Sun lounger towel battles in all inclusive holidays

[Gagamama2]

We are booking our first all inclusive for Oct half term. Looking at reviews many people mention having to get up at 6:30am to put towels on sunloungers in order to secure your lounger for the day. A couple of reviews said they got up at 4:30am to do it?!?

This seems completely ridiculous to me.

We have three young kids and I want some sleep / relaxing time, not to be stressing about sun loungers or having to use ones that are miles away from the pool / ones without shade, because my kids will need supervising in the pool and shade.

Are there unwritten sunlounger rules when going to these resorts or am I within my rights to remove someone’s towels and bag a lounger if they don’t seem to actually be at the sunlounger?? Like if we get down there in the morning and they aren’t to be seen for 15 mins or so, not if they just pop off to use the loo or something?

You cant reserve a public facility by leaving a crappy piece of cloth on it. If no one has used it for 15 minutes toss the towels etc onto another nearby lounger and then move the one you want into a different position. Lie back and enjoy the fireworks when two sets of potential reservers clash.

I just googled images of swim up rooms and they look stunning but don't they get noisy if people want to use the pool late into the evening when you or your children might be wanting to sleep?

Research your options. I personally wouldn’t want to be around the type of people that find this acceptable behaviour.

We are going to Cyprus in October half term and have booked a hotel with a sunbed allocation. This was a big plus for me as I find sunbed wars really stressful which is not what you want on holiday. According to the reviews the allocation system works really well so fingers crossed

I don’t understand this “not in use” idea. We go to the pool when it opens and set up lounges for the four of us. We have towels, sunscreen, googles and snorkels, books and magazines, some plastic tat toys when the kids are younger. That’s our base for the day, and I would say we are using them all day, but of course there are times when all four of us would be in the pool at once, or are getting a drink or lunch from the pool cafe, etc. I shouldn’t have to pack everything up and give up our lounges every time the kids want us to spend 20 minutes in the pool with them. Or even go to lunch for 45 minutes. Do people call that “not using the lounges”? Or do you mean people put their towels down and then disappear for a half day excision to a local attraction?

Oh yes, this is definitely true. I've been to places with multiple pools, and you can easily find loungers if you walk around a bit, but everyone wants the 'main' pool. I do think shade is a bigger issue, there never seem to be enough umbrellas to go round (and don't get me started on the people who hog umbrellas but don't actually use them for most of the day... Again, our recent holiday had the 'pool concierge' removing any umbrellas that weren't being used and giving them to people who wanted them!)

Yes, I would say its the people who bagsy their loungers at 7am and then rock up to them at 3pm are the ones most people are annoyed by. Or where they bagsy 4 loungers and then 1 person sits on them all day and the other 3 people never materialise...

Thanks for the tip, I’ll have a look into those later

Thank you, will do tonight. We have Cyprus and Egypt on the list to look into

@SummerInSun exactly this. We often go down fairly early as it's quiet and cooler. We then might go and grab some breakfast at 10ish. In and out of the pool together, take our time over lunch at the hottest part of the day.
I think it's the people who put their towels out and then bugger off to the beach or on a day trip and arrive back to sit by the pool or have a dip at lunchtime or later. That's what (rightly) pees people off.

Yes I've seen this too! Thought it was a fantastic idea - you choose which sunbed/s you want at the start of the holiday and they are then allocated to you. You can change during your stay to any available beds via reception. Wish more hotels adopted it!

As some PPs have said, swim ups are quite good if you want to have easy access to a pool without sunbed issues. We are doing this in Sharm this October. We were planning to do so anyway but I'm really glad as I've read that although the hotel has a policy of no reserving sunbeds before 8am, the staff will gladly take backhanders and reserve sunbeds for their favourites... Those towels are out of scope for that policy!!

Could you find somewhere that just doesn't allow it? Ive stayed in 'Golden' resorts, a chain with locations all around Spain, and they didn't allow you to take a sunbed until the pool opened at 8.30. We'd usually be down for breakfast at 8 and bring towels with us to take a spot after eating. If towels were left for 1 hour or more without any sign of their owners they would be removed. They were quite strict on this.

