Dfyjkt

My kids, 12 years old and 5 years old, will not sleep in a separate room if it is not our own home or their grandparents'. They insist on staying in the same room as my wife and me.

I would like to know the typical policy of hotels (budget and mid-range) in Europe about such arrangements.

• Is there any provision for adding an extra bed in the room, such as on payment of extra charges?


• Is there any specific name for such rooms in countries like France, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, or Romania?


• Is this something that is looked down upon?

Some do some don't. Most larger hotel chains (Marriott, IHG, Hilton, etc.) will offer this. Typically you either get a room with two double/queen beds or a single large bed with added "rollaway" bed(s) for the kids. Rollaway is often charged extra.

Pretty much every Internet hotel search engine allows you to search for 1 room/4 persons. Easy enough !

Huh. I traveled with my wife and two kids throughout Europe and Asia. It never occurred to me that a hotel might object to the level of occupancy, and none ever did.

Some hotels charge for extra guests, but those are adult guests. I was never asked to pay extra for kids, even in their mid-teens.

Using hostels might be a good option, as many hostels do family rooms.
Those have typically a double bed and two singles (often as bunkbeds).

When they do not have family rooms, hostels often allow families to use a 4 or 6 bunk room for 'private' use.

These days many hostels have 'en suite' bathrooms to the dorms.

Other options might be B&B, apartments and hotels in the cheaper range, as long as they have bedrooms which are big enough for the family.

Hostel and hotel booking sites will find you the hostels. (And if not offered, check out the Hostelling International site for the countries involved.)

An additional advantage of staying in hostels is that you can make (part of) your meals yourself, catering for the kids part of the time.

Many hotel rooms in Europe are not big enough for two extra beds. Do not expect to be able to have your children in the same room in all hotels, but where the space is available, extra beds will not be a problem.

It’s mainly a question of availability. Many hotels have rooms with three or four beds, or a couch that can be converted into a bed. Some offer an extra bed, usually at a surcharge (space constraints typically limit that to one extra bed per room, but 3+1 might work for you). I’ve seen rooms of that kind in France, Austria, Italy and Germany, and I’d expect similar in other parts of Europe.

Policy-wise I’m not aware of any issues of children sharing a room with their parents, as long as the number of persons in the room does not exceed what was agreed with the hotel. Prices tend to be calculated on a per-person rather than a per-room basis, thus a room for four will likely cost you about the same as two double rooms.

Bottom line—check the hotel offers. Do they have rooms for more than two persons? Do they offer extra beds? When in doubt, ask, and be sure to state in your booking that it’s going to be the four of you in one room.

As an alternative, you could look into getting an apartment—they frequently have four or more beds, and a family of four sharing an apartment is nothing out of the ordinary.

Hotels in Ibiza are different from the rest of Spain, they are allowed to have full size sofa beds in the room all the time, alongside the double bed.
Or 2 large sofas as well as the normal double bed.
So a room occupancy can be 4 adults/kids. They told me the fire regulations were different there and that permitted it.