A German vacationer has been awarded more than £800 in compensation after claiming he and his household were unable to use resort solar loungers during a bundle vacation on a Greek island, as other visitors repeatedly reserved them with towels. The man, who has not been named, took legal motion after staying at a resort on the island of Kos with his spouse and two youngsters in 2024.
He informed the court that during their €7,000 (£6,000) vacation, despite waking up at 6am every day, his household struggled to discover any out there beds around the resort pool. According to the ruling, the vacationer spent around 20 minutes each morning looking out for loungers, only to discover most had already been claimed by towels left unattended by other visitors. He also said his youngsters were sometimes pressured to lie on the ground because no sunbeds were free.
The tour operator initially refunded around €350 (£303), but a court in Hanover ruled that the compensation was not satisfactory and elevated the payout to virtually €987 (£854).
The court said that while the journey company did not instantly handle the resort, it still had a duty to guarantee a cheap quantity of sunbeds were out there to visitors. Judges described the vacation as “defective” because the household could not correctly use the pool space included in their reserving.
These so-called “sunbed wars” or “dawn dashes” have become a infamous concern across European hotspots and further afield. Last 12 months, a surprising incident at a Tenerife resort sparked renewed issues. In footage captured by the German newspaper Bild, around 100 international visitors were noticed trampling a employees member who was opening the pool access door at 6.30am.
A 2023 Tripadvisor review described the sunbed state of affairs as a “complete nightmare” at the same resort.
Elsewhere, a British vacationer, excited to get pleasure from her well-deserved vacation at a luxurious five-star resort in Egypt, had to resort to excessive measures in an attempt to get a sunbed in February 2025. Setting an alarm at 6.30am, Mrs May, who runs the Tiktok account @themrsmay, rushed down to the pool space to grab herself a front-row seat.
“If you can’t beat them, join them,” she said.
However, to her shock, she arrived to discover that virtually every sunbed was reserved with seaside towels and no one was utilizing them.
“It’s 6.30 in the morning and already, look, most of these sunloungers have been taken and there is literally not one person here,” she said, adding: “I actually think I’m too late already […] Every single sunbed on that front row has been taken. We’re going to have to go on the back row.”
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