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I think the people who say hotels are better than AirBnb aren't traveling with kids. Having an actual kitchen when you travel with kids is great. Having actual

I think the people who say hotels are better than AirBnb aren't traveling with kids. Having an actual kitchen when you travel with kids is great. Having actual separate bedrooms so we don't have to go to sleep at 8pm when the kids go to sleep is great. Being able to do laundry without tracking down a laundromat or pay exorbitant hotel prices is great. Having a living room or similar area with at least a few square metres of floor space where kids can sprawl is great.

analog31 1y ago
Indeed, hell is being cooped up in a hotel with kids -- for the kids, the parents, the rest of the occupants, and the staff. I think this is a huge factor in why my family always camped when I was a kid. And to be frank, I don't like being cooped up in a hotel either.
- black3r 1y ago
  Hotels aren't designed to be cooped up in. Hotels are designed for 2 things: Housing many people at the same place, and giving you a comfortable place to sleep, shower and have a breakfast in. And they're great at those.
chii 1y ago
For the same price, airbnb usually provides more than hotels (but with higher variation in quality). Hotels tend to be pretty consistently good when it is over a certain price point, and at any higher price point, all you get is better views/location (and may be some amenities such as gym or pool) - aka, quality caps out and just becomes expensive. Airbnb prices are quite correlated to quality. High priced airbnb (for example, a holiday lodge) can be _very_ good for the price. But airbnb is a sort of buyers beware type deal.
- freddie_mercury 1y ago
  Hotels also provide tons of variation in quality. Just look up hotels in, say, Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City where the options are much more than just the typical Western chains. Or compare the many non-chain "motels" in North America. I think what you mean is "chains" tend to be pretty consistent. Which, yeah, that's always been the main value prop of a chain. You go to McDonald's in Tunisia and you have a pretty good idea what you're going to get.
  - darkwater 1y ago
    Chains consistency kills half the fun of travelling the world.
    - n4r9 1y ago
      Kids enforce a filter on what sort of fun you look for. Without kids, the bottom tenth percentile hotel experiences is often a few hours of bad sleep before escaping in the morning. With them, it's hours of tantrums, desperate searches for acceptable food or sleeping arrangements, and worrying for days afterwards about the effects of smoke, mold, dust etc on their health.
      - watwut 1y ago
        >and worrying for days afterwards about the effects of smoke, mold, dust etc on their health. I mean, that one is on you. It is possible to go on vacation even camping with kids without having anxiety attack over everything. Also, while some kids are difficult and kids are slow and certainly limit you, hours of tantrumps every holiday and impossibility to eat are not normal.
        bee_rider 1y ago
        The air usually seems pretty fresh and healthy when camping.
        MyPasswordSucks 1y ago
        What about the carpets?
        bee_rider 1y ago
        I’m not sure I follow the implication here, but: my point was that “camping” is generated seen as a fairly healthy vacationing option, so it seems weird to use it as the lower-bound on a spectrum that contains moldy Airbnbs and hotels.
taneliv 1y ago
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. If the kids are not toddlers any more, booking a place where you share the apartment/house with the host (or maybe other travelers) can also be a great experience. I mean, it's an adventure, and those can also go poorly, but our experiences have been just excellent. And at those bottom-of-the-barrel prices mentioned earlier. Definitely not something that hotels offer.
- paradox242 1y ago
  That sounds like a living hell to me.
cameldrv 1y ago
There are plenty of hotels where you can get multiple rooms and a washing machine. When traveling with kids, one big advantage of hotels is predictability. The last thing I want to do when I'm pulling in after a long flight an hour past the kids' bedtime is to deal with potentially dealbreaking problems with the place. In a hotel, they generally have maintenance on staff and extra rooms to switch into in case of problems. Generally with Airbnb, the staff is 30 minutes away and is annoyed that you've called them. Most of the time, everything is fine, but there can be snafus with locks, plumbing, cleanliness, etc, and kids make these more complicated. This is all not to mention being asked to strip beds, take out trash, etc, after you've paid thousands of dollars, including cleaning fees for the place.
- sksksk 1y ago
  In Europe certainly, it’s very expensive to get anything close to what you’re describing in a hotel. Just having a separate living room and bedroom in your hotel can be hundreds more per night. Interconnecting rooms are rare, you can request it, and it’ll be subject to availability. So you can’t even guarantee you’ll have one.
