Travelodge Chessington Tolworth

Can 10,000 White Van men be wrong? The rooms are large (enough for four workmen to share), the bathrooms clean(ish) and the lifts work - most of the time. This is not a business hotel. If your company puts you here, you are either very junior or unloved.

Most of the staff try very hard, but it is obvious that this hotel needs to be refurbished as the beds are saggy (4 workmen again) the sofas worn and the carpets and walls damaged.

It is, however, cheap - if you book and get a sale price. The lowest I paid was £19 mid week.

Tolworth has little to offer except a brilliant Italian restaurant (Sorrento), a good fish and chip restaurant and a fast route to the A3!

Used this Travelodge as a place for myself and 3 of my children to "crash" after a party in June. Staying here was for me a totally bizarre experience, nothing to do with the hotel itself but that the last time I had entered the building, 20 years ago, I was working there! (It once housed a branch of the Home Office.) Away from the novelty of sleeping in your former place of work it is a good example of the Travelodge Chain.

Firstly it has a car park which is a bonus, and is cheap too. Secondly this is a fairly new conversion the room being clean and freshly decorated. Check-in was fast friendly and efficient, and despite some other negative reviews I had no complaints about the decor of the lobby (maybe because I remember the original entrance?). Unfortunately when we got to the room we found that the sofa and trundle beds had not been made up and there was no linen for them. A trip to back down to reception and oh the power of Tripadvisor!. The receptionist tried to fob me off with assurances it would be done later but forwarned by Tripadvisor reviews, I insisted, in front of a group checking in that it be done before we went out ( we were not expecting to be back until the early hours) I casually mentioned that lack of linen had been mentioned on Tripadvisor and voila all arguments ceased ! The receptionist scurried away and he had the beds made before I got back to the room. (Apparently the problem is that the rooms are made up by outside staff who only come in for a few hours each morning.) The rest of our stay was happily uneventful. However the rooms can be noisy. Tolworth Tower is on the A3 and the local police, ambulance and fire stations are close by. Despite attempts to soundproof the building we were woken several times during the night by screeching sirens.

As mentioned previously there is parking. However the hotel is very well situated as far as public transport is concerned. Toworth Station with 1/2 hourly service into London is just across the other side of the A3 (5 minutes walk) or you can take the 281 bus from the turminus directly outside the hotel to Surbiton Station for a fast service into Waterloo. Or, if you are a Rugby fan you can use it to get Twickenham. From Surbiton station you can catch the number 65 bus to Chessington World of Adventures or in the opposite direction to Richmond. Both buses go to Kingston (great shops, clubs, pubs etc and trains to Waterloo and Hampton Court) and run until past Midnight.

The Toworth Tower Travelodge serves food. We sampled the breakfast and had no complaints. However the breakfast room is quite small for the size of the hotel and I could see this causing problems at busy times. There is really no need to use the restaurant at all. Underneath Toworth Tower is a large M&S food market. It is sited at one end of Tolworth Broadway, a 1930s high street* with a large selection of eateries for all budgets. The Red Lion and the opposite end has a Harvester Restaurant attached and if you don't mind a walk the fish and chip shop "Fishmania" further up Tolworth Broadway where it changes name to Ewell Road comes highly recommended.

All in all we had a very pleasant stay and will be happy to use it again as would my kids providing I promise not to go on about working there!

* For those of you interested in architecture, above the modern shop fronts the buidings are remarkably unchanged. The hotel affords a great view of them.