If there’s one thing I try to avoid when picking out a hotel for vacation it’s the ‘resort factory’ – the kind of large place where you have to get down to the beach or pool before 8 a.m. and place a book or towel out to have any hope of getting a chair.
The term for this first struck me years ago at the Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman. It was supposed to be a nice property, commanding room rates over $1,000 a weekend night in peak season. But if you didn’t put out that book early, you’d wind up four rows back from the beach.
One group of Brits took things to new extremes at the GF Fañabé Hotel in Tenerife, Spain. Instead of reserving loungers by leaving towels on them very early in the morning or maybe a book, they slept overnight on the chairs to guarantee a spot for the next day. They brought pillows and blankets, turning the spots into makeshift beds, and settled in. (HT: One Mile at a Time)
A couple of decades ago I won a four-night stay at the El Conquistador Resort in Puerto Rico. It was part of Wyndham at the time, and later a Waldorf Astoria Collection property. I enjoyed dozing off at night on the balcony of my junior suite down by the water. But I couldn’t imagine sleeping on a beach chair just to ensure I had one for my holiday. That’s dedication. It’s also… not a holiday.
Indeed, I’ve never understood buying a plane ticket and paying for a resort – and then having to get up at 6 o’clock in the morning just to reserve a pool or beach chair in order to ‘relax’. That puts me out of step with many travelers who flock to resorts where this is the standard.
Just this. Its 7 AM and everything is “taken”.
byu/Krytykx2 inmildlyinfuriating
And how did placing your belongings on a chair to reserve it, when you won’t be back for hours, even become a norm? It’s one thing when your stuff is on a chair and you go to the bathroom or to get a drink. “Saving chairs” for hours with towels or belongings is not acceptable. If hotel staff won’t address it, vigilantism seems like an option – just remove all the towels from loungers.
Otherwise you get scenes like this one. At the Spring Hotel Bitacora in Tenerife here’s video of guests literally lining up at 6:30 a.m. – waiting 90 minutes for the hotel’s pool gates to open at 8 a.m. – so they can storm this relaxation area like it’s Black Friday at Walmart in order to avoid missing out on a chair for the day.
@chloeturner_1 Another day another sunbed war 😂 #holiday #tenerife #playadelasamericas #sunbeds ♬ original sound – Chloe Turner
In Tenerife, Spain I suppose this would be called “the running of the guests.”
Here’s one dad trying to be a Vacation Hero for his family’s relaxation by the pool – by sprinting from lounge chair to lounge chair, putting a towel on it to mark territory.
If you’re like me, and this isn’t how you want to spend your vacation, research your spots carefully and avoid places where this is necessary – or acceptable.
What’s the downside of removing a towel from an otherwise unoccupied beach chair? Is someone going to call the chair police on you? Or try to remove you by force? Or rant at you while you film them for a soon to be viral video of unhinged Euro? I’ve heard of Germans doing the reservation by beach towel, I didn’t realize it had taken over all of Europe.
Spain’s Canary Islands are overrated… it’s like a Cancun or Cabo, but for European pensioners.
I admit I was guilty of this before smart phones- but at Ocean City Beach in NJ. By noon, the beach is PACKED, people upon people. But at 10am, it’s relatively desserted, and you need to know the tide times so that you aren’t washed out before you want to leave.
The community minded solution? I would spend an hour building a gigantic sand castle, with a moat around it (where do you think the sand comes from?) basically forming a moat from my other beach goers with our family in the middle.
In a sea of umbrellas, we had our 15’x20′ space carved out, but I would dig a deeper pit, where my kids (4 of them under the age of 8), would play and guess what? Other kids wanted to join. And of course the answer was yes.
Now those same kids are all 19+ old.
It was worth it.
Ah, hotel life. A lot of people seem to love it.
In my younger days I would go to the beach a lot and usually show up fairly early so I almost always got a place fairly near the water. I was actually there to body surf and swim as well as catch some sun. The waves are smoother and without choppiness earlier. By the afternoon a lot of times the choppiness had increased a lot and made swimming and body surfing less fun. I would often leave mid afternoon. Some people would start coming about that time and take up the places of those leaving. Those people would often stay until dark.
