These hotel pool rules were bonkers

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Stayed in a hotel with a pool this weekend for extended family get together. The pool had to be booked in advance by a group to use it - we knew this in advance. We didn’t know until we collected the key that we would have to have one adult per under 15 year old swimming, and 2 adults for an under 8 year old. This meant for our 5 children to swim in the pool we had to have 6 adults in the pool (kids age 14, 13, 12, 10 and 4).

AIBU for thinking this was health and safety gone mad? Does this actually seem reasonable to people?

Are you sure you understood the rules correctly? I would assume they meant one adult for under 15s and two adults for under 8s. As long as there were two adults present you would be covered for your four year old, and one adult would be enough for the 14, 13, 12 and 10 year old.

If the hotel staff are interpreting the rules differently it’s because they haven’t understood them.

Or parents with twins who would need 4 adults?!!! This seems bonkers and obviously a sly way of putting off children from being in the pool.

Surely someone has misunderstood something somewhere along the line? As a single parent would I be expected to magic 3 extra adults from somewhere to be able to swim?

Even your older kids swimming in nationals is unusual. Well done them.

I've seen 1 adult per 2 kids for under 8s. Think that's normal where we are.

It will be insurance risk. They won't be qualified or able to take the risk of making a decision to approve your use of a lifeguard at short notice. They don't care that your kids are national swimmers (with or without the 4 (and 10? ) year old). I'm guessing you already know this.

Doesn’t make any sense. I’d be getting the manager down to clarify. As surely anybody with a certain number of kids would be unable to use the pool. Same for single parents - which is discrimination. If they didn’t budge I would be telling them they will be getting a detailed Trip Advisor review so others know how tricky it is to use the pool.

Do they actually check? Can’t you just book the slot and all get in. I’d say I assumed a mistake with the writing of the rules as they don’t make sense..

I definitely didn’t misunderstand the rules. I was also very polite and reasonable about them, the receptionist clearly felt awkward and without me challenging her about it went to clarify with the duty manager that this was the situation.

I also agree there are horrible feral children who ruin pools for others but a) no other family would use the pool while my extended family was using it and b) I paid more than £400 for my one night in this hotel which makes me feel more aggrieved about the situation! We had to draft in our great aunts to come sit by the pool to get our numbers to the right level as we only had 4 parents…

Madness OP. I would take this further up the food chain, you might at least get some of your £400 back.

That's ridiculous. The only thing I can think is that is somehow made the hotel's public lability insurance cheaper!

Tbh with 4 children - two of whom could be classed as adults- you'd possibly need 2 rooms. So £200 per room isn't that crazy on a Saturday night .. on the shoulder of half term break for some ....

the children aren’t all mine - some are my nieces & nephews. We had 7 rooms in total though for our family booking.

That is a uniquely impractical requirement - most families with more than one child under eight won't be able to use the pool. A bog standard "picture book" type two parents and two children age seven and five, for example, wouldn't be able to go swimming as a family of four, let alone a single parent - even a single parent of just one seven year old.

How strange.

At 13 my son was a junior English medalist in swimming!
don’t think he really needed parent 🤣

Definitely this, was going to say the same. They don't want loads of unsupervised/barely supervised kids

I'd ask for a partial refund.

Who is actually checking though?

It's a booked pool session, so the receptionist who let's them into the pool area checked.

I always holiday alone with my 3 pre teens - I of which swims for the county! We slwsys choose hotels with pools - in this case we wouldn’t be allowed in - I’d be fuming!!!

That’s massively excessive. I’d expect to be able to go to the pool with 2 under 8’s and not have anyone say anything. But two adults per kid? That’s really bonkers.

I hate things like this. There’s an attraction near me where children under a certain height have to have a 1:1 ratio on rides. So me, a single mother, can’t take my 2 dc on anything who are slightly under the height. Really pisses me off.

This seems very odd as surely it would make it impossible for most people. Thinking of us if we would need 2 adults for our 5 year old and then another for our 10 year old. Or would the 2 adults be sufficient to cover both? If this is really the case they need to be clear on their website. I would def take it further.

That truly is insanity - especially if they were happy with non-swimming great aunts sitting on the side of the pool to "supervise".

That's not what it means 😂

Did the adults have to prove they could swim? Absolutely bonkers.

That’s mental - at 8 my son could swim better than me and by 12 had done life saving skills including CPR and pool rescue as well as being able to swim in clothes and shoes! I still can’t do these things!