Good for you celcat

As someone who has relocated a few towels i can only say .. well done Celcat

And a big well done from me also!

This issue actually causes a lot of friction around the pool area in a lot of complexes - Ive seen folk get really irate - either if their towel is "moved" from where they reserved it - or folk who cant get one and sit there looking at the swathes of towels around the pool area and half of them not used.

Ive never done it and in actual fact find it amusing to watch from the balcony at times! - I do appreciate the genuine folk who like to be up early and have a coffee watching the early morning activities as has been posted here -

- but when we stayed in the Paraiso apartments in Alcudia a couple of years ago there used to be folk sitting down there at 6.30am in the morning in the dark! shivering under towels - this was because the pool attendants would remove the reserved towels if there was no one sitting there and it was so obvious that they were "waiting" till the rest of their family came down and looked SO unhappy that I sort of wondered why they spent two or three hours there just for the sake of getting a sunbed -ah well its their holiday and whatever floats their boat!

Personally if there are none at the pool when we leave the apartment around 9am I shrug my shoulders and go to the beach - its just not worth any of my precious holiday time!

My sister & I are early risers on holidays - usually around 7 - 7.30. We pull on a kaftan, & take the towels down to the pool - we don't like the beach much. We go back to the room, wash, bathing suits on, wake the men and we're off to go. We do leave the towel there while we get brekkie, but only for 1/2 hour or so, & the same at lunch. If we go for a walk then we remove the towels.

But at least you are using them more or less straight away Helen.

Its not an issue for me personally, it doesnt annoy me but I do feel sorry for - say parents who are getting young children up and dressed and fed - maybe want to take them to the pool and sit near them for safety's sake - then they arrive down and every bed has been taken - with folk who you dont see till 10.30am or 11.00am...........the whole "reserving" thing just doesnt sit well with me - and its not really anyones "fault" - its the whole ethos now that if you put a towel on it - it "belongs" to you...........

and it gets crazier and crazier with folk having to get up earlier and even putting them on the night before - its like a scene from Fawlty Towers or something!

One scenario that was even WORSE than the sunbed hogging was last year when we stayed in Paris -it was a very small hotel and very hard to get a table at breakfast - we stood with juice and cereal - couldnt get a table - believe it or not there was a table where folk had poured a bit of tea in a cup and left a bit of unbuttered toast sitting on a plate so the table would look "used"............we eventaually found a table and half an hour later this family came down - obviously mum or dad had been sent down to "reserve" it I couldnt believe that one!

And yes they were British!

If everyone in the hotel is doing it then we feel we have no choice but to do it too just to get a bed . Having said that we never leave the bed's unoccupied unless it's for a break for lunch and we never reserve beds if we are going off somewhere. My Son usually goes and puts towels on the beds but stays with them until we join him which isn't long after. At the aparthotel we stayed at last year they had a really good system, if any beds had towels on but were unoccupied, they put a sticker on the towels then if they were still unoccupied after a certain amount of time the towels got removed. It worked, you could easily get a bed and it stopped people reserving

Good idea that!
Put stickers on any unused beds every hour! If they have a sticker on from the previous hour then remove towels!
If this operation was inplace and everybody was made aware of it at check in then it'd put a stop to it! Only problem with it is you may get some naughty kids placing the stickers elsewhere like when their nan goes for a quick swim! lol

The situation that Helen T described is fine, i don't really have any issue with the 1/2 hour timescale. It's the people who go for a 4 hr lunch and leave their towels

When i'm Castell Montgri it isn't a problem ... i refuse to pay the ridiculous charges for loungers so i just kick them out of the way and lie on my towel

i enjoy sitting on my balcony with my morning cuppa watching people go down to place their towels, if i cant get a bed by the time im ready with the kids then i go to the beach or take a walk, its the kids that enjoy the pool mostly so we do try to get down there early at least a couple of times, but i only ever use 2 sunbeds for me and hubby, the kids when they finally get out the pool share ours, even tho they are 16 and 12 they dont really need the beds

After nearly a week of not being able to get a sunbed because of people reserving them at
"stupid o'clock" and not actually surfacing until after lunchtime. I have removed towels off beds.

Jeez - there was MURDER! Absolute BLUE MURDER!
(and yes, I was told to do it by the reception. )

NEVER AGAIN!

I don't need that sort of grief (don't need any sort of grief - I get enough at home which is
why my holidays are so very precious to me and mine.)

Here in the UK, I HAVE to be up at 5am - 5.30am at the very latest.
I'll be damned if I am also going to get up at stupid o'clock when I am on holiday just to get a
sunbed that I should be entitled to.
(Even though I am always up and about by 7.30am anyway...my body clock won't let me lie in. )

But principles won't allow me (or my husband - and the kids dare not!) to go down to the pool and
reserve sunbeds.

I know how I feel when I go down to the pool and I can't get a bed, and I wouldn't inflict that feeling
on anyone else.
Daft - maybe. It's just the way I am.

Staff at the hotels/apartments should enforce their supposed policies of no reserving sunbeds.
There should be signs up, and if they are ignored, the towels etc should be removed by the staff
and not the poor innocent holiday maker (i.e. me! )

(Those stickers on the beds sound like a very good idea.)

Can't think of anything worse than not being able to get a sunbed. I get up before 8am on holidays and venture out to the lounger, book in hand as soon as I've put on my suncream. I 'reserve' 3 extra beds for my party who follow shortly afterwards. Apart from a half hour breakfast break and just a bit longer for lunch we are 'parked' on our beds for the day- usualy retiring for a siesta (along with our towels) at around 4pm. Sad you may think, but each to their own. We do have the occasional day when we go on a trip or a walk to the beach, where we wouldn't dream of reserving a sunbed.

It's a long time ago, because now I prefer to holiday at lesser known destinations, and stay in small hotels. But I have seen it all, people putting towels on sunbeds in the garden areas in the evenings, only to find them sodden in the morning, as the sprinklers had been on overnight. Some guests even admitting to setting the alarm for 5am, to go and reserve a bed, then going back to bed till 9am.Then there was always the system of bribing the pool attendant, who would willing do it for you.
And yes they were all British.
x lassi

Forgot to say, that if it's just hubby & I on hols, then we never reserve beds. Sometimes though we go as a group of 6, and then its nice to have beds together.

never needed to save sunbeds as i'm usually up and about at 5 or 6 am. also the apartments i have been to before had enough beds for everyone. don't know whether i will be that lucky this year as i'm not going to the same place. i'm not that bothered really as it's just me this year.

A good friend of ours went to Cyprus recently and at the hotel they booked you were allocated beds, If you were not keen on the position you could request a move as and when they became available . Also after 1pm it became a free for all .

Sounds very civilised and a lot less hassle.

I wouldn't see it as a problem if one of the party was there and saved a bed for their partner or even a couple of beds or if people have been there all morning and go of for lunch for ½ an hour. What I think is pure selfishness is people who lay towels out on 6 beds at the crack of dawn, then none of them appear till lunchtime

I just chuck the towels in the pool, or move them from the sunbed. Im not going to use the broken/shaded sunbed while they are off out somewhere!

Hiya Greeny

Youre lucky to even GET a broken one at times

But yes I think its selfish - swathes of dozens of towels around the area and about three people actually sitting there!

I would love to see people's faces when they come back and find their towels at the bottom of the pool