INTRODUCTION - France 2014 - page 32

If you're visiting France in the summer, the extra expense of an air-conditioned
room can be money well spent, particularly in the south. Most hotel rooms with
air-conditioners come with a control stick (like a TV remote) that generally has the
similar symbols and features: fan icon (click to toggle through wind power, from
lighttogale);louvericon(choosesteadyairfloworwaves);snowflakeandsunshine
icons(coldairorheat,dependingonseason);clock(“O”setting:run X hoursbefore
turning off; “I” setting: wait X hours to start); and the temperature control (21 or 22
degrees Celsius is comfortable; also see the thermometer diagram on here ).
Hotels in France must charge a daily tax (taxe du séjour) of about €1-2 per person
per day. Some hotels include it in the listed prices, but most add it to your bill.
You can save as much as €20 by finding the rare room without a private shower or
toilet. A room with a bathtub usually costs more than a room with a shower and is gener-
ally larger. Hotels often have more rooms with tubs than showers and are inclined to give
you a room with a tub (which the French prefer).
A double bed is usually cheaper than twins, though rooms with twin beds tend to be
larger, and French double beds are smaller than American double beds. Many hotels have
rooms with queen-size beds (a bed that's 63 inches wide—standard doubles are 55). To
find out whether a hotel has queen-size beds, ask, “ Avez-vous des lits de cent-soixante?”
(ah-vay-voo day lee duh sahn-swah-sahnt). Some hotels push two twins together under
king-size-sheets and blankets to make le king size .
Ifyoupreferadoublebed(insteadoftwins)andashower(insteadofatub),youneed
to ask for it—and you can save up to €20 at pricier hotels. If you'll take either twins or a
double, ask for a generic une chambre pour deux (room for two) to avoid being needlessly
turned away.
Hotel elevators, while becoming more common, are often very small—pack light, or
you may need to send your bags up separately.
Hotel lobbies, halls, and breakfast rooms are off-limits to smokers, though they can
light up in their rooms. Still, I seldom smell any smoke in the hundreds of rooms I check
each year. Some hotels have non-smoking rooms or floors—ask about them if this is im-
portant to you. If your room smells of smoke, ask for a different one.
Most hotels offer some kind of breakfast, but it's rarely included in the room
rates—pay attention when comparing rates between hotels. The price of breakfast correl-
ates with the price of the room: The more expensive the room, the more expensive the
breakfast. This per-person charge, which increases with the number of stars the hotel has,