14 Day Norway Cruise
From Southampton, England To
Norway, Iceland & Scotland
Norwegian Jade

In the background on the left is the ibis Paris Gare de l'Est TGV Hotel where we stayed during this trip to Paris, France. The address of our ibis Hotel is 6 Rue Saint-Laurent, Paris, France. We stayed in Room 102 which had one queen size bed and 2 twin beds in a separate room. In both Paris and London it is difficult to find a room that can accommodate 3 guests at a reasonable price. This ibis Hotel was one of the few economical hotels that could accommodate 3 guests, but we could only obtain an economical rate by pre-paying when I booked the room.

Another item to note is that a lot of the economical hotels in Paris and London do not have elevator service available to every room. This hotel had an elevator, but we still had to carry our suitcases up a half flight of stairs to get them to our room. Before booking a room it is important to find out if it has good internet and provides air conditioning if those items are important to you. Those are important for us and this hotel does have those features.

There was a doorway but no door between the room with the queen bed and the room with the two twin beds. Those staying in the room with the twin beds would have to go through the room with the queen bed to get to the bathroom and those in the room with the queen bed would have to go through the room with the twin beds to get in and out the door to the hotel room.

Directly across the street was another ibis Hotel, the Ibis Paris Gare de l'Est 10eme Hotel. Around the corner was another ibis Hotel, the ibis Syltes Paris Gare de l'Est TGV. While in France we saw many ibis Hotels all over Paris. ibis, and its parent company, Accor Hotels is a huge hotel brand in Europe and worldwide, like Hilton, but I don't think they have many, if any, hotels in the United States. Ibis is a brand of Accor Hotels, known for economical simple accommodations. They usually offer minimal accommodations but with all the modern conveniences such as high speed internet and air conditioning.

An amazing feature provided by this hotel was they provide every guest with a FREE temporary mobile phone called a Handy Phone! At first I though the previous guest had forgotten their mobile phone in the hotel room as it was sitting in a charger on the desk. But no, it is a FREE mobile phone provided to every guest. This phone allows you to make both local and international phone calls completely free! It is also a fully functional Smart Phone allowing you to use Google Maps and pretty much any available features from the internet. It also provides you with your own local Paris, France, phone number that during your stay can be given out to others, even to friends and family back home. It also gives you a local phone number to give restaurants, etc., when you make reservations and they ask you for your phone number. You just take the phone with you and it works everywhere in Paris. At the end of your stay all data and logs are automatically erased from the phone. Just don't lose or damage the phone or you will be charged 300 euros.