All inclusive 1st time- please help!

[MotherOfShihTzus]

Hello, we are heading off on our first all inclusive type holiday to Lanzarote tomorrow, it will also be our first trip abroad with our almost 3 year old (wish us luck! 😆)

How does it work in terms of getting breakfast and getting a place at the pool? Our toddler sleeps really well in the mornings so might be hard to get pool time in before, and I'm worried we won't get a base to set up camp by the pool. Is it the norm to reserve beds with towels? I've never done it but wouldn't want to rub people up the wrong way.

Im just anxious about everything atm - please help 😂

I think this probably depends on the hotel - some are stricter than others about reserving beds / removing towels. If you look at the trip advisor reviews for your hotel there will probably be others who have mentioned what is normally done.

I'm not a fan of reserving beds but last time we went to an all inclusive everyone was at it, mostly empty beds with towels on! We could usually find some beds but not always together / in a prime spot though.

Depends on the hotel. One of you can go down and reserve the beds if it's a thing. With a 3 year old you'll mostly be in the water anyway?

I think retain the moral high ground and don't reserve beds and enjoy your lie ins!
You can usually ask pool staff to find an extra sunbed if there are none available or just remove one off the reserved beds if no one is using it. Most people are pretty reasonable.

It will depend on the hotel, but I can say that I’ve never had a problem getting sun beds later in the day - especially this time of year, outside of school holidays. You should be fine to have a lazy morning then find somewhere by the pool later on!

We used to take it in turns to go down early, grab a couple of sunbeds, then and have a coffee, read a book, watch the world go by until the other parent came down with the toddler and we all went to breakfast together. After breakfast we'd head back to the spot by the pool where we'd left our things.

See what others are doing! If you can’t beat them join them!
hopefully people won’t reserve them though.

It really depends on the hotel, but I think that at this time of year, during term time, you should be fine. Some hotels have rules and enforce them. Some hotels have rules but don’t bother to enforce them. Some hotels have no rules at all. Other hotels actually have a reservation or allocation system.
At hotels I’ve stayed at recently in Rhodes and Malta, there’s been a one hour window where the hotel would take towels off and put them on the side if the person was not there. They would do hourly checks and stand by the lounger. If no one claimed it ( like if they were in the pool) then they would move the towel. Another hotel I stayed in Sa Coma Majorca had a two hour window.
You could type 'sunbeds' into the search box on the hotel's Trip Advisor page. You'll find out if a scrum is the norm and what rules there are.

The restaurant will usually have set times for early breakfast, late breakfast, lunch, dinner etc.

Depending on the hotel they will probably have a snack bar open between these times too.

They should tell you all this when you check in though. Hard to tell with sun beds depends how busy it is but the general rule is you can’t reserve beds and I’m sure the staff will help you.

Last hotel I stayed at said beds unoccupied for more than 90mins would be released