To take towels off "reserved" sunbeds?

[Nancy91]

Every time I go on holiday there are people reserving the hotel's sunbeds by putting their towels on them at stupid o'clock in the morning, or even the night before! When I see that nobody has been on these "reserved" beds for an hour or so, I just fold the towels and put them on the floor and we go on the beds. Ok, it's slightly awkward when the people eventually come back, but I have paid for the holiday too, and lying on a towel on the floor isn't ideal when there are sunbeds that aren't even being used!

Does anyone else move the towels? My partner reckons it's a bit rude.

I don't but I suggest that you swap the towels around a bit so that they are placed randomly to confuse the hoggers. (I take no responsibility for the consequences)

It's probably a bit rude but so is reserving something public all day when you're only planning to use it for a bit.

Can you leave the towel laid out and move the sunbed?

I would ask the hotel what their policy is. Most don't allow people to reserve but dont enforce the policy. If that is the case, ask a member of hotel staff to remove them.

The last couple of beach holidays we went on (2011, 2013) the resorts wouldn't allow this to happen and after speaking to friends who have a beach holiday every year, that said the same about most places they visited. I'd check with the hotels policy but I'd move them defiantly!

Beach holidays aren't for me but, if it was me I'd get up early and put my towel down too, instead of touching other people's. It could always turn nasty.

I would remove and have done so.

Many times.

Rude to reserve them like that in the first place so I'd see their rudeness and raise it by --dropping their towel in the pool

If you ask hotel they normaly move them, or you could do what i seen a guy do and fling them in the pool

It probably would be easier to hide the fact it was me if I moved the bed away or randomly placed their towels somewhere else, good thinking

I have heard there is a policy in most hotels but I didn't want to waste the staff's time on something I can do, if you get what I mean. But yeah I don't like touching other people's belongings so maybe I will do that this time.

It just seems really selfish when you see families that have nowhere to sit, but nobody is going to use the beds all day.

Ooo I don't think I'd have the guts to put them in the pool

Most places don't allow reserving sunbeds unless you are in the pool.

Maybe you could put all the reserving towels onto a single sunbed as a sort of sop to them, and then if anyone turns up to use their reservation they'll have to move all the other towels to do so.

Imo only a fool would lie on the ground whilst surrounded by empty sun beds occupied only by a towel/sun hat etc. Check hotel policy and ask the staff to remove but if they won't I would dump their stuff and move the bad so they can't be sure who has taken their space.

We stayed in a resort last year where left stuff was taken to lost property. It still happened though.

We all know the buggers who do this - they're not just popping back to their room, or in the pool, or buying ice cream - they've put the towel down and buggered off for hours relying on the fact that other people will have better manners than them and leave the towels there

Shift them. Fold them and place away from the sunbeds. Either play dumb and say there was no towel when you got there, or say yep. I moved it - whatcha gonna do?!

I ask the hotel to remove them. The staff have usually noticed which sunloungers have towels but have not been used for a while.

At our resort anything left for 30 mins is removed by staff.
There are loads of loungers though.

When we were in Turkey in 2015, the hotel had signs up telling people not to reserve sunbeds. People were still getting up at 4am (our room overlooked the main pool - we could hear the scraping) to put their towels out & then disappearing back to bed.

After several complaints during the first week - from people unable to find sunbeds at a very reasonable 9am, when others were reserved for people who only appeared after lunch - another sign went up saying towels would be removed.

Sure enough, at about 7am the next day (I was sitting on our balcony watching), the pool attendants went around removing all towels & dumping them in one huge pile. They then proceeded to hose the whole area down - so most of the towels ended up wet!

There were some very disgruntled people that day but funnily enough it seemed to solve the 4am reservation issue!

You can quite easily tell them if they confront you that their towel was not on the bed when you sat down on it and it wouldn't even be a lie - you don't have to tell them that was because you had removed the towel before you sat down on it.

It is a bit rude, but they were more rude by hogging the beds in advance so they can't complain. Yanbu.

Don't go on the kind of holidays where this is an issue. I think it would make me too stressed to have to face that kind of petty crap every day

Yes I'd move them.

Sucks

I always go down in the morning and put towel on bed on the way to breakfast! We sit there and put cream on and then go eat! Then we sit and read/chat before using pool.

I always want a bed in the shade though so I'm rarely fighting anyone for a space

If I wanted to sit on a bed and there is a towel on one that isn't being used I would definitely move it, or ask staff to.

The hotel we stayed in last year had an excellent system, no reserving before 10am, and then they had a staff member supervising the area until then. If you wanted a particular sunbed you had to be there, on the bed until 10am, then they were all fair game. It worked brilliantly.