To design a new sunbed policy?

[BeanCalledPickle]

Right. I am so over the holiday sunbed wars. Just back from a place where we were woken every morning to people moving sunbeds around and draping them with towels at 7am. Few returned for much of the day. My favourite bit was when there was a storm and I’d say 80pc of the towels were left out. If you were on site clearly you’d go back and retrieve your towel before it chucked down, right?

so how do we solve this? If no one rocked up with a towel then surely there would be enough to go around? Should lifeguards remove them after thirty mins? What is the solution? We can’t all afford swim up rooms. Hell, I’m hard pushed to pay for the holiday in the first place!!

solutions please! What shall we do?

Give every guest a matching towel on the sunbed. You only get a sunbed if you are lying on it. If you get up off the sunbed take your towel with you or the staff will take it and replace with a fresh towel - freeing the bed.

But what about when I’m in the pool? Where do I store my towel if I have to free up the bed??

My solution: all hotels have exactly the right number of sunbeds for rooms. Each room is randomly allocated sunbeds each morning. Any groups of sunbeds unoccupied for more than 1hr are cleared. This will be monitored by armed (water pistol) guards.

I heard about one where they blew a whistle every few hours or so and everyone had to get out of the pool and sit on their sun bed and any bed unoccupied had the towels removed!

The hotels need to have sufficient sun beds that people don't have to go round panicking that they can't get one.

I like the idea of guards armed with water pistols

At ours, they put a note on your towel, if you didn’t remove the note (ie return) within half an hour, they took your towel. It seemed to work.

Or get Billy the lifeguard from Stranger Things into the place. People wouldn't mess about then with towels!

I’ve just been on holiday and the rules were:

• No reserving sunbeds before 10.45am (so could sit on them before then but not leave towels on unattended. Towels and belongings left on beds unattended before this time were taken by lifeguard).
• After 10.45am, reserve only for maximum 1 hour unattended, for for example to go for lunch. Towels left unattended, the lifeguard puts a ticket tucked under the towel with the time he’s seen it (eg 13.25) and the time it will be reserved to (so in that case 14.25). If not back by 14.25, towels/belongings taken. If back before 14.25 you just remove the ticket.

Oh and if anyone wants to drop some names of hotels with good sun bed policies, ideally in Ibiza, this would be handy!!!

Why not go to selfcatering and enjoy the luxury of not having to deal with the general public!

This is a good solution. Expecting the life guard to remember how long each individual sunbed has been claimed but deserted is too much. Butbthis note idea is good.

Jellymaker I so would. But my pesky kids love a resort and making friends. I enjoy them doing that and leaving me alone. To hunt for a sunbed for hours.

Go to a hotel that has the right number of sun beds to holiday makers, not cheap but worth every penny. Also swim up rooms, not one linked to a big pool though!

This sounds good, as does the whistle. I can easily spend more than 30 mins in the pool, but could happily get out every 30 mins to move a note.

I just hope it really isn't lifeguards doing it... they've got more important things to be looking at....

They can put a little cubby hole thing for towels by the pool, like with shoes at a bowling alley

100pc up for the cubby hole towel holder hotel

Just came back from a holiday in Italy and every room had its allocated sunbeds which had a particular number. No issues whatsoever as everyone had their specific sunbed(s).

The only problem is what do you do with all your stuff (eg book, bag, suncream) if you go to the pool, loo, bar etc? I think a half hour/hour limit somehow would be good, but not immediate!

this every time. the hotel we are in at the moment has loads of sunbeds. you could have 3 each if you wanted.

Where are these magical hotels?

my other bug bear is reserving beds for kids who then spend exactly sod all time on them

But what if you want one in the shade, or one in the sun, or you have kids so want to be right at the pool edge etc?

we are in fuerteventura so not a long haul/luxury destination.

again here you get a parasol with every 2 beds. so put it up if you what shade put it down if you don’t. i personally don’t like to be near the pool (might be splashing) but honesty there are loads of beds. you could move many times if you wanted.

More expensive hotels tend to have bigger pool areas, meaning more room for sun beds and less need for towel wars. I've been to a few places that have two sun beds for every room, with the room number stamped on them.