Prior to our recent trip to Prague, in the Czech Republic, we decided to stay at an hotel near London's Gatwick Airport overnight in order to facilitate an early check-in. You get into travel mode, you lose anxieties and you don't spend a lot if you use Priceline. Which is what we did.

Hotel guests at the Effingham Park divide, roughly, into three, rather unequal, categories. It's got a conference centre, so expect to bump into conference types. It's also situated in 40 acres of parkland, and features a 9-hole golf course (and, no - I'm not going to discuss the golf), so you'll meet golfers a-plenty. Oh - and it's also rather convenient for Gatwick Airport, so you can expect to see loads of happy families waiting to fly to Florida. Or, in our case, Prague.

Call me sad if you will (Though I'd rather you didn't), but I do take stock of hotel corridors! The dark furnishings were somewhat depressing and almost morbid. Clean? Yes, certainly. Good condition? Yes. Exciting? No. We got to our room and went in. And, well, it was a room. Nothing terribly exciting. The ubiquitous Corby trouser-press hung off the wall at what could only be described as a jaunty angle. The usual L-shape format. Perfectly acceptable, bog-standard, 3/4-star room with double bed, comfy chair and desk - but it just lacked the "Wow-factor", major-league. There was a disappointing element about it, but - as if if this an excuse - it was serving as somewhere to lay our heads before a morning flight. In that respect, it did just what it said on the tin, as they say. It was adequate. Just nothing to write home about, and "Adequate" is hardly an adjective to which a hotel room should aspire, to be really honest. Nor is "Disappointing".

Being without young Josh on this occasion (and our room would not have been large enough to accommodate an extra bed), we decided to try the bars. There are two. Deep in the bowels of the hotel is the Sports Bar, which boasts far too many television sets; it's, frankly, not the best place for a couple. It's where it belongs; we really weren't very impressed. I've been to better pubs in downmarket, grubby cities than this place. Computer problems caused them, I think, to be unable to charge our drinks to our bill. This was the only plus. Upstairs is the more refined Terrace Bar, which is a lot quieter and a lot more peaceful. It also affords a view of flabby conference delegates showing off a screw-kick in the hotel's rather nice swimming pool directly beneath.

We had a cheap, comfortable night's stay near the airport. Too flawed to earn four stars, in my humble opinion, this was not, however, a bad place to stay. Priceline are sending us there again in a month's time and I suppose I'm not exactly dreading the fact - if that's not damning with faint praise.