Showing posts sorted by relevance for query vip paris. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query vip paris. Sort by date Show all posts

Saturday, January 15, 2011

VIP Service in Paris

People are busy making their summer vacation plans right now.  They must be, because we're on the customer referral contact list for Vacation in Paris Holiday Apartment Rentals and I’m getting lots of emails from potential travelers to Paris.  These travelers want to know how we liked our stay in Vacation in Paris (VIP)’s Rue Cler Delight apartment last summer, and how we would rate the service provided by VIP.  I tell them all the same thing:  great apartment, outstanding service!

At the breakfast table
After browsing through VIP’s many, many apartment listings ranging from studio to luxury units, we chose the Rue Cler Delight for three reasons:  location, location, location.  Just kidding, but even though that’s true, our other reasons were air conditioning and price.  We were not disappointed in any regard.  The one-bedroom apartment is in the 7th arrondissement, on a quiet residential street around the corner from a metro stop (line 8, École Militaire), a large supermarket, and best of all, rue Cler.  Rue Cler is a pedestrian-only open market shopping street with row after row of fresh produce, wine, cheeses, pastries, and prepared foods that will save you from having to eat at restaurants three meals a day.  Every morning during our week in Paris, hubby and I would stay in bed and send the kids around the corner to rue Cler to buy warm baguettes, croissants, and fresh berries to bring back for breakfast.  Heaven for hubby and me, yes, but more importantly, the interaction with merchants who don’t speak their language, dealing in foreign currency, and the encounters with unfamiliar customs forged unforgettable life experiences for my kids.  These moments and the independence they foster are some of the most significant reasons I travel with my children.

Front entrance to the
Rue Cler Delight apartment

But I digress.  Back to the apartment.  It has one bedroom with a king-size bed and a queen-size sofabed in the living room, so it easily sleeps a family of four.  (I know, I know, I’ve blogged about how my kids don’t like to sleep together in the same bed anymore, but occasionally they have to.)  The apartment is small, so it's a tight squeeze to get into the kitchen when the sofabed's open, but it's maneuverable.  The air conditioning is a portable unit, kind of large and clunky, but works adequately well, especially on a continent where A/C is still in its early evolution.  The kitchen is clean and modern and well-stocked, and there’s even an (almost) American-sized refrigerator!  When traveling with kids, the ability to throw together a pot of spaghetti after sightseeing all day, instead of sitting in yet another overpriced, foreign-food (“mom, why don’t they have french fries?!”) restaurant, is priceless.  And speaking of price, at the time of this writing, the apartment is only $185/night for four people during summer season.  A hotel room for four people in Paris would be hard to find at that price, and certainly wouldn't have a kitchen.

Lastly, I researched numerous holiday apartment rental services, but was most impressed with VIP.  The company, based in New Jersey, offers the reassuring courtesy of sending you the Paris apartment keys before you leave on your trip.  The huge benefit here is not having to meet with a stranger somewhere in Paris when you arrive, or find a management office somewhere in Paris, to pick up the keys.  No appointments, no hassles, just go straight to the apartment and let yourself in.  The directions and arrival information are impeccable.  If you should have a problem while at the apartment, a management team is available in the city.  When I called them to ask about a funny noise the washing machine was making, I received an immediate response by a native-English speaker.  All contact I had with the VIP staff was professional and friendly.  I highly recommend using Vacation in Paris Holiday Apartment Rentals on your next visit to the City of Light.



Wednesday, July 20, 2011

My 7 Links

Love this idea launched by Tripbase.com to resurrect old, forgotten blog posts.  The My 7 Links project encourages bloggers to publish links back to posts from their archives that meet 7 specified categories, and then nominate up to 5 bloggers to do the same.

Thank you to Mary T from Travel With Teens and Tweens for nominating me in her My 7 Links post this week.


Most Beautiful Post
My most beautiful post is about one of the most beautiful places we've ever been:  Kinderdijk, The Netherlands.  I wrote about our bike ride last summer from Rotterdam to Kinderdijk in two parts.  In Part I of On a Bike in Kinderdijk, I described the allure of this rural Dutch town with 19 windmills and its quiet surroundings, and in Part II, I recounted the fun we had getting there by bike in Holland, a country where biking is a way of life.

Most Popular Post
According to my Blogger stats, my most popular post is Movie Monday:  National Lampoon's European Vacation.  Not quite sure why . . . probably because more people google movies than going to Europe with kids and then end up on my post.  My second most popular post is Little Man P, and although I like to think it's popular because it's such a humorous and delightful piece, it's probably the intriguing title that attracts viewers.

Little Man Elvis

Most Controversial Post
The last thing you want to do when you're starting a new blog is to alienate readers by being confrontational, so I was delicately cautious with my wording when I posted Photo Friday:  Bullfight in Madrid.  Didn't want any retaliation from PETA.  The only slightly controversial post (among my friends and family, anyway) was perhaps Happy St. Nick's Day! where I told of the cruelty involved in the old St. Nicholas Day customs of flogging and carrying away young children in sacks.


Most Helpful Post
I frequently refer email inquirers to my helpful post VIP Service in Paris when they contact me through the Vacation in Paris Holiday Apartment Rentals customer referral contact list.  These travelers want to know about the Paris apartment we stayed in near rue Cler and also how we liked the service provided by VIP.


Most Unexpectedly Successful Post
I was so delightfully surprised by all the advice I got on my Winter Warmwear post!  I knew nothing about dressing for the cold and pondered about layering, but thanks to Nina from Adventures of The K Family, Jana from Hedgetoad Kids, and others, I'm ready to pack for my trip to Switzerland this December.

Post That Didn't Get Enough Attention
My personal favorite post, about my personal favorite destination in Europe with kids under 10, is Top Pick, about Blankenberge, Belgium.  A seaside town with an enormous go-cart track that weaves under the pier and back, an even more realistic kid-carting track with traffic signals and gas pumps, a velodroom, and many, many parks - the secret is out!  So why aren't tourists flocking to Blankenberge with their children?  Because this post hasn't got enough attention, that's why.





Post of Which We Are Most Proud
I had the most trouble choosing a post for this category.  Proud of the content and photos - maybe Say Cheese.  Proud of the blog subject - definitely My Teenager's First Solo Flight.



My daughter in Times Square.

Here are my nominations to join Tripbase's My 7 Links project:

Sonja Swiss Life - by Sonja Holverson
Mommy Travels - by Meagan Shamy
Ian and Wendy - by Ian and Wendy Sewell
Travels With Children - by Linda

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Lisbon Apartment Search

I'm searching for an apartment for four nights in Lisbon right now.  The top websites for vacation apartment rentals that I'm looking at are homeaway.com, vrbo.com (owned by homeaway.com). tripadvisor.com, vacationrentals.com, and flipkey.com (owned by tripadvisor.com).

I love TripAdvisor.  I never book any hotel, bed and breakfast, or apartment without looking up the reviews on TripAdvisor first.  The reviews are honest and I trust TripAdvisor's recommendations.  But I can't say I love their vacation apartment search function.  It doesn't allow for many amenity filters, namely air conditioning.  And hubby will not stay anywhere without A/C, which means I have to click on every listed property to see if it offers A/C.

And then there's one problem I have with every search site.  It's the number of double v.s. twin beds - never a search filter.  As I've mentioned before, my teen son and daughter would rather not sleep in a double bed together, so I do my best to find a quad with two twins.  This means reading the body of text or looking at the photos for every listing.

I wish there were more rental agencies like Vacation In Paris (VIP).  Besides their outstanding service and great apartments, they offer the incredibly reassuring courtesy of mailing you the apartment keys before you leave on your trip.  I spoke to VIP to ask if they could recommend any apartment rental agencies similar to theirs in other parts of Europe, but they said they were not aware of any.  And so remains the ever so slight trepidation of meeting a Portuguese-speaking stranger in a big, unfamiliar city to exchange cash for keys.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...