  - paradox242 1y ago
    This is the same everywhere I have been in the US.
    - ghaff 1y ago
      Depends where you are. Maybe in expensive cities where space is at a premium. But suite hotels (with various levels of kitchenette/kitchen) in the US are not, in my experience, notably more expensive--though often have simpler facilities--than more conventional hotels. (Bedroom may not be actually a different room from living room area but is often at least somewhat separated. So may not help with kids. Stay in this type of hotel in the US a lot.)
    - WorldMaker 1y ago
      A trick is to know which brands you need. Marriott's Residence Inn is a big reliable one (for multiple "rooms" and kitchen/laundry) that exists almost everywhere in the US. It's a part of the whole Marriott system and often in tourism lulls in various cities has deals that keep it comparatively well priced with other Marriotts in that city and will let you use Marriott points to further defray costs. Hilton and IHG both have similar brands, but their exact names escape me at the moments. The search keywords are "extended stay" and "apartment hotels".
hans0l074 1y ago
I can't put a finger on it, but I have never used AirBnB, so I probably do not know what I am missing. I have kids now, and when we move around within the EU, I have always found the hotel experience predictable and reliable (and like many say here, perhaps more expensive, though I don't know by how much). Our daily life at home/base camp is filled with chores - laundry, cooking, cleaning etc. So going and staying at a hotel with good amenities and services is a welcome change. Nice breakfast every day, in-room service, laundry on-demand etc. Of course there is a price tag, though our family has found it quite affordable with a regular EU software paycheck. Also, my experience does not extend for stays beyond a week. Anything longer would demand an apartment, for sure.
- dijit 1y ago
  I'm very mixed on the subject. I, like you, prefer the hotel offering. Messing around with hosts and their rules is not on my list of things I want to care about, the fact that there are hidden fees and stuff leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Hotels, I know the rules. Don't destroy or steal, make life easier for the maid: done. With AirBNB, there's the cleaning fee, there's the self-replacement of items situation, there's the unknown state going in; and there's some faff about checking in. However, the laundry fee's are definitely killer in hotels. I prefer to travel light and paying €8 for a pair of socks (or.. depending on the hotel manager PER SOCK) to get them washed is just painful. It's not just a high price tag at that point, it's borderline criminal markup. I have also noticed that amenities such as Irons are less common in hotel rooms these days, which is annoying as I've started wearing shirts in my old age- worse still is the toilet situation. Modern hotels must think we're all voyeurs or something. The majority of hotels I've stayed at in the last 3 years I would not want to be with a child, frosted glass bathrooms, rarely a lock, sometimes it's just slatted wooden cabinet doors... idk, something wild is going on with hotel bathrooms man.
  - ahartmetz 1y ago
    IME, you can quite often get an iron and ironing board brought to your room (or to pick up somewhere) by asking for one at the reception. It's kinda standard in any hotel that gets business travelers, which is most of them.
dspillett 1y ago
> aren't traveling with kids Just as much as many parents think having had kids is one of the proudest decisions (or happiest accidents) they have made, I think not having them is one of my best decisions, travelling is one of my many reasons for that, and I find the assumption from some parents that we should bend around their choice is a little presumptuous. Furthermore, ignoring various other definitions of better, hotels are sometimes better value (or, at least, just less expensive) then AirBnBs these days, unless you are lucky, and inexpensive/value-for-money seems to be a very important factor for parents that I know. Having said that I still use AirBnB sometimes, it just certainly isn't my only/preferred option as it was for a time.
- calsy 1y ago
  People had to tolerate your existence when your parents decided to bring you into this world. Why not show the same courtesy?
  - kidsfingsuck 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - dspillett 1y ago
    It isn't about tolerance for the kids. I have no objection to them being around¹, I don't begrudge my taxes going into education and relevant parts of the NHS for them. My issue is the assumption, amongst many of those with kids, that everything should be optimised for people with kids, and anything that isn't is wrong. Because why would you want to optimise anything for other conditions in some cases? >Why not show the same courtesy? There is courtesy, and there is being expected to accept suboptimal things for myself so that everything can be optimal for other peoples' choices. -------- [1] except perhaps the particularly uncontrolled ones, and I acknowledge that is sometimes unavoidable
