wide range of apartments throughout Paris and Locaflat is also reliable, although more focused on the middle range. These are all Paris based and French run, which I would recommend. When dealing with a US based company, you need to make sure that they have a primary relationship with the apartment owneres, most don't and really use these types of agencies that I named above. This leads to the pyramiding of commissions and will cost you 20-25% more, minimum. Also, Paris based agencies are there to help you when you have a problem, and they will.