If you are picking up a motorhome in Paris for a family of six, the question is not whether the vehicle is big enough — it is whether you can budget the extra hour and the extra charges nobody mentions in the listing.
We rented from AVIS explore Paris for a family trip through Europe. This is what the pickup actually involved: the deposit, the child seats, the packing, and one thing we should have skipped renting altogether.
What does the deposit actually cost you
The number quoted for the deposit looked high enough to worry about. It was not a cash payment. It was a credit card authorisation — a hold, not a charge — so nothing actually left our account. If you are travelling on a fixed budget, this matters. Ask specifically whether the deposit is an authorisation or a real charge before you hand over your card, because the two look identical on the counter but behave very differently on your statement.
INFO ・ Deposit
- Form: credit card authorisation, not cash
- Effect: no funds actually removed from the account
Do you need child seats, and what do they cost
Child seats were not included. They were a separate charge — 350 euros for our booking. Baby chairs and camp chairs were further options on top of that. If you are travelling with young kids, factor this into the total cost before you compare it to a van rental back home, because the headline day rate does not include any of it. We also rented bedding, which turned out to be a mistake — more on that below.
INFO ・ Child seats
- Cost: 350 euros, charged separately from the vehicle
- Other add-ons: baby chairs, camp chairs, both optional
How long does pickup actually take
We arrived at 9:10. The staff member walked us around the body of the Fiat Ducato — 7 metres long, 2.9 high, 2.3 wide — checking for existing scratches, then went through the insurance terms. That part was fine. The slow part was after: pulling only what we needed out of six backpacks and finding a place for it in the storage. With four kids and their own ideas about what needed to come out and what could stay packed, this took real time. We did not pull out of the lot until 12:30. If you are booking a pickup with a lunch reservation or a drive planned for the same morning, do not. Give it the full hour, and then some.
INFO ・ Pickup
- Vehicle: Fiat Ducato motorhome, 7m x 2.9m x 2.3m
- Time needed: over an hour for briefing and storage packing
- Our departure: 12:30, against a 9:10 arrival
What did the kids do while we waited
The moment the kids saw the size of the thing, the trip stopped being an abstract idea. The youngest was jumping. From that point their whole attention went to the bunk beds and who got which one. They sorted it out themselves, without us.
“Let’s do it this way.” “We’ll swap.” A trade agreement, negotiated by children.
Should you rent the bedding
We rented bedding along with the vehicle. It had a used smell to it — the kind that does not air out in an afternoon. We had already noticed an IKEA nearby, and passed another one on the road out of the city. In hindsight we should have just bought our own sheets and skipped the rental line item. If there is an IKEA anywhere near your pickup point, buy bedding there instead. It is one less thing to regret for the rest of the trip.
This pickup is manageable for a family of six, but only if you stop treating it like a car rental. Budget the extra hour, expect the child-seat charge on top of the day rate, and bring your own bedding if you can. If your schedule that day has no slack — a lunch booking, a ferry, a same-day drive to the next city — push the pickup earlier or push everything else later. For families who can treat the first morning as a write-off, AVIS explore Paris gets the job done. For anyone in a hurry, it will not go the way the itinerary says it should.
