Originally Posted by
offerendum
The St. Regis has 2 pools. The first is mainly populated by families and is located right next to the restaurant terrace.
Something strange what. that already during breakfast individual chairs were "reserved". I knew something like that (but not from my own experience) only from all inclusive hotels of the cheap kind.
HUGE particular pet peeve of mine. Drives me insane. "Reserving" plain loungers.
Any hotel charging anywhere
near these kinds of impossible rates needs to also have a deck large enough to accommodate loungers for the exact number of rooms booked at capacity, 2 per BR.
They need to either have those chairs out already, crack o dawn every morning, or be able to adjust the amount easily as per bookings.
Either that, or simply don't have a pool to begin with.
Anything in between either starts as a circus, or has a hi likelihood of becoming one quickly.
Guests setting alarms for 6:45am to throw a t-shirt/sunscreen/towel down on a chair to 'reserve' it, then returning to bed and sleeping til noon.
And that kind of circus will always be down to the hotel. Hoping for the best in human nature (while taking 4K a night from them) is not a strategy.
As a related - though far less infuriating - note, while both StR pools look decent enough, that family pool doesn't seem large enough.
Two or three 'families' bathing and "Marco Polo" games won't last more than a few milliseconds.