Towels on sunloungers- scourge of the holiday

[Kiddiewinks2008]

I'm on holiday in france and theres a lovely pool with lots of sunloungers but always very busy.
Theres this one british family that go up there in the morning, take posession of 3 loungers and leave their towels there all day. We went up the other day & had to sit on the floor as there were none available but said family had gone off for lunch & came back 1 hour later leaving towels on loungers. I have been watching them and they do it every day. The day we had to sit on the floor, I moved one of their towels & took posession of one of their 3 loungers and when they came back the man complained as now they only had 2!
Aibu to think that this is just not reasonable behaviour?
(I am being slightly tongue in cheek with my post but I do think they are selfish twats!)

I just take the towels off, leave them neatly folded somewhere and use the lounger myself.

I don't know really.

Me and DD get to our open air pool on the dot of opening and get our two (or sometimes just one) sunloungers. Obviously, we play in the pool, get out, go for a coke etc. The number of times people wander in a few hour later when the pool is packed and we are in it, try and take our loungers, is amazing.

We are six feet away in the water FGS. So is it just when you're actually on the bed? In which case every time you have a dip it's a free for all.

Also, I think if you are buying lunch at the pool and are away for an hour, so what, you got there early to get your place and you are spending all day there and have paid to use and eat at the premises.

What about going to the loo?

People going out for the day is crazy and obviously selfish though.

Reckon they use them for about 3 hours- the rest of the day they arent there! Another person said to us the other day that she had been there 2 hours and they werent there for all of that. Am going to move them today if they do it again

this is why I always go to a hotel with a beach nearby and pay for loungers. No way am I getting involved in that shit! At 8am on holiday last week EVERY lounger had a towel on and there were about 5 mums/dads with littllies. Awful.

I'm bolshy confident but even I wouldn't be moving towels off; i just couldn't deal with the fallout of that whilst on holiday living in close proximity to the 'perps' for two weeks

YANBU This happened to me in a 5 star. After an hour I moved the towels (this was just after breakfast so clearly reserved rather than people just slipped away). Cue irate 50-something couple screaming at me and swearing. I smiled and told them to please go away as they were ruining everyone's enjoyment of the facilities.

Tbh I don't lounge around much so this was an unusual lazy day by the pool for me which is probably why I was so bolshy. Couldn't be doing with that every day when you're supposed to be on a relaxing holiday!

Yanbu my step sister does, then she actually has a go at us because we aren't as rude as her and won't 'reserve' them when we aren't bloody using them! They're being twats, I would move their stuff.

It happens everywhere. When we stayed at a hotel in Cyprus you were allocated sun loungers to your room. Bloody brilliant idea.

No problem with people leaving their towels why they go for lunch. I'd say anything longer than an hour and you should pack up.

The problem is the people who 'reserve' the loungers on the way to breakfast. I desperately wanted to go round during breakfast and throw all the towels in the pool, but I'm not brave enough! Staff should have removed them though.

I tend to put my towel on a bed - because everyone else does! But I use 1 for both DS and I. Plus I never do it if we are not going to be at pool for the day.
I usually go down 830/9 on way to breakfast and it never ceases to amaze me how much of a search I have for just 1 lounger!!!

Ice i read a review on trip advisor where someone did just that. They'd been going down to the pool after breakfast every morning but all the loungers were marked with towels, but no bodies on them.
One day he chucked every towel in the pool .
I suspect there was carnage.

I don't think its a courtesy thing at 5 star hotels Itslikerain (in my experience fellow guests at 5 stars are often over entitled with sniffy attitudes and so aren't going out of their way to be courteous to others), its more that there is a better sun bed to guest ratio so it is rare not to find a couple available. Fewer rooms and bigger pool?

I've never had a problem at a 5 star - reserving sun loungers still goes on so you might not get a sun bed precisely in the prime spot, but you will find a sun lounger at any time of the day. Perhaps its also because 5 stars tend not to be 'all inclusive' so guests will leave the hotel more during the day...or also because many also have private beaches too?

I salute Matilda's approach - putting the towels to one side and then craftily moving the sun loungers so the returning sun bed hoggers can't work out who took 'their' sun loungers

DH and I went to Fuertenventura last year. There was a rooftop terrace that was favoured by the older people there and our room over looked it and the pool. Every night when we'd be closing the doors for bed, there they'd be putting out their towels for the morning!

We went to a different hotel in Fuerteventura this year, there was loads of sunbeds and so many places to put them but people were still down there getting the one they wanted in "their" spot at the crack of dawn!

I have just arrived back from Lanzarote. I rise early so started taking towels down to reserve a lounger or two at about 7am. Usually by that time about a third to half of the loungers would already be reserved!

Madness. But I still did it.

There's all sorts of YouTube videos of arseholes reserving beds before breakfast, they are hilarious. One of them is set to Grand National type commentary it's so bad 😂 I don't think it depends on the star rating either, selfish entitled twats have no borders.
Like a pp I only go to hotels where there is a beach place or pool place included, no way I'm getting involved in that crap.

Not allowed to do it on the beach in Italy
Hotels though, I move them. If you're eating breakfast, going for a shower, whatever, tough. If you're not going to be on the lounger in the next hour, then I'll damn well use it.

i can't bear it, we stay in villas now. but what i can't believe is that at DCs school, parents are now doing this for the school performances (nativity, harvest, end year play etc). They turn up early, book the front rows with their coats, scarfs and bags (often for more than one family at a time) then bugger off for a drink and come back just before the performance and take up their front row seats. Makes my blood boil!

The hotel I go to in Paphos has a sunbed allocation system. Every room is allocated a parasol, 2 beds and chair and a table. Your room number is attached. They have enough loungers for everyone. If there is a need for 3 beds they will drag in another lounger. Bloody marvellous system, don't know why other hotels can't do it!

trinity - which hotel? I want to go there

We stayed in lovely, not 4 or 5 star though, apartments in Corfu this year... And there were more than enough sun loungers to go round.
So much more relaxing than the tense battle that can take place.

I can't even imagine a holiday which involves sitting around a pool fighting towel warfare for a plastic chair for an entire day. This whole thing is bizarre to me and something I only became aware of once living in Britain.

On your marks, set... Go!