Dad wins payout after he couldn’t get sun lounger in 6am hotel pool war, and people are angry

A German tourist has won a payout after he couldn’t find a sun lounger around the hotel pool on holiday, even when he got up as early as 6am, and it has started a viral debate about whether there should be tougher restrictions on reserving sun beds around hotel pools, and if he really should have got the money.

The dad of two, whose name hasn’t been revealed, was on holiday with his family in Kos, Greece, in 2024 and spent 20 minutes every morning trying to find a sun lounger. He could never find one, even though the hotel’s rules stated that you weren’t allowed to reserve beds with towels.

He paid €7,186 (£6,211) to take his wife and their two children on the package holiday, but the family was forced to lie on the floor next to the pool every day because there were no loungers available, the BBC reports. He sued the company he booked the holiday through over claims that the holiday wasn’t provided as sold, because the sun loungers were completely unusable – and won!

This week, a judge at a district court in Hanover ruled that the dad would get a partial refund on the package holiday after a two-year battle, as it was “defective”. However, the payout is a fraction of the holiday cost. The tour company initially paid out a refund of €350 (£302), but has now been ordered to pay €986.70 (£852.89) in total.

Credit: Canva

That means he’s still lost over £5,000 on the holiday. In his lawsuit, the tourist claimed that the tour company didn’t enforce the resort’s ban on reserving sun loungers, and hotel staff didn’t go up to guests who were putting towels on the pool beds. He said the holiday operator had a responsibility to guarantee a “reasonable” ratio of sunbeds to guests.

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The story has gone viral online and people are totally divided. Some people think there needs to be much stricter rules on reserving sun loungers at hotels which are enforced, while others say it’s really not that deep and you should just move someone else’s towel if they’re not actually there. Lots of people think it’s unfair that the tour company got sued too, not the hotel.

One person wrote on Facebook: “About time, drives me sodding mad, especially the unselfish idiots who reserve one bed for the morning and another for the afternoon!” Someone else said: “That’s ridiculous, sue the hotel not the tour operator.”

A third person wrote: “We put our towel down early in the morning. Everyone does it and we need to be at the kids’ pool.” Someone else added: “He needs to get up earlier then. Or just straight up bribe the staff to reserve sun loungers for them.”

It sounds like some hotels have started implementing a more orderly solution. “We stayed at a hotel in Cyprus last year that allocates you a specific sun bed on arrival, you get to choose from the free ones, and it’s yours for the length of the holiday. If there isn’t one in your preferred location you go on a list to swap. Solves all problems!”

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Featured image credit: Canva