    - calsy 1y ago
      So many weird assumptions here. How exactly is everything optimised with families in mind? Ask any parent and I'm sure they will tell you how unoptimised their life is. Why does a single person with their own expendable income worry so much about being catered for specifically? Your only responsibility is to yourself. Do you look around and bemoan family specific services? It's such an odd thing to care about unless you had a grudge. Kids aren't a 'lifestyle choice' like deciding to travel. Do I need to go into the reasons why kids are important or who will be paying to keep you alive when your older?
electric_muse 1y ago
Perhaps the difference is that you’ve been fortunate enough to never need Airbnb support to help you on something serious. When things go well, it’s amazing. When things go poorly, you realize how anti-guest the policies and support team behave. That’s when it changed for me. I realized how pro-host, anti-guest they are. Hotels generally seem to care when something goes wrong. Airbnb support behaves like you have inconvenienced them by raising the issue.
- s-kymon 1y ago
  I'm dealing with this right now and it has definitely shifted my perception of the platform
- ses1984 1y ago
  Not every hotel cares. The hotel I’m staying at right now is dirty as fuck. The valve for the shower does not operate properly, the water pressure is extremely low and it barely gets above 90F. Other rooms in the same hotel have a different valve and the showers work fine. “We will send a maintenance person right away” it’s been a week. There is old food under and behind my bed. They empty trash in the hall once a week, it fills up in two days. They advertise laundry but the driers are all out of order. Apparently the only reason is the change collection bucket is full, the owner doesn’t trust anyone but himself to empty it, but he’s two states away. I can hear everything through all the walls around me. I can hear people fart. This hotel has 4.5 stars with >2000 reviews.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - projectazorian 1y ago
    Let me guess, New York City?
    - ses1984 1y ago
      South Dakota.
ghaff 1y ago
There's a lot of truth in that. Normally, I never use a kitchen when traveling. When with GF, she does often like eggs in the morning though. So if there isn't a hotel/inn breaffast that can sometimes be useful. I agree with respect to circumstances where you want houses or at least multi-room apartments though. Hotels aren't mostly a good fit for that although suite hotels sometimes have a couple of bedrooms.
gwbas1c 1y ago
I have three kids. We prefer to stay in hotels with suites where the kids can sleep in a separate room. I prefer the fact that they have on-site staff. All hotels that we've stayed in for the past few years include a breakfast buffet. The kids generally prefer hotels because they have pools. We've found plenty of professionally run "resorts" where the space is like a small apartment, with a full kitchen and multiple bedrooms. These tend to be right in ski areas where we could walk to the lift if we were staying during the ski season. We did stay in one that was AirBNB-like because it was privately owned but the ski area handled the reservation and any issues that came up while we were there.
- lurkylurk 1y ago
  [flagged]
- HDThoreaun 1y ago
  As I pretty avid skier its my experience that at most ski towns airbnbs cost about 50% more than hotels but have about 3x the square ft for the cost. Yea I can pay 4 grand a night for 4 hotel rooms or whatever setup youve got, or I could pay a half of that for a 3 bedroom airbnb with an outdoor hot tub. Easy decision for me
HelloMcFly 1y ago
My decision tree is simple: - If I need a kitchen? AirBnB - Am I staying somewhere with low population density for more than a couple of nights? AirBnb - Am I staying somewhere with low population density for a couple of nights or less? Motel or camping - Everywhere else: Hotel
wdb 1y ago
Sounds like you are looking for the hotel apartments. I stayed in plenty of those and they are good deal, you get kitchen, plenty of space. Think it was 100GBP/night and with the company discount it went down to 75GBP/month
bgarbiak 1y ago
Strange. As a father of two I prefer hotels over AirBnB. Laundry could be an issue, yes, but not having a kitchen is actually a feature for me. Someone else taking care of feeding the little ones is exactly what hotels are for
no-cigar 1y ago
I have 2 kids and I kinda agree but I now stay with hotels with kitchens. I have not stayed at Airbnb since they ruined me and my family’s stay during my wedding. The flat we had didn’t have a working toilet and they refused to find us a new place. They just offered a refund (only if the host confirmed toilet can’t be fixed) And this is after I explained it’s my wedding!! Never again.
MrSkelter 1y ago
Hotel suites offer everything you mention. At hotels you also don’t have to worry about spy cameras, upset neighbors and questionable legality. I did use AirBnB years ago with my family and it was great. However the quality tends to reflect the country. I have had wonderful experiences in Northern Europe and the worst in San Francisco.

analog31 1y ago

Indeed, hell is being cooped up in a hotel with kids -- for the kids, the parents, the rest of the occupants, and the staff. I think this is a huge factor in why my family always camped when I was a kid. And to be frank, I don't like being cooped up in a hotel either.

black3r 1y ago
Hotels aren't designed to be cooped up in. Hotels are designed for 2 things: Housing many people at the same place, and giving you a comfortable place to sleep, shower and have a breakfast in. And they're great at those.

chii 1y ago

For the same price, airbnb usually provides more than hotels (but with higher variation in quality). Hotels tend to be pretty consistently good when it is over a certain price point, and at any higher price point, all you get is better views/location (and may be some amenities such as gym or pool) - aka, quality caps out and just becomes expensive. Airbnb prices are quite correlated to quality. High priced airbnb (for example, a holiday lodge) can be _very_ good for the price. But airbnb is a sort of buyers beware type deal.

freddie_mercury 1y ago
Hotels also provide tons of variation in quality. Just look up hotels in, say, Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City where the options are much more than just the typical Western chains. Or compare the many non-chain "motels" in North America. I think what you mean is "chains" tend to be pretty consistent. Which, yeah, that's always been the main value prop of a chain. You go to McDonald's in Tunisia and you have a pretty good idea what you're going to get.
- darkwater 1y ago
  Chains consistency kills half the fun of travelling the world.
  - n4r9 1y ago
    Kids enforce a filter on what sort of fun you look for. Without kids, the bottom tenth percentile hotel experiences is often a few hours of bad sleep before escaping in the morning. With them, it's hours of tantrums, desperate searches for acceptable food or sleeping arrangements, and worrying for days afterwards about the effects of smoke, mold, dust etc on their health.
    - watwut 1y ago
      >and worrying for days afterwards about the effects of smoke, mold, dust etc on their health. I mean, that one is on you. It is possible to go on vacation even camping with kids without having anxiety attack over everything. Also, while some kids are difficult and kids are slow and certainly limit you, hours of tantrumps every holiday and impossibility to eat are not normal.
      - bee_rider 1y ago
        The air usually seems pretty fresh and healthy when camping.
        MyPasswordSucks 1y ago
        What about the carpets?
        bee_rider 1y ago
        I’m not sure I follow the implication here, but: my point was that “camping” is generated seen as a fairly healthy vacationing option, so it seems weird to use it as the lower-bound on a spectrum that contains moldy Airbnbs and hotels.

taneliv 1y ago

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. If the kids are not toddlers any more, booking a place where you share the apartment/house with the host (or maybe other travelers) can also be a great experience. I mean, it's an adventure, and those can also go poorly, but our experiences have been just excellent. And at those bottom-of-the-barrel prices mentioned earlier. Definitely not something that hotels offer.

paradox242 1y ago
That sounds like a living hell to me.

cameldrv 1y ago

There are plenty of hotels where you can get multiple rooms and a washing machine. When traveling with kids, one big advantage of hotels is predictability. The last thing I want to do when I'm pulling in after a long flight an hour past the kids' bedtime is to deal with potentially dealbreaking problems with the place. In a hotel, they generally have maintenance on staff and extra rooms to switch into in case of problems. Generally with Airbnb, the staff is 30 minutes away and is annoyed that you've called them. Most of the time, everything is fine, but there can be snafus with locks, plumbing, cleanliness, etc, and kids make these more complicated. This is all not to mention being asked to strip beds, take out trash, etc, after you've paid thousands of dollars, including cleaning fees for the place.

