Are you a towel remover off sunlongers on holiday and how ?

[HaveANiceFuckingDay]

I have had this problem with probably 95% hotels ive stayed in.
Ive stayed in 5 4 3 before . Last holiday in August in turkey was a 5 and everyday I got up early , had breakfast , THEN went to find a sunlounger and all of the sunloungers had towels and only a few in the pool. All of the hoggers were towels around the perimeter of the pool .
I complained and it fell on deaf ears, always does it even has signs around the pool saying if the beds are not taken within 1/2 hour, towels will be removed .
This never happened so Im relegated to the back .
I noticed one family had towels on 8 of the beds , same spot, inflatables on the beds and chairs ?? even . They disappeared until after lunch to use the beds they'd saved. This was a 5*
Im sick of it and shouldn't be allowed.

I go away around 3 times a year and this happens 95% of the time .
I dont want to join in with the selfishness and one if my friends says she removes the towels and leaves in a pile if they have been gone for more than 2 hours .
But how ? Do you just remove the towels of the beds you want or all of the towels? Im guessing if I.just removed one towel to claim the bed they'd know it was me if the others still are empty but with towels on still .
Im going away in 3 weeks and again 2 weeks after that and this shouldn't be something that constantly puts a dampener on my holiday.
Are you a towel remover , how do you do it without looking like an arsehole or getting into a row with people or do you just own it?

I just remove them and fold into a pile mostly people don't say anything if they do, I just shrug and say they were empty when we got here

Most places I go to have a firm policy on sun lounger usage - the last place had a sign in the rooms reminding guests that beds left unattended/used for more than 45mins would have personal items removed, so please speak to lifeguards.attendants to get your stuff back. People still pushed it, but as the policy was clear, other guests had no qualms with removing towels etc and placing in a neat pile nearby for the owners to reclaim. There was never any kicking off over it when people turned up later to use their beds - just a few sheepish shrugs and then they moved on to find another bed. The attendants were hot on diffusing any tension when they observed anything brewing though.

Exactly! if everyone used them only when needed there would be enough for everyone.

Also, you wouldnt engage in this rude/entitled behaviour elsewhere on holiday- you wouldn't walk into the hotel buffet, put a post-it note on the tiramisu saying, "I'm not eating this now, but I'm reserving it for later in case I fancy it," and expect everyone else to leave it alone.

Or, ring a taxi firm and say, "Don't give any of your taxis to anyone else for the next three hours because we might want one later. We're not sure yet."

Its so bloody entitled!

I do too, but I'm probably averagely assertive! I've only once had anyone shout at me (we couldn't speak each other's language, so I just looked at her and shrugged while she shouted), everyone else has just huffed and given me side eye. Let them, they're selfish people who make holidays less enjoyable for others.

The entitlement of this makes me so angry. I’ve never actually removed the towels but I probably will from now on.

We are literally half an hour at breakfast or lunch if that. Where we holiday there are plenty of beds anyway. We also don’t sit near the pool but on the grass or the beach where very few people go. I am comfortable with how I do this on holiday. I can’t believe there are people who remove everything from the sun lounger to go to lunch. I have never seen anyone doing this.

This is what I would do. Then point at the sign saying towels would be removed after x time and say i assume the staff did it 🤷

It all sounds stressful and extremely annoying. I'm glad I don't go on holiday to hotels where this type of thing happens.

I don’t go on this type of holiday but I’ve always found the idea of towels being some kind of sacred symbol of ownership of a sunbed really hilarious. Like, OMG, there’s a towel on there, I cannot touch or move the towel for fear of being struck down by a bolt of lightning. I’d just take the towels off and even better if it’s a good towel put it in a bag and take it home with me.

If the sign says “towels will be removed if bed not occupied for half an hour” or similar, then that’s what I would do - I’d remove the towels after half an hour. (I’ll caveat this by saying I’ve never actually done this, as I’ve never stayed somewhere like this. But I really do think I would. If confronted, I’d shrug and point at the sign).
And then I’d leave a review of the place that says there aren’t enough sub loungers and people are allowed to hog them all day without the staff caring.

I’ve never done it but never had the need to.
We use villas during school holidays for peace and quiet and to be away from this kind of overcrowded entitled behaviour, always have enough loungers. Dh and I do AI holidays outside of the main school holiday seasons and there have never not been enough loungers, I prefer a hotel under capacity!
I leave towels on my lounger when I’m in the pool but other than that I’m on it in situ. We also only ever spend a couple of hours at the pool though, either a morning or an afternoon so not hogging it all day.
How do you know though (if you are a towel remover, and I’m generally on the side of the towel removers by the way!) that the towels you’re removing don’t belong to people who are currently in the pool?! It’s fine to leave your towels down when you’re swimming surely?!

