A mum has said sunseekers recruited their children to sprint over and claim sunbeds at a Spanish hotel, leaving her family unable to sunbathe onsite for half of their holiday.
Cait Fennel, from Liverpool, travelled to Salou, Spain, with her husband Matty Fennel, 34, and five-year-old son Ralphy Fennel for a week-long break. After arriving at Hotel Best Oasis Park, Cait noticed there were no free sun loungers.
Queues from 8:45am
The 42-year-old said holidaymakers would begin queuing outside the pool area at around 8:45am, despite the doors not opening until 10am. The mum-of-one said the second the doors opened, holidaymakers would 'charge' towards the sunbeds, with speedy children apparently 'unleashed' to get there first.
Cait said guests would leave their beach bags in a queue to reserve their place and would even 'sneak' in through the hotel gym to get to the pool first. After three days of being unable to bag a sunbed, Cait conceded defeat and eventually joined the early queues - but didn't run.
'Survival of the fittest'
The administration worker posted footage of the sunbed wars online, with the caption: "The sunbed wars are wild! Pool doors open at 10am - it's survival of the fittest!" Footage shows kids sprinting to the sunbeds while adults speedwalk behind, chucking towels onto the loungers. Photos also show desperate sunseekers dumping their beach bags in the hour-long queue.
Cait said: "The door opened at 10am and people started queuing at 8.45am. It was kids and adults every day, some were queuing inside as well. They'd leave their bags in the queue - there was a queue of beach bags."
'It was madness'
"The second they opened the doors they would charge. They definitely enlisted the kids to run and get the sunbeds. It was madness. I've been on a lot of holidays and never experienced anything like that."
"There was a gym in the hotel and what people were doing was sneaking in the gym and as soon as the doors opened they would come out. That was the lengths people went to."
Cait said the situation became so chaotic that her family avoided the pool altogether for the first three days of their holiday. Cait said: "The first three days we didn't go to the pool for that reason. We saw how busy it was and never got beds. We had to get involved to an extent. We actually went down and attempted to get a bed, we didn't run. The rest of the time we spent our time on the beach."
Relaxation ruined
Cait said the daily scramble took the relaxation out of their £3,000 holiday and believes the hotel could have done more to prevent the chaos. Cait said: "It's not what you're on holiday for, you go on holiday to relax. It was chaos, it was stressful. There were beds you had to get yourself and there were people running to the beds stacked up, which contributed to the chaos."
"It is just madness, it made no sense. The holidaymakers did what they had to do. We didn't want to get involved in the chaos but we ended up having to queue."
Cait's post racked up more than 27,000 views with commenters slamming the situation. One wrote: "Worst nightmare." Another commented: "Sad people." One added: "It is absolutely embarrassing."
Best Oasis Park has been contacted for comment.
