Page 3 | These hotel pool rules were bonkers

user6788 · 20/10/2025 18:51

splittingupquestion · 19/10/2025 15:46

Stayed in a hotel with a pool this weekend for extended family get together. The pool had to be booked in advance by a group to use it - we knew this in advance. We didn’t know until we collected the key that we would have to have one adult per under 15 year old swimming, and 2 adults for an under 8 year old. This meant for our 5 children to swim in the pool we had to have 6 adults in the pool (kids age 14, 13, 12, 10 and 4).

AIBU for thinking this was health and safety gone mad? Does this actually seem reasonable to people?

Considering the amount of kids that have drowned I think it’s quite reasonable. I was working and a woman was in the phone to a family on holiday and a 5 year child was unattended by parents and drowned and I could hear it happening and was rather traumatising. I’d rather keep an eye on the children than risk them drowning but that’s just me

ThisGentleRaven · 20/10/2025 18:49

2 adults for an under 8 year old.

that's bonkers.
I can understand why ONE adult, but 2? Utterly ridiculous.

Asking for more than 1 adult for 5 kids, also fine, but that hotel is insane. The only explanation I can think of is to put off people, nothing to do with health and safety.

Cheersminesalargeone · 20/10/2025 18:48

Absolute bonkers

johnd2 · 20/10/2025 18:48

CheeseNPickle3 · 20/10/2025 18:40

That truly is insanity - especially if they were happy with non-swimming great aunts sitting on the side of the pool to "supervise".

Not as silly as it might appear, even if they can't dive in and save someone they can still see what's going on and shout if there's a problem.
However on the overall point it does seem madness, they should have made it super clear at the point they advertised they had a pool

Alpacajigsaw · 20/10/2025 18:46

Sounds OTT

I booked a hotel for a city break abroad last week which I only found out a few days before didn’t allow under 18s to use the pool :/ my son is 17 so it seemed OTT! I cancelled and managed to find somewhere else with a pool

NConthe · 20/10/2025 18:46

Pinewood? The Royal Lion?

You might as well let us know who so we can be aware we need to take hoards of adults with us so the teens can have a splash about for an hour!

RosyDaysAhead · 20/10/2025 18:44

That’s mental - at 8 my son could swim better than me and by 12 had done life saving skills including CPR and pool rescue as well as being able to swim in clothes and shoes! I still can’t do these things!

BotterMon · 20/10/2025 18:43

Did the adults have to prove they could swim? Absolutely bonkers.

ozarina · 20/10/2025 18:42

That's not what it means 😂

CheeseNPickle3 · 20/10/2025 18:40

That truly is insanity - especially if they were happy with non-swimming great aunts sitting on the side of the pool to "supervise".

WimbyAce · 20/10/2025 18:38

This seems very odd as surely it would make it impossible for most people. Thinking of us if we would need 2 adults for our 5 year old and then another for our 10 year old. Or would the 2 adults be sufficient to cover both? If this is really the case they need to be clear on their website. I would def take it further.

Spokebefore · 20/10/2025 18:35

I hate things like this. There’s an attraction near me where children under a certain height have to have a 1:1 ratio on rides. So me, a single mother, can’t take my 2 dc on anything who are slightly under the height. Really pisses me off.

nosleepforme · 20/10/2025 18:25

That’s massively excessive. I’d expect to be able to go to the pool with 2 under 8’s and not have anyone say anything. But two adults per kid? That’s really bonkers.

Jamandtoastfortea · 20/10/2025 18:22

I always holiday alone with my 3 pre teens - I of which swims for the county! We slwsys choose hotels with pools - in this case we wouldn’t be allowed in - I’d be fuming!!!

Mt563 · 20/10/2025 18:21

Gotalotofdogs · 20/10/2025 18:14

Who is actually checking though?

Show quote history

It's a booked pool session, so the receptionist who let's them into the pool area checked.

Gotalotofdogs · 20/10/2025 18:14

splittingupquestion · 19/10/2025 15:46

Stayed in a hotel with a pool this weekend for extended family get together. The pool had to be booked in advance by a group to use it - we knew this in advance. We didn’t know until we collected the key that we would have to have one adult per under 15 year old swimming, and 2 adults for an under 8 year old. This meant for our 5 children to swim in the pool we had to have 6 adults in the pool (kids age 14, 13, 12, 10 and 4).

AIBU for thinking this was health and safety gone mad? Does this actually seem reasonable to people?

Who is actually checking though?

Snakebite61 · 20/10/2025 18:04

splittingupquestion · 19/10/2025 15:46

Stayed in a hotel with a pool this weekend for extended family get together. The pool had to be booked in advance by a group to use it - we knew this in advance. We didn’t know until we collected the key that we would have to have one adult per under 15 year old swimming, and 2 adults for an under 8 year old. This meant for our 5 children to swim in the pool we had to have 6 adults in the pool (kids age 14, 13, 12, 10 and 4).

AIBU for thinking this was health and safety gone mad? Does this actually seem reasonable to people?

I'd ask for a partial refund.

Scarfitwere · 20/10/2025 18:04

rwalker · 19/10/2025 16:35

Unfortunately theres a lot of feral kids with shit parents
it not so much about water safety it’s about teenagers being pain in the arse unsupervised

Definitely this, was going to say the same. They don't want loads of unsupervised/barely supervised kids

sunshinemakesmehappyx · 20/10/2025 17:49

At 13 my son was a junior English medalist in swimming!
don’t think he really needed parent 🤣

TheFiveLakes · 19/10/2025 21:43

That is a uniquely impractical requirement - most families with more than one child under eight won't be able to use the pool. A bog standard "picture book" type two parents and two children age seven and five, for example, wouldn't be able to go swimming as a family of four, let alone a single parent - even a single parent of just one seven year old.

How strange.

Original poster

splittingupquestion · 19/10/2025 20:03

Crazybigtoe · 19/10/2025 19:36

Tbh with 4 children - two of whom could be classed as adults- you'd possibly need 2 rooms. So £200 per room isn't that crazy on a Saturday night .. on the shoulder of half term break for some ....

the children aren’t all mine - some are my nieces & nephews. We had 7 rooms in total though for our family booking.

OP posts:

Crazybigtoe · 19/10/2025 19:36

Tbh with 4 children - two of whom could be classed as adults- you'd possibly need 2 rooms. So £200 per room isn't that crazy on a Saturday night .. on the shoulder of half term break for some ....

stichguru · 19/10/2025 17:17

That's ridiculous. The only thing I can think is that is somehow made the hotel's public lability insurance cheaper!

prelovedusername · 19/10/2025 17:13

Madness OP. I would take this further up the food chain, you might at least get some of your £400 back.

Original poster

splittingupquestion · 19/10/2025 17:08

I definitely didn’t misunderstand the rules. I was also very polite and reasonable about them, the receptionist clearly felt awkward and without me challenging her about it went to clarify with the duty manager that this was the situation.

I also agree there are horrible feral children who ruin pools for others but a) no other family would use the pool while my extended family was using it and b) I paid more than £400 for my one night in this hotel which makes me feel more aggrieved about the situation! We had to draft in our great aunts to come sit by the pool to get our numbers to the right level as we only had 4 parents…

OP posts: