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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Towels on sunloungers- scourge of the holiday

218 replies

Kiddiewinks2008 · 15/08/2016 09:36

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!)

OP posts:

exLtEveDallas · 16/08/2016 10:33

Well the food in different counties is, umm, different.

The drinks in different counties are, different

The vegetation... the entertainment.... the poolside.... the beaches.... The rooms ..... The staff.... the spa treatments.... The facilities... The heat... The snorkelling... The diving... the guests... The camaraderie...

Fuck. I'm boring myself now!

HeddaLettuce · 16/08/2016 10:37

More fool the lot of you for sitting on the ground/not lying out because people have towels on loungers!
Take the sodding towels off and lie down, its really not that difficult. If there is one thing worse than lounger reservers its the people who whine that their holiday was ruined by it, when all they had to do was one simple arm movement!

HeddaLettuce · 16/08/2016 10:39

Reserving loungers on the way to breakfast- I'd prefer not to, but if it's the only way I can get a nice spot I'll do it

And I'll remove your towel while you're eating your crossaints!

NavyandWhite · 16/08/2016 10:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SirChenjin · 16/08/2016 11:01

Lands End to John O'Groats in the UK v a trip to the pyramids and a bus tour through a country I'll probably only visit a couple of times in my life with one of the wonders of the ancient world at the other end...hmmm, let me think there for a nanosecond.

Nope, you're fine thanks

exLtEveDallas · 16/08/2016 11:15

(It's the whining DH really isn't it?)

youarenotkiddingme · 16/08/2016 11:18

The problem seems to be the extreme reactions reserving sun beds provokes in people!

There's people here saying if they find an empty subbed they'd remove the stuff and sit on it. Totally ignoring the fact someone may just be in loo or nipped to bar for a drink.

There has to be some common sense and understanding.

There's an obvious difference between people that have 8 sun beds right next to the pool with 3/4 towels spread sideways over them who haven't appeared by lunchtime and a sun lounger with towels and sun team and book etc that have been empty for an hour, towels are wet so obviously been used.

Last year where Ds and I stayed we had to walk past pool to restaurant. So I took bag with cream etc, lilo, fun tyre and towels down when we went and put them on a bed on the way. I don't find it relaxing to keep going up and down to the room to get stuff.
I left stuff there a few days to nip to mini golf for 30 minutes or for Ds to play in park. Go to lunch or whatever. These days I did not leave the hotel. I was not however wasting time lugging everything up and down the stairs to my room as its not relaxing!

There were guests who left just towels all day and would turn up at 4pm to the pool. I never could work out why because there was usually loads of beds by then!

And if there's no bed. Meh, I'll just plonk my lilo on the floor and use that!

exLtEveDallas · 16/08/2016 11:25

We went to a hotel in Morocco once where the guests were taking sunbeds and umbrellas back to their rooms at night . I'd never seen anything like it. Bloody ridiculous it was.

I'd be at the pool at 6am and the 'front row' of beds would be already reserved. One morning I came down and all the towels AND beds were in the water. Turned out someone had come off the piss at about 3am and seen red.

After that the hotel chained them up and you had to request them from the pool man - I got a good spot from then on!

SirChenjin · 16/08/2016 11:30

Definitely Eve

heron98 · 16/08/2016 11:39

I have never been on a hotel/pool type holiday before. Now I really don't want to!

limitedperiodonly · 16/08/2016 11:44

I went to Egypt specifically to see the sights. In a two-week holiday we stayed in Aswan, Luxor and Cairo. We saw lots, including an optional and added cost plane trip to Abu Simbel, which was moved for the construction of the Aswan Dam.

If I was to return to Egypt I'd stretch it to three weeks because it was hectic and involved a lot of 5am starts. But that meant we could always come back and sleep while sunbathing by the pool by about 4pm so I got a good tan too, which is also part of my dream holiday.

The pool staff in all the hotels were very strict about sun loungers. You were not allowed to reserve them. They were smilingly ruthless in removing towels and personal belongings from loungers that were left abandoned for more than two hours - including those taken by family groups with absent family members - and would keep them safe for collection. It was perfect, because whatever time you arrived, they could usually find you somewhere to lie. And because they took charge, you didn't have to row with people or stand about looking sad.

I enjoy beach holidays were I do nothing all day, every day. But even I would see it as a bit of a pity to go to Egypt and do that.

HeddaLettuce · 16/08/2016 11:52

There's people here saying if they find an empty subbed they'd remove the stuff and sit on it. Totally ignoring the fact someone may just be in loo or nipped to bar for a drink

Not at all. You can tell if someone is actually using it, there will be a book, or suncream, or a sarong, or the towel will be mussed at least. It's really obvious when towels are just laid out and no-one is using it at all. Thats when you remove the towels.

HeddaLettuce · 16/08/2016 11:53

I only use the sunbed for an hour or so anyway, which is why I would never reserve one , and why I'm not letting other people keep them for that hour that I need it and they don't.

It's just fairness.

Sirzy · 16/08/2016 12:00

Surely you just say to the other people nearby "has anyone been at these?" If the answer is "yes they just nipped off a few minutes ago" you go elsewhere. If the answer is "we have been here 3 hours and nobody has been near" you are free to use them.

limitedperiodonly · 16/08/2016 12:15

You'd think that would work sirzy, but people lie and you know they're doing it.

That's why I like sun lounger attendants who just remove them after a period of vacancy even when people protest that their child or husband is in the pool. I think the best of them have eagle eyes and a stop watch

youarenotkiddingme · 16/08/2016 12:16

Hedda I love the fact you've quoted me and then not quoted the bit I out underneath which is pretty much identical to what you wrote!

Sirzy hello. And stop being the voice of sense and reason

SirChenjin · 16/08/2016 12:37

Surely you just say to the other people nearby "has anyone been at these?"

Yes of course, but they may not know, or they may not speak your language, or they not be next to the unoccupied sunlounger.

I wouldn't leave stuff lying on my lounger if I was going to take one of the DCs to the toilet, so that isn't an indication of whether or not I'm using it. Equally, a mussed towel could have been like that for a long time.

wasonthelist · 16/08/2016 12:48

Off topic - what is "mussed" in this context? Never heard it before.

SirChenjin · 16/08/2016 12:54

Mussed = messed up

breakfastbap · 16/08/2016 13:41

I'll never forget a trip to Benidorm where sunbeds were like gold dust in a huge hotel.

The doors were locked until 8am to stop people reserving loungers.
DH and I used to watch over the balcony every morning as a literal stampede of people would swarm out, towels over their arms at 8am. People would be fighting over beds and pulling them off one another. It was carnage there. The pool attendants and cleaners would stand around and watch the spectacle, almost in stitches as overweight, tattooed men and women screamed at each other and fought over the best space.

We didn't return, it was like a scene from shameless..

tygarugby · 16/08/2016 17:47

It seems to be

Marysunshine · 16/08/2016 18:35

Shift the towels and move su beds to a different location - enjoy your holiday

INeedANameChange · 16/08/2016 19:19

Just as bad at the 5* places. We had to line up at 7am to get a lounger, then let the rest of the family head off for breakfast. Fortunately I don't eat breakfast so I just waited with our stuff. The signs clearly say no reserving and that towels will be removed after an hour but it never happened.

We tend to use them all day though with only the odd ten minute pool dip.

That said, it did kind of annoy me that people would wander down at 11am and be pissed that there were no sun loungers. If you want em, get up early!

scarednoob · 16/08/2016 20:00

we're staying at my dad's holiday cottage in Cornwall this week. It's in the grounds of a nice but tiny hotel where it sits around the pool along with a few other villas in a horseshoe shape. The villa clearly has a little rockery and pathway to mark the entrance, ie each villa is very clearly self contained.

Today we watched as some twat came down from the hotel and made a beeline for our sun loungers. He carried them away to the other side of the pool! Had he knocked and asked, we would have said sure but please return them. As it was, we asked for them back at once. He swore and got really arsey about it.

It's one thing to nick loungers when you're round a big hotel pool - but to walk onto someone else's garden to do it?? And to swear when you are asked politely to return it?!

I hope a seagull shits on his head.

BeJayKayven · 16/08/2016 20:09

That's utterly pathetic behaviour. What a twat!

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