sun lounger bagging etiquette

[hwjm1945]

Ok,I know this is trivial but......on hols,about 120 sunloungers,maybe 70 of which offer umbrella shade,.every morning as soon as pool opens parade of people with towels,books, bagging the prime loungers and then going off for breakfast etc,and not reappearing for in some cases 2 or 3 hours.
In one memorable case,a family group did not have Enough towels to bag the number of loungers required so used a pile of cut leaves!I do not think this is decent behaviour,I think if you are using area for lounging,pool etc save for popping t o loo Tec or to get drink then bag a spot.if not using it for hour or so you should remove your stuff to free up for others.what do people think?

But these sunbeds don't belong to anyone. Why should people lay claim to them and then not use them for hours. I think there should be a maximum amount of time allowed to be away from them. Actually I think you should only be allowed sufficient time to go to the loo or get an ice cream/drink. In what other circumstances can we lay claim to a seat by just leaving a book and a towel on it? I think it's completely selfish.

sounds like school, come straight back from the toilet, no dawdling...

£10 not bad for peace of mind.

Couple of 100 pesos - about £12.

Ooh a bit of poolside bribery.

People should just be nice, and sensibly use what they need, when they need it, and not hog it if they don't!

I always remember Michael Winner saying (before he died of course), that at his hotel on Barbados you got to select and keep your loungers for the duration. But then I expect his stay cost gazillions rather than a tenner tip.

We usually see what other people are doing. If everyone else is getting up at 6am to reserve beds, then we DH goes to while I lie in.

What pisses me off is the ones who reserve the best beds and then bugger off until 3pm and expect them to still be there when they come back.

I've never encountered this. All sounds terribly stressful to me and not at all conducive to a "relaxing" holiday.

LadyGoodman it was the FirstChoice Family Village in Rhodes. Block 5100-5105 in 'Relax' (all the other swim ups fronted onto either the main pool that had a vague sewagey smell or onto on a weird canal thing rather than the main pool). Beautiful hotel, lovely local staff, ruined by the FirstChoice holiday reps. If the hotel was not owned by FirstChoice I'd go back but those useless articles are not getting my money again. Feckin' Widgets and wannabe X-factor singers mutter mutter...

DD loves swimming but is frightened of the sea (we are trying slowly to get her over this) so we live at the pool on holiday and are there from after breakfast to closing time. It would really piss me off if someone nicked the beds while we were away at lunch/having a long swim in the pool. But it does amaze me that people will reserve beds and then just not show up. That's wrong and weird .

So if you move the towels (not the pool thing), where do you put them?

If I had a lounger and went off for a bit and someone moved all my stuff and put it on the floor and nicked my chair, I'd be RAVING

I dont like the idea of paying pool staff to reserve beds. I can understand why some might do it but it is unfair as no matter what time someone else get to the pool/beach they are never going to get a bed if the pool boy is selling them off each day. And it is no good saying well they should pay them as well as it would defeat the object if everyone had to pay a brribe to get something they have already paid for when booking the hotel.

They should pile them up at night, then the next morning give them out, first come, first served, but any bed left for more than half an hour should be taken back to the pile IYKWIM.

You wouldn't leave your belongings lying about in a public place and naff off generally would you?

No no, they should auction them every morning. Or raffle them.

Genius Hully. Or have some sort of Talent Contest maybe to win a sun lounger?

Yes! A talent contest. Best-looking man in speedos perhaps.

We honeymooned in Bali, they had no issue with people putting towels out the night before, and indeed when they did finally surface they could claim their sunbed with the towel still attached.

Slight technical hitch

When the pool boys came on duty in the morning, they moved any sunbed that had been claimed overnight to the very back and into the shade. So they still had their sunbed and their towel, but they were not in a prime position.

Genius.

We didn't get our beds reserved though and then not come down for hours.

Either we were there before the pool guy or sometimes him before us. He knew we liked the same spot, he knew we weren't the kind to disappear (went to the same place last year and they remembered us).

There was a loungergate incident though ... Towels on the next 5 beds stuck out a mile as they were bright coloured towels whereby everyone else used the beige or cream hotel lounger towels. The beds had been reserved from early on. At about 11.30 a party of four (two young couples) just wanted a base for their towels/bags and a bed to sit on to have a cool drink. Pool attendant moved a towel, he went away, girl layed on the bed, the people who had originally bagged the beds rocked up and gave this girl a mouthful saying there were 7 of them and the day before they couldn't get beds and she needed to vacate. DH stuck up for her and sad for them to see the pool attendant. The pack leader then said "oh you are only sticking up for her as you are her lover" and why did we have four beds when there was only two of us (well actually we have two teens too, one happened to be in the pool and the other a few feet away taking part in a card game, both boys using the beds throughout the day, that is when I rose like a Phoenix off my bed for a fight polite discussion . Poor DH he thought I was going to lamp the bloody
woman.

When we went to Tunisia (Holiday Village Manar - lots of fun) I had the pleasure of seeing a naked frenchman run from his ground floor room to bagsie some sunbeds at the edge of the terrace. His face when he saw me . It was probably about 0530-0545, and I don't think he was expecting to see anyone at that time. I chuckled into my coffee....he went pink every time he saw me from then on (oh and used to wear pants when he was putting his towels out)

It all sounds totally daft. Getting up at ungodly hours, throwing towels around, fighting to the death with other holiday makers, leaving all your wordly goods lying around in public so your lounger will still be there when you come back from your salade nicoise and glass of white wine in the hotel...

It would be simpler to stay at home with a comfy couch and a sun lamp.

Recently we had a pair of sunbeds all morning in a good spot on a cruise ship. I went off to the loo and DH decided to go in the nearby jacuzzi for a bit, so left our towels and books on the loungers. When I came back, maybe 10 mins later he said that the minute he had got in the jacuzzi a man appeared and started turfing our stuff off, DH saw him off. It's a minefield. We watched the pool staff trying to enforce the 30 min rule, it was hopeless, there was just no way of them keeping an eye on hundreds of sunbeds as to whether someone had been gone for 5 mins or several hours.