@Gagamama2, if you’re looking at Cyprus I can wholeheartedly recommend this place as a lovely family friendly AI. The outside pool(s) area is so huge, you can always get a sun bed, I promise, even if it won’t be directly in front if one of the pools (people do get up early to reserve these). If you can’t seem to find beds, one if the lovely life guards will sort you out (they have spares tucked away) but it won’t be so busy in Oct so you will be fine.

https://louisphaethonbeach.com/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22182745142&gbraid=0AAAAADkk1wrVtk5vSLT2mc9sEPGCxkNiv&gclid=CjwKCAjwtrXFBhBiEiwAEKen1yxY6tOEs12D9AmzKWHF3PCRG8qarb2UeWd7MSyIyV-ZO3nUdag06hoC7bYQAvD_BwE

We also went here (in Tenerife) last year, lovely place where the no reserving sun beds before 10am rule (unless you are actually there, sitting on them) was VERY strictly enforced. It was most satisfying watching the towels being whipped away…

https://marylanza.com/?lang=en&partner=10953&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21577732077&gbraid=0AAAAA-DXIZ_UYGavH0LAkOOWcG0R52FNw&gclid=CjwKCAjwtrXFBhBiEiwAEKen12uZkciySOEcgXeJMQ2fxD63wbGjcFzBVBHTl9oHDuk-an5-ml0OURoC8Z0QAvD_BwE

"Most of the territorial weirdos seem to have gone by then. Not sure where."

To the buffet restaurant to ensure they have the best table with easy access to the food and bar.

We had this at an AI in Turkey. Took kids to adult only pool as it was empty and we had the pick of sunbeds. Queue pool staff going around the main pool, taking towels off loungers for us. interestingly no one came back to the loungers all afternoon. After that we asked the pool staff. They always knew which loungers were reserved not used and freed them up for us.

@Gagamama2

Someone else started a thread about finding a hotel without sunbed wars, and lots of hotels were mentioned that don't have them, there's even some that allocate your sunbeds by your room and you keep them for the duration of your holiday. See below

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/holidays/5238114-allocated-sunbeds-strict-no-towels-left-unattended

This can be very entertaining on cruises.

Not only does the earth turn, so the sun 'moves', but the captain moves the ship about, too. It's very funny when people bagsy a bank of loungers in the sun, only to come back hours later to find they are in deep shade, possibly in the wind, too. Occasionally the reservers don't understand this and start berating people on the other side of the ship, now in the sun, for taking 'their' loungers.

I've never found a shortage of loungers on a cruise and I'm confident that one in a suboptimal spot will improve as the day goes on.

Because all inclusive usually means you are predominantly hotel based. So if you cant get a lounger and your hotel is miles away from anywhere else then that can ruin your holiday.

Op my understanding is that you dont remove towels during meal times. However if a towel is still unattended at say 11am and breakfast finished at 10am, then that towel is fair game. A tip I read on here is to move the actual bed too if you can then the person cant come screeching at you later

I hate it too, but I can't remember the last time I came across.

If you're looking for October half term, then have a look at the Riu Palace hotels in Cape Verde - either Boa Vista or Sal (I've been to both and prefer the hotel in Boa Vista, but there's more to do out of the hotel in Sal). But there are loads of sun beds.

This.
I never understand the angst.
If there's towels where you want to sit and no bugger around, just move the towel yourself!

I’ve not come across any hotels that enforce the ‘no reserving sunlounger’ rule even if they state it on their welcome information. I’m sure there must be some that do this as it gets ridiculous.

We holiday at all inclusive resorts as it’s easier with kids and some people are bonkers. Either getting up at 5am to put a towel down (not what you want to do when you are on holiday) or in some cases where I’ve seen, reserve loungers at multiple pools on the complex which is an absolute mickey take.

We usually get up at 7am and grab sun loungers with shade before breakfast then head straight to them after so I don’t feel guilty to be honest as we are using them and take our towels when we’ve finished.

This year we had a ground floor room right by one of the main pools so we just left our towels on our terrace and could walk straight into the pool area which was great as no need to stress about a bed.

I must admit that sunbed wars are the biggest downside to this type of holiday and I agree it’s mainly all inclusive ones as people tend to stay at the complex all day.

Currently in Gran Canaria. Not AI but if you reserve loungers before 10am then staff remove them. It’s well managed so people don’t do it. We came down at 9am today and there was loads of available ones. Interestingly Trip Advisor reviews complained about lack of subbed so need to take reviews with a pinch of salt!

Beach during the day with a parasol. Sunloungers by the pool early evening, though I love early evening at the beach..

Worth paying a few hundred pounds more to avoid the social detritus that scrap for sunbeds and get up early to 'reserve' their beds; at a better resort.