Accomodation Calais area/ or just outside
 

Hi,
I am starting to do the provisional planning for the annual trip to Europe for a group of riders, for next year. Its been decided that it would be easier to go across to France in the evening on the tunnel and bed down in a hotel/B&B in the Calais area or just outside of.
Does anyone know of anywhere that is not only reasonable in price but also in accomodation standards for a group of seven riders. We are only looking for an overnight stay before hitting the road to our main accomodation well into France. ??
Your help would be most welcome:taz:,?c?

Accor hotel group will do that for you, as can others such as Campanile.
Accor provide every standard from Formule 1 to Mercure and all standards in between those, such as Ibis and Etap.

I fully agree to cross the channel one day and start the continental riding on a full stomach and a nights' sleep, especially when riding in a group.

I've used a number of the Etap (now Ibis Budget) hotels in and around Calais over the years for exactly that reason - fall off the ferry and fall into bed. They're usually manned until about 9.00pm with an automatic credit card entry system after that and we've rolled in at 1.00am without any problems. We usually try to do a few miles after the ferry to settle things down so St Omer and one of the Lille Etaps have been our usual destinations.

The (possible) down side depends on how well your group of seven get on, because a lot of the rooms are designed for mum, dad and child - a double bed and a single bunk bed over the top. Cheap for one room - mum, dad, one child in the bunk bed and one on the floor (when the kids were younger!), but if you need seven you might need to book well ahead at certain times in the summer.

Also take a look at the Logis "group".
They are an affiliation of privately owned hotels who get together, in terms of publicity, to compete with the chains - they can be a bit more pricy, but they don't have to be so; you also tend to get a more personal service by dealing with the proprietor rather than an employee.

I have used booking.com (there are loads of other equivalents of course) for finding places and making bookings; as usual, you can find good prices via internet bookings, certainly compared with pitching up on the day, un-announced; even booking ahead by as little as a few hours, while on the road, can make a difference.
I like the search system in booking.com which can find all the available hotels inside your own ideas of where you want to stay.

Also, you say there will be 7 of you: basically, you are running a tour, so ask for discount based on that fact - for everything including the channel crossing.