There is no point in booking an expensive hotel room if you’re not going y to sleep in it. You may as well booking the cheapest hotel with sun beds.
Corrected version: There is no point in booking an expensive hotel room if you’re not going to sleep in it. You may as well book the cheapest hotel with sun beds.
@1990.
Agree except that the European pensioners own property on Tenerife. It’s the poorer British families/couples that do the fly and flop for one week vacations.
My wife and I go every year but we stay 4-6 weeks at a time (Jan/Feb), rent a large condo and stay away from the riff raff.
The food and weather are very good.
@Steve M. — You are wise. Lesson learned. Avoid the ‘all-inclusive’ properties. Enjoyed driving around Gran Canaria and Tenerife. Was fun to walk the dunes at Maspalomas. I suppose the volcanism is also interesting (Tamadaba reminded me a little of parts of Hawaii, like Maui/Big Island).
And because I enjoy tangents, here’s some other ideas. As long as you don’t take their airline, the Azores (Portugal, I know) are also ‘fine’ for a visit, too. At one point Delta flew JFK-PDL, so I took them and explored São Miguel island.
Further north, I’ve been to Faroe Islands are very quiet; fun route to get there via CPH (part of Denmark after all). Lot of salmon farming done there. Nice hikes. Probably akin to Newfoundland (I believe you’d mentioned before you may be based in CA.)
Haven’t been but, for more adventurous destinations, further south, at some point, I’d like to make it to the Cape Verde Islands, too. Also, TAP flies from LIS to Sao Tome; looks wild there (see Pico Cão Grande). Even further, South African airline Airlink flies from Namibia to St. Helena (where they sent Napoleon.)
I have no desire to stay at a resort again. No part of me thinks sunning on a lounge chair is a good use of my remaining time above ground. Chacun ses goûts.
The Dermatologist’s love you suckers cooking your skin in the sun all day. Put some more coconut oil on.
This boorish behavior is so easy to police that even Carnival Cruise Lines does it:
https://help.carnival.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1121/~/reserving-sun-loungers
Simply, they time tag chairs and if a chair is unoccupied for 40 minutes, the property is removed and the chair becomes available.
it’s not just Spain, I also saw this in France and Portugal this summer. People are just animals.
All hotels have enough staff to check who is coming to the pool and who uses or not these sunbeds to avoid this kind of stupid behavior.
To avoid this at Iberostar properties, you need to exchange your pool towel with a card. you cannot bring your own towel or the one from the room. So upon arrival at the pool, you get your towel and your sunbed. If you return your towel, you get your card back and you release your sunbed
@1990, is your only experience of the Canarias an overpriced room with mindless people in a resort factory? There are many amazing places to go and get away from that nonsense. Don’t judge a destination by what the least adventurous do there.
**Pro Tip:** Consider inviting the people experiencing homelessness who are usually found at the entrance of your gated resort to be your guests. Many locals are willing to sit or sleep overnight in your sunbed and keep it warm until you’re ready to use it. Some upscale resorts even offer their concierge services to help you connect with local individuals in need, allowing you to replace the resort beach towel with a homeless person, provided this person is at least semi-conscious and breathing. This way, you can ensure a guaranteed premium beach chair is reserved for the duration of your stay while also helping the local unhoused community.
Avoid properties that allow people to leave their chairs unattended for more than 30 minutes. Stay at places where the reviews say that this policy is actually enforced. These places do exist.
Anyone who would be willing pay for this horrible experience is an idiot.
Why would anyone want to sit around a crowded hotel pool? That’s hardly a vacation.
Just stay home and enjoy your own pool in private.
If you don’t have a pool at home, and you really NEED one when on vacation, rent a house that has a pool.
Yes, I had to camp out overnight so we would get a set of chairs with a cabana, reservations were not offered. This was in Cancun. I hated doing it, and it felt very “wrong” to have to camp during resort hotel stay. By 4 am, the dozen or so shelters were claimed. Almost all had a person stay so items weren’t removed.
