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I was wondering if anyone knows of a hotel with safe/secure parking around Calais - we are off to Soisson and ferry is due to leave on the Sunday morning at 7.30 and was thinking that if we could change to the Saturday afternoon evening and spend the evening in France and set off to the campsite early we would feel more fresh than travelling through the night to get the ferry.

We need safe secure parking as we will be towing our trailer which does not have a lockable lid so would feel uneasy just leaving it in a carpark for all to see.

Yes unfortunately it is in the wrong direction to where we are off

Hotel B&B at Coquelles  is perfect and you've got Auchan next door for your fuel, a Buffalo Grill down the road for dinner and it's not far from ferries or tunnel.

http://www.hotel-bb.com/

Thanks for that Claydoncamper - although I cannot find anywhere that it says there is secure parking.

Is it secure enough to leave everything we need for 11 nights tents camping in the trailer

Quote: Originally posted by tsfive on 17/7/2012

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We stayed at the Etap Hotel in Calais with a trailer tent a couple of years ago. The car park has a locked gate and high fence around it, plenty of places to eat nearby.

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The B&B hotel at Coquelles has it's own car park. After about 9pm you gain access either with your credit card or by a PIN that is allocated to you when you have swiped your credit card.  We have parked our trailer in the car park here and at the Hotel B&B in Chartres with no problem at all.  It's off the main road and the car park is out of sight from the road too.  Have a look on Google earth.  It sounds though like you might be wanting more than is available in any of the hotels because after all, they all have to be accessible to customers 24 hours a day (most of the budget chain hotels are really motels after all). A lock and key affair isn't going to be available nor is 24 hour monitored secuity (not if you are in the market for budget chain hotels anyway). You may be better off with a couple of pop up tents on a site somewhere for an overnighter or perhaps working out a way of securing the lid of the trailer.

Another option we have used in the past is this:

Stay at the Ashford Travelodge - reasonable dinner and good breakfast and not far from Dover.  Have a look on the www.parkatmyhouse.co.uk website and pay someone a fiver to park your trailer overnight on their drive. Collect trailer next morning and head off to tunnel/ferry.

I wouldn' stop in Calais with a soft top trailer.  We did this a few years ago - stayed overnight, OH supposidly checked the trailer while I programmed the sat nav.  Well to cut the story short, I got a shock when an Afgan man sat up on the trailer, whilst I was driving down the motorway.

A nice place south(ish) of Calais is

We've stayed at numerous Travelodges and Premier Inns at Dover and Folkestone with a heavily laden car and trailer without problems. Don't think I'd do the same near Calais, but we have done it at many hotels further down France, Evreux, Orleans, Millau and so on without trouble.

Bearing in mind you are going such a short distance in france, I'd stop UK-side of the Channel, personally. In the Travelodges etc, you can get your room, then move your car so that it is within viewing distance of your window. Worth requesting a ground floor room direct with the hotel after booking (phone them up), then you can park next to your window.

You might be better staying outside of Calais, somewhere just off the autoroute,, such at St Omer.  Have a look on Booking.com for hotels.

I note there is a 'Lemon Hotel' (which is a rebadged Formule 1 - ie no ensuite bathroom) in Arques which is not far from the autoroute - on the St Omer ring road.  We stayed in a Lemon Hotel in Evreux a couple of years ago, and Yes it was basic but it did have secure parking in a compound accessed with a code.  It was very clean, redecorated, and with nice crispy white sheets.  Lemon  Hotels are VERY cheap and a double room is currently being advertised at £20.42 - I think we paid £19 in Evreux!!!!  The breakfast was absolutely fantastic - best budget hotel breakfast we've had, and the Turkish family managing the place couldn't have been nicer. 

I must admit we left our car top box unlocked outside the Premiere Classe near Calais Gare in June, in a car park without a gate, and nothing was touched during the night.  To be honest my own feeling is that parking is safer in France than in Britain.

An email to most of these hotels would answer your question about secure parking