THANKS to the internet, booking a last-minute weekend away has never been easier – or so it would seem.

When we recently decided to head off to the coast for a few days I simply tapped in the dates and our destination and the worldwide web told me everything I needed to know.

But is it possible to know too much?

Having conjured up a list of places with last-minute rooms to let, I chose one and began to trawl through the seemingly endless information on offer.

Oh, for those days where you were just given a price and star rating. Now it’s pictures, reviews and links to websites which tell you everything from what channels are available on the televistion to which chickens laid the eggs for breakfast. One even included ‘radio alarm clocks’ among the facilities on offer.

And it’s here the pressure begins to build. Try as I might I can’t help but scrutinise the pictures and that’s before I hit the reviews.

“The room was very pleasant and comfortable, the service was excellent and the breakfast delicious,” said one guest from Bradford, and to be fair, her thoughts were much the same as many people who had bothered to write a review.

Hooray, I should have thought, but of course I can’t help but trawl through the comments until the inevitable negative thoughts surface.

One guest describes the bathroom as “tired” and the carpet “grubby”, another says the breakfast was “poor”.

And it was these comments which played on my mind as we set off down the M5, and by Taunton my lovely little guest house by the sea with 60- plus positive reviews had, in my mind, turned into Fawlty Towers!

Booking your holiday hasn’t always been this way. I remember the days before the internet, when all you had was a phone directory or a travel agent’s well-leafed brochure.

Needing to find a guest house in York once for a friend’s wedding, I simply telephoned the local tourist information centre and they booked it for me, provding me with an address and no other information. I still don’t know where their eggs were laid, but it was comfortable, friendly, within my budget and close to the wedding venue.

As for our guesthouse by the sea, it turned out to be smashing. Yes, the bathroom was dated – a shell shaped suite – and if I’m totally honest the carpet was a little worn, but it was spotlessly clean, the breakfast delicious and the owner gave us one of the warmest welcomes we’ve ever received. Panic over.