We've stayed at the Park Inn and Crowne Plaza - would recommend both. The Crowne Plaza was a larger room - we had two king size beds for three of us, but I know they do family rooms.
We paid £108 March 06 for Park Inn with up to 15 days parking and last October we paid £89 for the Crowne Plaza and 15 days parking because I opted for the 'mystery hotel' knowing it was going to be either of the above (you read the hotel description and can guestimate from what it says which hotel it's going to be - both within 1 mile of airport is the give away for these two) - through
www.holidayextras.co.uk. You can get even cheaper mystery hotels, bit we wanted somewhere within a few mins since we were leaving at 5,30am last October.
You get the Hoppa bus from either - cost us £5 each adult (kids under 15 free) for a return trip last March. October we opted for a cab since didn't know how the service would be at 5.30am. Glad we did because the Q for the Hoppa was horrendous Lots of people didn't get on the once bus we saw

I would have been really panicking.
I shall soon by looking to book another 'mystery hotel' for our trip in August