Bad as all that was, we did have a fantastic pool day but with a large cost. Not a guest friendly / enjoyable situation.
@Ken A’s gone woke! ‘people experiencing homelessness…’ donchu mean ‘bums’ or ‘hobos’?! /s
I head down about 10.00 am and move any towels off of the lounges I want and move them one over, and then remove those.
It’s fun watching the chaos.
I find it aggravating to say the least. Im on vacation to relief stress, not worry about a chair or place by the pool or beach.
To those thinking this is only in Europe, think again. It’s in the US, Mexico and the Caribbean and is a symptom of the general lack of manners and the entitlement that is rampant today. I’ve seen people do this simultaneously at both the beach AND the pool in some locations so they have the “option” of going to the one the eventually decide on – while being absent from one or the other for extended periods. Of course, they’re very offended if they show up after 3 hours and “their” chairs are taken. Resorts are going to have to pay for chair specific, day-long supervision in order to prevent this. Some people have no shame.
I don’t get up early to save a chair, but I often swim for an hour or more. Why should I give up my chair, as I do return to if after swimming? Who determines how long a chair should be unoccupied? I have experienced a group who set out towels before 8 am and returned after 1 pm. We just moved their towels. We were leaving as they arrived. They were upset but couldn’t blame us. We had replaced everything as we found it.
I stay in much nicer places than this. Virgin Voyages has a solution as well – all their on board and Bimini cabanas cost per day and some include drinks and food service. In fact a couple had come in and sat down and ordered food and drinks from ours before we got there (the attendant forgot to check their band). Security removed them and charged them for the drinks, restoring our tab and adding $100 by way of apology. (Those people *knew* they were pay to play and were hoping we had decided not to use ours, they were later found out to be trying to scam other things. )
@1990: You said, @Ken A’s gone woke! ‘people experiencing homelessness…’ donchu mean ‘bums’ or ‘hobos’?! /s”
No, that’s not accurate. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, people frequently confuse students or professors staging protests in encampments with being homeless. However, some of these unhoused individuals have received millions in patent royalties by innovating unique solutions that you might encounter on your future American Airlines or Delta Air Lines flight. For example, to maintain sanitary lavatories, the City of Ann Arbor has invested over $541,000 to install permanent, solar-powered “Throne” public restrooms as part of a city PILOT program.
fox2detroit.com/video/1672590
https://www.clickondetroit.com/all-about-ann-arbor/2024/06/03/ann-arbor-introduces-free-throne-public-restrooms-across-downtown/
The Throne lavatory units operate primarily on solar power, are ADA-compliant, feature built-in sensors for touchless operation, and provide access via a QR code or cellphone app. Adopting this technology on your next flight, passengers would scan their boarding pass or use their mobile phone to access the aircraft’s lavatory after they clear the waiting list. Elite status can give you a higher waiting list priority. Over the last two years, passengers have been trained to wait their turn before entering an American Express Centurion Lounge, an American Airlines Admirals Club, a Delta Sky Club, or a Delta One Lounge. When a passenger is not an elite member or has purchased basic economy, they can be denied access to the lavatory adjacent to the flight deck and first-class seats.
To prevent lavatory squatting, cigarette smoking, or activities associated with the Mile-High Club, the aircraft lavatory door could be programmed to unlock automatically after 10 minutes for passengers and 20 minutes for flight crews, or remotely by an authorized flight attendant. After using the facilities, passengers would have the option to rate the cleanliness of the lavatory using their smartphones, allowing flight attendants and corporate management to address issues such as insufficient toilet paper or if passengers prefer one-ply or two-ply toilet paper.
https://www.fox2detroit.com/video/1672590
Honestly, I think resorts and cruises alike should come up with a “rental” or “check out” scheme where you can check out a chair, but younhave to check it in when done… And if you leave the chair unattended (as in you’re not innthe vicinity such as a pool and what not), your chair and any belongings get picked up, your belongings stored safely, and the chair checked back in for reissuance to another person. I myself am a pretty patient person, but I am definitely not below removing someone’s things if they’re not there for hours, then turning it in to the attendants… Especially on a cruise.