It's annoying when the hotel has a towel removal policy but doesn't act on it (which seems quite common). I was delighted with a resort in Portugal where the lifeguard did remove towels and dump them in a pile next to his hut. If people complained he would just look sternly and point at the sign. Legend! I've learned to check the trip advisor reviews before booking because often they give insight into whether policies are enforced or not.

In countries where there is a tipping culture (small tips warmly welcomed for any services) it works well to ask the lifeguard/pool attendant for help finding sunbeds accompanied by a modest tip and miraculously they will do some rearranging. This worked well in Morocco after we observed the Russians being treated like royalty and twigged that they always tipped (quite small tips, about 20p worth at a time but frequently). Moreover they then remembered us and would keep a few sunbeds hidden and produce them with a flourish as we sauntered poolside after a leisurely breakfast, Russian-style. I know not everyone likes the idea of tipping but money makes the world go round!

I can honestly say that I never had this problem because having red hair I never sunbathed. I can recall watching the daily antics from my balcony in Egypt and having a good laugh.

If I wanted a sun lounger I would probably move the lounger I wanted out of the way. If challenged I would say that the staff had been round removing all the towels. Or if I was in a mood for fun I would remove ALL the towels and throw them in a heap together and let the latecomers fight it out. Or throw them in the pool.

I did once removed someone's trolley from the supermarket check out queue when they went off to pick more stuff and left it to "keep their place".

I can be a bitch like that.

We tend to go I'm pool first, so if it's clear no one is using a couple of sunbeds we'd like, I remove the towels, ideally onto the near free sunbed with another reserved towel.

After doing a few years in a row of AI holidays, this year we’ve just been to the lakes in northern Italy and it was wonderful. No AI hotels, people actually go out … hence they do not feel the need to leave a towel reserving a spot at the pool. We only used the pool a few times as we were also out a lot (and in the lake!) and every time we went there were plenty of loungers free and none reserved by towels. Such a refreshing change from the previous few years where one of us would have to stumble bleary eyed to the pool at 7am with towels, which I hated doing but if you can’t beat them join them.

My menopausal ire is such that I would absolutely not tolerate that level of entitlement from anybody any more. They can jolly well fuck off.

😂 I would not be staying at a place that sounded a sunbed alarm - that’s ridiculous!

if the hotel had a sun lounger policy, I would just point out to a member of staff that some sun loungers hadn’t been used for x hours and ask them to remove the stuff so I could use them. If someone came back, I’d just say the staff had been clearing away towels from unused sunbeds. Hogging sun loungers you have no intention of using for hours is such selfish behaviour.

Hotel we went to last year allocated beds to rooms. It wasnt even an excessively fancy one (but not cheap... Tui Blue level).

Hotels should do that periodically through out the day.

I wouldn’t because I cba with confrontation, but I would complain to the hotel staff

I just remove them. If you want a sunbed, you should be out there sat on it. It is a ridiculous notion that you can save one for hours just by putting a towel on it. It is selfish entitled behaviour.

Just get up, have breakfast and get yourself a sunbed. You can't expect to stay in bed all morning and still get what you want.

Best holiday I ever had, was one where the hotel allocated sunbeds to the room for the whole fortnight.

I've only done it once. Woke early (around 6) went and removed all towels, piling them in the corner. Back to bed. When I got down to breakfast it was the talk of the hotel and a total mystery as to who could have done it.

We stayed in a AI resort several years ago, the sort where guests can pay additional thousands of £’s for butler service. Some of these guests get their butler to reserve loungers by the pool and the beach so they can flip between the two.
I went to the quieter pool around 7am one morning and the butler was in the process of reserving virtually every lounger. The lifeguard saw me, asked if I was looking for a lounger, I said I wanted two, he promptly removed two of the towels that were on loungers and gave me the beds. The butler came back and kicked off at me accusing me of moving the towels and said she’d been there for an hour setting up for the butler level guests.
Eventually, she huffed off and brought two more loungers and the guests, who rocked up at 10am gave me and DH daggers for the rest of the time we were by the pool. I did a TA review criticising this practice, although I get if you pay huge amounts extra for additional privileges, you should get them but for me, this took the piss. We have never used this brand of AI since.
These days, we tend to book somewhere with either a private pool or a swim up room because I just can’t be arsed with the lounger saving. I always get up early, even on holiday, I get two loungers, read for about an hour while I wait for DH, we leave for maybe half an hour to get breakfast then return.

I've only ever been on one holiday where this was happening and we just went to the beach. I find it really odd that people spend their whole day every day at the hotel when they are at a beach resort. I don't the the sunbed hogging has anything to do with the star rating; it's package holidays and all inclusive in particular. Just book your flights and accom separately and you won't have to face this problem.