sksksk 1y ago
In Europe certainly, it’s very expensive to get anything close to what you’re describing in a hotel. Just having a separate living room and bedroom in your hotel can be hundreds more per night. Interconnecting rooms are rare, you can request it, and it’ll be subject to availability. So you can’t even guarantee you’ll have one.
- paradox242 1y ago
  This is the same everywhere I have been in the US.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    Depends where you are. Maybe in expensive cities where space is at a premium. But suite hotels (with various levels of kitchenette/kitchen) in the US are not, in my experience, notably more expensive--though often have simpler facilities--than more conventional hotels. (Bedroom may not be actually a different room from living room area but is often at least somewhat separated. So may not help with kids. Stay in this type of hotel in the US a lot.)
  - WorldMaker 1y ago
    A trick is to know which brands you need. Marriott's Residence Inn is a big reliable one (for multiple "rooms" and kitchen/laundry) that exists almost everywhere in the US. It's a part of the whole Marriott system and often in tourism lulls in various cities has deals that keep it comparatively well priced with other Marriotts in that city and will let you use Marriott points to further defray costs. Hilton and IHG both have similar brands, but their exact names escape me at the moments. The search keywords are "extended stay" and "apartment hotels".

hans0l074 1y ago

I can't put a finger on it, but I have never used AirBnB, so I probably do not know what I am missing. I have kids now, and when we move around within the EU, I have always found the hotel experience predictable and reliable (and like many say here, perhaps more expensive, though I don't know by how much). Our daily life at home/base camp is filled with chores - laundry, cooking, cleaning etc. So going and staying at a hotel with good amenities and services is a welcome change. Nice breakfast every day, in-room service, laundry on-demand etc. Of course there is a price tag, though our family has found it quite affordable with a regular EU software paycheck. Also, my experience does not extend for stays beyond a week. Anything longer would demand an apartment, for sure.

dijit 1y ago
I'm very mixed on the subject. I, like you, prefer the hotel offering. Messing around with hosts and their rules is not on my list of things I want to care about, the fact that there are hidden fees and stuff leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Hotels, I know the rules. Don't destroy or steal, make life easier for the maid: done. With AirBNB, there's the cleaning fee, there's the self-replacement of items situation, there's the unknown state going in; and there's some faff about checking in. However, the laundry fee's are definitely killer in hotels. I prefer to travel light and paying €8 for a pair of socks (or.. depending on the hotel manager PER SOCK) to get them washed is just painful. It's not just a high price tag at that point, it's borderline criminal markup. I have also noticed that amenities such as Irons are less common in hotel rooms these days, which is annoying as I've started wearing shirts in my old age- worse still is the toilet situation. Modern hotels must think we're all voyeurs or something. The majority of hotels I've stayed at in the last 3 years I would not want to be with a child, frosted glass bathrooms, rarely a lock, sometimes it's just slatted wooden cabinet doors... idk, something wild is going on with hotel bathrooms man.
- ahartmetz 1y ago
  IME, you can quite often get an iron and ironing board brought to your room (or to pick up somewhere) by asking for one at the reception. It's kinda standard in any hotel that gets business travelers, which is most of them.

dspillett 1y ago

> aren't traveling with kids Just as much as many parents think having had kids is one of the proudest decisions (or happiest accidents) they have made, I think not having them is one of my best decisions, travelling is one of my many reasons for that, and I find the assumption from some parents that we should bend around their choice is a little presumptuous. Furthermore, ignoring various other definitions of better, hotels are sometimes better value (or, at least, just less expensive) then AirBnBs these days, unless you are lucky, and inexpensive/value-for-money seems to be a very important factor for parents that I know. Having said that I still use AirBnB sometimes, it just certainly isn't my only/preferred option as it was for a time.

calsy 1y ago
People had to tolerate your existence when your parents decided to bring you into this world. Why not show the same courtesy?
- kidsfingsuck 1y ago
  [flagged]
- dspillett 1y ago
  It isn't about tolerance for the kids. I have no objection to them being around¹, I don't begrudge my taxes going into education and relevant parts of the NHS for them. My issue is the assumption, amongst many of those with kids, that everything should be optimised for people with kids, and anything that isn't is wrong. Because why would you want to optimise anything for other conditions in some cases? >Why not show the same courtesy? There is courtesy, and there is being expected to accept suboptimal things for myself so that everything can be optimal for other peoples' choices. -------- [1] except perhaps the particularly uncontrolled ones, and I acknowledge that is sometimes unavoidable
  - calsy 1y ago
    So many weird assumptions here. How exactly is everything optimised with families in mind? Ask any parent and I'm sure they will tell you how unoptimised their life is. Why does a single person with their own expendable income worry so much about being catered for specifically? Your only responsibility is to yourself. Do you look around and bemoan family specific services? It's such an odd thing to care about unless you had a grudge. Kids aren't a 'lifestyle choice' like deciding to travel. Do I need to go into the reasons why kids are important or who will be paying to keep you alive when your older?

