Staying in French hotels with dogs

[elizf]

We are going to Dordoigne shortly to stay in self catering. Looking at the driving times realistically we will need a hotel for one night either way and I was pleasantly surprised to see virtually all hotels open to dogs.We are now looking at booking chain hotel places like Hotel Ibis for ease of arrival and location.

It seems to be easy enough to do but in in terms of logistics what is the situation? My concern is over things like breakfast - are the dogs allowed into the breakfast areas or do they have to stay in the room ?, is it worth booking a hotel with an outside terrace area to enable this? Or should we just bank on getting breakfast separately at a local cafe?

Any experiences?

There’s usually an area they can sit when they come down to breakfast with you, often any part of the room.
I’ve always walked my dog before breakfast, then left them in the room (with a ‘do not disturb’) on the door, with his breakfast. But he’s much happier resting after his morning walk and poo, than sitting in a busy room full of food smells.

We’ve found that they’re quite strict with leaving dogs unattended in rooms, but… the smell of bacon/ham/sausages gets our dog quite excited and we didn’t want to cause a bother for other guests at breakfast, so we ended up leaving our dog in his travelling crate in the car (fortunately it was the morning so still nice and cool) while we had our breakfast.

We found that they were happy for the dog to sit at your feet in the restaurant. Very dog friendly but assumes a good dog!

Worth checking there aren't size limits on dogs. I've found some hotels say they allow dogs but in the small print they need to be under 20kg (might not be an issue for you of course). Also, actually booking the dogs in can be a bit of a pain. Lots of online booking systems don't allow you to add a dog to the booking, you have to speak tot he hotel directly. We use hotels to break up a similar long journey and it's a faff because you can't check different options without speaking to loads of hotels individually.

The hotel in Germany we booked didn't seem to be expecting us to have dogs even though they were added to the booking. No dogs in any of the communal eating areas there, we just tag teamed for breakfast.

I don't have that exact experience but I stayed in a dog friendly hotel in Scotland recently. All was fine in the afternoon/evening but when we 'went to bed' the dog could suddenly here every single noise, every person that walked down the corridor and every door that closed, people above us, people below us, and barked every single time! It was horrendous, it was like sleeping by a front door on a high street!😆😫I had about 3 hours consecutive sleep max from about 3am, otherwise I was woken up every 20/30 mins, all before a very long drive the next day.

So, can't help you with French hotels but just wanted to advise you to make sure your dog is not one that barks at passers by and front doors/door bells/door knocks!

Similar issue with us when we stayed in a pub. The bloke in the room next door came back about 11.30pm and was talking quietly on his phone as he let himself into the room. Ddog went ballistic - deafening! - and he was 'on guard duty' all night, up barking at every stair creak and footstep. I spent all night trying to keep him quiet and was so embarrassed about him disturbing everyone else. Never again!

Same here! We stayed in Cornwall in a dog friendly pub/hotel and it was quite stressful because even though my dogs are not particularly barky at home, being somewhere different with slamming doors and hearing other voices they were really on edge and woke us up throughout the night. We always do air bnb now with our own place and a secure garden so they, and we, can relax! We have stayed in some lovely dog friendly ones in France.

Ha ha, yes, we do Airbnb now too.