callmedtop

I've resigned myself to no longer to travel to hotels that enable guests to wake up at the crack of dawn to "reserve" spots by placing a magazine on a chair, only to return 6 hours later. Tipping the pool staff the night before is better, but not by much. I find the whole system appalling and infuriating. I'm usually up early anyways to participate, but I refuse to play a part in what I think is incredibly rude and selfish behavior. Especially at a hotel that is $1K+ per night.

Am I alone in feeling this way? How is this behavior allowed by hotel management? One system I saw (though I can't remember) is an hourglass - if you leave a spot, the hotel puts a 2-hour hourglass at your chair, and once it runs out they pull your stuff and puts it behind the pool desk.

This seems to be a US phenomenon, but maybe I'm mistaken. I certainly have never seen it in Asia, but that may be a function of the hotels I've stayed at there.

FlyerEC

Well , it is really where you have been staying . Know you have generally chosen wisely in Asia 😊 ; sadly this anti social & bad habit certainly happens too 🙄 from what I gather ..
See you in an Aman soon 🤞🏻. Or even perhaps in between like Kokomo ..

Aventine

I've seen it done by some foreigner guests at non Luxury Forum chain resorts in Southeast Asia. The entire day would go by and they just keep their stuff there. Never seen it happen at an Aman or top luxury hotel.

Often1

It's really a matter for the property management. At a $1K/night+ property one would expect the staff to clear out the stuff left behind and have it held at a towel counter or somesuch after an hour or two.

On the other hand, at a property charging that much, there ought to be enough chairs.

jah718

Do you have any examples of $1k+ per night hotels where this happens?

Personally, this has never happened at the very high end hotels I have stayed at, which usually have enough chairs. This seems like more of an issue at lower end holiday destination hotels.

KatW

I expect this happens at larger properties which, per se, don’t match my criteria for a luxury establishment.

Pausanias

Obviously any hotel which requires you to do this demeaning activity is not a luxury hotel. End of story.

offerendum

Exactly.

warakorn

But the problem could be that there are simply not enough chairs.
I can tell you that small kids in countries like the UK or Germany learn pretty fast to get up early to reserve the sun chairs (near the pool). So, it's a cultural thing.
If the hotels took away the magazines/towels after one hour, there would be an outcry and the hotel may loose valuable business (esp. from tour operators). As the Germans are considered to be the world champions in that kind of thing, the hotel would receive thousands of complaints and demands for refunds.

Anyway, I have never seen such behaviour at pool in places like Hongkong, Sanya, Singapore, thr US, Dubai/Sharja, French Carribean. But where I am seeing it are Canary Islands, Thailand, Mallorca, Turkey, Sochi, Egypt.
So in my eyes it depends on where to which countries the classical tour operator travellers are sent to.

Search towel wars on Youtube:

callmedtop

There is a thread also going on in this board just in the past 24 hours about the FS Maui where this is typical behavior.

I have personally seen it in various other luxury properties. I saw it at the Four Seasons Dubai, the St Regis Bahia Beach, and the Breakers Palm Beach. I also saw it at Ventana Big Sur and Belmond El Encanto. I even saw it at Auberge du Soleil. I’m not saying there were no spots available, but I am saying that a decent portion (the best seats) were reserved in the early morning and then sat empty for hours. At some properties, the only remaining spots were clearly the least appealing areas.

Some of these are not perhaps true luxury vs the top of the top, but given their rates were well over $1k/night given peak season, it seems worthy of a discussion here.

livefromtuscany

I have frequently seen this in Europe as well. In Italy for instance, there are many hotels that have fewer sunbeds than guests. In the past, the calculation was that a certain percentage of guests will always be out on sightseeing trips and excursions. With Covid, that has changed significantly, last year most guests stayed in the hotel all day long.

Arriving at 4 in the afternoon to find all sunbeds occupied is not a good start to a holiday, when paying top $ in high season. And then staff just shrugging, telling you ‘sorry’

TBD

Has anyone ever just ... removed the towel and turned the book in as lost/found?

warakorn

The fundamental issue is that with (e.g. 300) hotel guests, the hotel cannot provide 300 sun chairs at the best spots (near the pool, with shadow etc.).
Because the sun chairs stay occupied for 100% of the time, while they are really utilized maybe 20% of the time -> the problem arises. There are no sun chairs left at 11am after breakfast.

Well, that doesn't matter. Those people, who are doing sightseeing trips are also engaging in this towel war. The sightseeing trip is taking place from 10am to 3pm. After that trip these guests want to relax at the perfect spot on the pool, hence, they will reserve their sun chairs also at 7.30am in the Morning - although the sun chairs is unused between 7.30am and 3pm.

DeeGee26.2

Once I went to a place n Holland, a day trip place that we'd paid plenty to go to, that was frequented by large numbers of Germans - the world leaders in sunbed squatting. It wasn't a place where people would spend the whole day lazing by a pool, as it was more a sort of aquatic play area for smaller kids.

I'd waited maybe half an hour for a bed to come free, saw one that had been empty all that time apart from a towel and a book, so I put the towel and the book on the floor and moved the sunbed to another part of the pool.

I then didn't leave that sunbed until it was time to leave the place.

At a party, if you get out of a chair, you expect to lose it, and I apply the same rules to sunbeds.

Although, to be fair, I'm not very seasidey.

Pausanias

As far as possible I avoid big chain hotels, especially resorts. In cities or in airport zones I might make an exception. I do remember once in the awful Caribbean island of Sint Maarten staying for just one day at a Westin resort where you had to fight for a sun lounger and then staff would charge you for the use of towels and sun shades, as if to say, 'if you don't pay you might get skin cancer.' The next day we transferred to St Martin and La Samanna, a whole world away.