A young British couple say they had no choice but to sneak down to their hotel pool at 1am to reserve sun loungers during their holiday in Portugal.
Aimee Millar, 20, from Belfast, said she resorted to leaving her room in the middle of the night when she discovered other guests were doing the same.
She said Daily luxury trips:At the hotel we stayed at, if we hadn’t had those specific sunbeds, we would have had to pay €7.50 (£6) per bed.
“As crazy as it was, we didn’t mind doing it at 1am since we were going to be up later anyway.”
Aimee and her partner Darragh, also 20, were on holiday in Albufeira, Portugal, in July when they realised they needed a new strategy to compete in the ‘sunbed wars’.
Pictured: Aimee Millar and her partner Darragh, both 20, from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Aimee said she resorted to leaving her room in the middle of the night when she discovered other guests were doing the same.
Aimee and her partner Darragh, both 20, were on holiday in Albufeira, Portugal, in July when they realised they needed a new strategy to compete in the ‘sunbed wars’.
Screenshot from Aimee’s video of her waking up at 1am on vacation to get a spot by the pool.
On the first mornings, they reserved their sun loungers before breakfast, around 6am.
But they kept losing the best spots.
In a video shared on TikTok, Aimee documented the couple’s morning trip to the pool to grab the loungers at 1 a.m.
Armed with her towels, Aimee said: ‘I know it’s crazy, but it’s normal here.’
Reflecting on the label, she said she recognizes that it is unfair.
She said: ‘I think it’s fair to put the sun loungers out in the morning, but more like 9 or 10am.
‘Everyone likes to be near the pool and not have to pay or lie on the grass.
‘I think leaving towels lying around when you leave the pool or late at night is crazy and a bit over the top.
“I think it wouldn’t be very fair to an older couple or families with small children who go to bed earlier – they can’t do it so easily.”
In a video shared on TikTok, Aimee documented the couple’s morning trip to the pool to grab the loungers at 1 a.m.
Pictured: Screenshot from Aimee’s video of her waking up at 1am on holiday to get a spot by the pool.
Aimee Millar, 20, from Belfast, said she resorted to leaving her room in the middle of the night when she discovered other guests were doing the same.
Viewers took to the comments to express their shock.
Josephine commented: “I couldn’t actually do it, it’s ridiculous.”
Eleanor added: “Hotels need to start allocating sun loungers because this is getting out of hand.”
“I’d just go downstairs and take my towels off in the morning, I don’t care,” wrote a third user.
“I’ve just come back from Turkey and the hotel won’t let anyone reserve sunbeds. It’s crazy,” Lynsey said.
Aimee and Darragh’s experience is just the latest development in the ‘sunbed wars’ that have taken place across holiday destinations this summer.
Pictures released earlier this week show dozens of British tourists racing to get the best sun loungers by a hotel pool in Spain.
Tourists at the four-star Villa Romana hotel in Tarragona, Catalonia, were almost greeted with a ‘ready, set, go’ when staff pushed open the glass doors and they poured out.
Brits push each other around the pool as they try to get the best spots.
Another video shows holidaymakers taking this summer’s sunbed wars to a new level as they snap up their secured sun loungers before hotel staff have even opened the pool.
In the video, filmed by a stunned guest at a Tenerife hotel, a man dressed in a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops can be seen rearranging sun loungers to free five people trapped underneath.
Scores of British holidaymakers were seen anxiously waiting at the gate before rushing to grab the best sun loungers by a hotel pool in Spain.
A separate video shows Britons running and pushing each other around the pool as they try to get the best spots.
A man appears to remove secured sun loungers in an attempt to get the best spot by the pool.
In the video, which was filmed by a stunned guest, a man dressed in a T-shirt, shorts and sandals can be seen rearranging the sun loungers to free five people trapped underneath.
TikTok user The Railway Queen shared a video showing a manager at her hotel in Turkey stacking towels over his shoulder in an attempt to clear space by the pool.
Laur hotels on the country’s Aegean coast have ordered staff to remove tourists’ belongings if they try to steal sun loungers early in the morning or even the night before.
A woman and another man were also seen moving a sun lounger by the pool before the woman returned to collect a towel she had left on top of the secured sun loungers.
A five-star hotel in Turkey also declared war on sunbed-hogging tourists earlier this week.
Laur hotels on the country’s Aegean coast have ordered staff to remove tourists’ belongings if they try to steal sun loungers early in the morning or even the night before.
Two videos shared on social media show a stern-faced hotel manager collecting towels on two separate occasions.
The towel on the sun lounger has become an almost universal sign of reservation at the most visited tourist spots.
The first video, posted by a British tourist, is accompanied by the music of Madonna’s Holiday, and the second clip features the line “Guess who’s back, again” from Eminem’s Without Me.
In both videos, the hotel employee grabs at least half a dozen towels as he patrols the resort’s pool area to clear space for sun worshippers arriving to enjoy the weather.