Megan Singleton: Bloggeratlarge writer on how hotels are stopping the 'dawn dash' for sunbeds

Holidaymakers have revealed how some hotels and resorts are cracking down on people reserving sun loungers with towels, after a man won a payout over the practice. 

This follows the man successfully suing his tour operator for allowing the practice to take place while he was on holiday with his family in 2024, claiming he spent 20 minutes a day trying to find a sun lounger early in the morning.

Bloggeratlarge writer Megan Singleton explained further.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News TALKSTB. Travel with Wendy Woo tours Where the
World is Yours book Now.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
So I was asking Piney about the sun lounger because
the dawn dash to secure your sun lounger is about
to come to an end, and explaining this, Oh do
us as our travel correspondent, Megan's singleton, good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Good morning, oldest story is such sweet revenge for those
of us who have tried to go out there and
find a sun lounger only to find that they're all
bagsed by people's towels and you can't find one. And
so I was thrilled to read the story this week
that the court has just ruled that that's illegal. And

(00:52):
I don't know what other results are going to do
about it. So let me just tell you the story.
A German Man took his family on holiday to Greece
back in twenty twenty four.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
In the court.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
The court's only just ruled on this now, so he.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Is very about it.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yeah, obviously, what a bit of a waste time. No,
that's all right, we're going to push through with it.
Because I think it's got a great moral to the story. Anyway,
this resort had four hundred sun lounges, so it was
obviously massive, and he would get up every morning to
go and find a spot for his family, and even
at six am, every single one of them had been
bags hogged by someone who wasn't sitting on it, just

(01:27):
to put their towel on it. And every day for
the week that they were there, his children had to
lie on the ground because there was no available sun lounges.
So anyway, he went back to home and he sued
the travel operator who obviously put this holiday together, and
he won the equivalent of two thousand New Zealand dollars
on his twelve thousand dollars holiday because there were the

(01:50):
court ruled that there weren't enough ratio of sun beds
to actual guests using them. Isn't that interesting? I mean,
the sun lounge hogger is a special kind of person.
And I don't know if you've ever done passive aggressive
or just this straight up aggressive, but I have written

(02:11):
four little points at the bottom of the posts that
I've summarized this story up about what to do, because
if you're just passive about it. Then firstly check for
any official rules, because sometimes there are rules around the
resort pool that you can't save a seat. Secondly, ask
a staff member how long lounges are allowed to be
reserved for. That would be the more passive one, because

(02:33):
then you can might say, ask the neighboring Sundays how
long has that tal been there? I mean if it's
got a book or whatever with it, then they What
you can do is set a timer. I think an
hour is plenty for a none bags for no one
to return to a some lounger with a book on it.
In an hour, I'd be bundling it up and chucking

(02:54):
things on the ground. But prepare for a little confrontation.
But if that person does come back, you could just say, oh,
I was wondering when the person might return to this
lounger that's been unavailable for the past hour. That's what
I do. That is a bit of.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Recent but surely, surely hotel stuff have to get a
little bit more organized around this, because if there is
a lounger sitting there with a towel moment, as you say,
for an hour and a half, someone someone deserves to
be sitting in it.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
So yeah, and I think this ruling will make some
results sit up and take notice because that's a big fine,
you know, and it just got handed down this week.
So let's see what that does for all these other
and cruise ships. Oh my goodness, because there's not very
many lounge spaces around the pools and the deck areas
on cruise ships. So let's just see if we start

(03:39):
to see some people take a bit more you know,
the staff take a bit more action on these hoggers.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
I love it, Meghan Singleton, thank you so much. You
can find more on travel at blogger at large dot
com from Megan.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio