Paris

Summary: For a weekend or a stopover on the way to a holiday destination, IBIS is the right choice without leaving a hole in your budget!

What 1 client thought who uses a chair

This hotel is one of a large chain and consequently is efficient rather than welcoming, clean rather than cosy and tolerably good value, despite the fact that it is more like 20 minutes from the Eiffel Tower, rather than the 10 claimed.

The accessible rooms are pretty well just that, with plenty of room around the bed and a bathroom as illustrated in the photograph. The wheelchair you see is 26 in. wide -- I think it would take one several inches wider still. There is no emergency button in the bathroom. Also there are no facilities for boiling water in the room and no mini bar.

The hotel is served by several lifts, all big enough for a wheelchair and has breakfast and bar facilities which are all accessible too.

In retrospect I feel anyone visiting Paris for the first time might benefit from a bit of previous research. If you can't use a taxi the only real way of getting around any distance is by bus. An hour spent studying a bus map might be time well spent. The number 80 bus is accessible and leaves from close by the hotel. This takes you across the river and into central Paris or allows you to connect with a 63 which will take you to the Left Bank, or a 92 which will take you to the Arc de Triomphe. I think we must have taken 10 or 12 buses in three days and encountered no problems on any of them.

I did think it might be possible to use riverboats. There is a hop on-hop off service which visits many of the famous tourist attractions and allows able-bodied people a useful way of getting around. It is possible to get on this service at the Eiffel Tower in a wheelchair but, unfortunately, it is not possible to get off it at any of the other stops except the Louvre -- they all have steep steps. Even the Louvre stop involves a long walk over cobbles to get to the art gallery.

The area around the hotel is quite pleasant, with some good restaurants and interesting small shops. Pavements everywhere have ramps.

The only way to get to and from Paris is, surely, by Eurostar. The wheelchair places are in the first-class, which means a half decent meal on both legs of the journey and free hospitality at the Gare du Nord; a really fine way to start and end the trip.

Transfer from the station to the hotel we booked in advance with GIHP IDF [email - philippe.catheline@gihpidf.asso.fr]. At 30 Euros each way it seems a little expensive, especially by London standards, but they were efficient and friendly, like everyone else we encountered in the city. If we'd done our research beforehand we could have made it by bus.
Special touristic area BATEAUX MOUCHES (2.50km)
Special touristic area CHAMPS ELYSEES (3.50km)
Special touristic area TOUR EIFFEL (1.00km)
Entertainment/Theatre district MONTMARTRE (7.00km)
Entertainment/Theatre district MONTPARNASSE (2.00km)
Sport center area GYMNASE CLUB (0.50km)
Convention center PARC EXPOSITIONS PTE VERSAILLES (4.00km)