electric_muse 1y ago

Perhaps the difference is that you’ve been fortunate enough to never need Airbnb support to help you on something serious. When things go well, it’s amazing. When things go poorly, you realize how anti-guest the policies and support team behave. That’s when it changed for me. I realized how pro-host, anti-guest they are. Hotels generally seem to care when something goes wrong. Airbnb support behaves like you have inconvenienced them by raising the issue.

s-kymon 1y ago
I'm dealing with this right now and it has definitely shifted my perception of the platform
ses1984 1y ago
Not every hotel cares. The hotel I’m staying at right now is dirty as fuck. The valve for the shower does not operate properly, the water pressure is extremely low and it barely gets above 90F. Other rooms in the same hotel have a different valve and the showers work fine. “We will send a maintenance person right away” it’s been a week. There is old food under and behind my bed. They empty trash in the hall once a week, it fills up in two days. They advertise laundry but the driers are all out of order. Apparently the only reason is the change collection bucket is full, the owner doesn’t trust anyone but himself to empty it, but he’s two states away. I can hear everything through all the walls around me. I can hear people fart. This hotel has 4.5 stars with >2000 reviews.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- projectazorian 1y ago
  Let me guess, New York City?
  - ses1984 1y ago
    South Dakota.

ghaff 1y ago

There's a lot of truth in that. Normally, I never use a kitchen when traveling. When with GF, she does often like eggs in the morning though. So if there isn't a hotel/inn breaffast that can sometimes be useful. I agree with respect to circumstances where you want houses or at least multi-room apartments though. Hotels aren't mostly a good fit for that although suite hotels sometimes have a couple of bedrooms.

gwbas1c 1y ago

I have three kids. We prefer to stay in hotels with suites where the kids can sleep in a separate room. I prefer the fact that they have on-site staff. All hotels that we've stayed in for the past few years include a breakfast buffet. The kids generally prefer hotels because they have pools. We've found plenty of professionally run "resorts" where the space is like a small apartment, with a full kitchen and multiple bedrooms. These tend to be right in ski areas where we could walk to the lift if we were staying during the ski season. We did stay in one that was AirBNB-like because it was privately owned but the ski area handled the reservation and any issues that came up while we were there.

lurkylurk 1y ago
[flagged]
HDThoreaun 1y ago
As I pretty avid skier its my experience that at most ski towns airbnbs cost about 50% more than hotels but have about 3x the square ft for the cost. Yea I can pay 4 grand a night for 4 hotel rooms or whatever setup youve got, or I could pay a half of that for a 3 bedroom airbnb with an outdoor hot tub. Easy decision for me

HelloMcFly 1y ago

My decision tree is simple: - If I need a kitchen? AirBnB - Am I staying somewhere with low population density for more than a couple of nights? AirBnb - Am I staying somewhere with low population density for a couple of nights or less? Motel or camping - Everywhere else: Hotel

wdb 1y ago

Sounds like you are looking for the hotel apartments. I stayed in plenty of those and they are good deal, you get kitchen, plenty of space. Think it was 100GBP/night and with the company discount it went down to 75GBP/month

bgarbiak 1y ago

Strange. As a father of two I prefer hotels over AirBnB. Laundry could be an issue, yes, but not having a kitchen is actually a feature for me. Someone else taking care of feeding the little ones is exactly what hotels are for

no-cigar 1y ago

I have 2 kids and I kinda agree but I now stay with hotels with kitchens. I have not stayed at Airbnb since they ruined me and my family’s stay during my wedding. The flat we had didn’t have a working toilet and they refused to find us a new place. They just offered a refund (only if the host confirmed toilet can’t be fixed) And this is after I explained it’s my wedding!! Never again.

MrSkelter 1y ago

Hotel suites offer everything you mention. At hotels you also don’t have to worry about spy cameras, upset neighbors and questionable legality. I did use AirBnB years ago with my family and it was great. However the quality tends to reflect the country. I have had wonderful experiences in Northern Europe and the worst in San Francisco.