A SMUG dad has revealed his “smart” solution to avoiding holiday sunbed wars, while making sure he bags himself a lounger for the next day.
Darral Roblyn boasted of his unique method to dodge “the morning morons” in a video he shared on Tiktok earlier this summer.
The footage shows him dropping his towel onto the sunbeds below his room at a resort in Salou, Spain.
The 46-year-old father had returned to his hotel after a night of celebrating at six in the morning.
It was at that moment he had a bright idea about how he could reserve a sunbed, without having to get up for the morning rush.
Without even having to leave the comfort of his own room, he decided to try and drop his towel onto the sun loungers just below his balcony, from up on the third floor.
While his intentions were smart, his “hack” didn’t play out as he had hoped it might.
The father-of-one said he wasn’t able to take advantage of his ‘brainwave’ as he was so hungover the next day, he didn’t get out of bed until 3pm and didn’t use the pool.
However, he still stands by it as a tactic that he could use in the future.
At the resort he was staying in, holidaymakers aren’t able to lay their towels out at the crack of dawn, as the doors to the pool do not open until 10 o’clock.
This means everyone rushes at once to nab the best bed as soon as the pool is opened up.
Darral, from Rhondda Cynon Taff in Wales, said: “I’d had quite a late night one night, I’d been out with some friends and stuff and got back from a club and I was sat on the balcony having one last drink and I just had a little brainwave.
“I thought, we’re only on the third floor, I could see the beds directly below me. So I checked the wind speed and direction.
“I had a practice run first and the first towel landed pretty good so I just thought I’ll have a go at filming the second one.
“You will get a bed but the rush is really for the best spots.
“It’s not really for the beds, it’s for the best spots in the sun, the most or the least shaded spots. The first line around the swimming pool and stuff.”
Renowned etiquette expert, William Hanson, revealed the rules for Brits hoping to lay down their towels this summer.
He told Sun Travel: “In the morning, at the start of the day, if you’re by the pool after breakfast, then it’s fine at 8.30 to put your towel on the bed to reserve your spot.
“But later on in the day after you’ve used the lounger, and go off for a massage, for example, which is going to be an hour, then you can’t use a towel to reserve the sun lounger.”
If you’re grabbing some grub at lunch time, holidaymakers are allowed to eat at the hotel bar or restaurant, providing they’re not gone for any longer than 30 minutes.
According to William, a half-hour window will also give your towel time to dry off in the heat.
But even with the grace period, William said: “You can’t hog the sun lounger for the entire day.”
For any holidaymakers who want to brush up on their poolside manners, William had some other nuggets of advice.
He said: “It’s a personal bugbear when people play music through speakers around a public pool – if everyone did that it would be chaos.”
Instead, William recommended using bluetooth headphones to listen to some poolside tunes.
As for food, he said: “If there is a menu offered by the pool, you are well within your rights to eat and drink at the pool.
“But I personally wouldn’t, I would go away to the hotel restaurant and eat there.”
Darral described the morning pool wars as selfish and said that it’s not just Brits that do either.
He was keen to avoid it, if he could, which is why he tried his own method.
He continued: “It’s crazy. The frustrating thing is they’re not staying there then they go out, they put their towels out there, some of them are out there for four or five hours at a time.
“They commandeer the parasols. I just thought nah, I’m not joining them. I’m not having that. So I just thought I’d work my own way around it.
“I think it’s pretty selfish behaviour sometimes. It’s not just British people, it’s a European-wide epidemic.
“It’s definitely a problem, I don’t like it. It’s a bit of a free-for-all basically.”
Darral used to live in Salou for 12 years working in bars and DJing and comes back to stay in the same hotel every year.
He said the sunbed wars have never been as bad as they were this year.
Although he managed to avoid the battle, while also bagging his favourite spot on the beds that stay in the sun all day, he did not feel well enough to use them.
He added: “I’d had such a heavy night the night before, I didn’t wake up until like three o’clock in the afternoon.
“I went down, the towels were there but I didn’t use them to be fair. Cooking in the sun is the last thing I could have done when I woke up.
“I was just trying to show you can beat the system, you don’t have to be running around setting alarms for a sunbed on holiday.
“Just work smarter, not harder. I feel quite pleased that I’ve solved it in a different way. I was just thinking outside the box.”
Meanwhile, this family eats their breakfast on their sun loungers to make sure no one else takes them.
And some places in Spain are introducing £210 fines for anyone found hogging the sunbeds.
