A dad who spent over £6,000 on a Greek island holiday for his family sued a travel company after he couldn’t find sun loungers for wife and kids despite waking up at 6am
A furious German tourist went to court and won a payout after he failed to get a sun lounger on holiday, despite waking up at 6am.
The dad-of-two said he dropped around £6,200 (€7,186) on a package holiday to the Greek island of Kos with his two children and wife, back in August 2024. The man, who was not named, said he spent around 20 minutes each day trying to find sun loungers where all four family members could sit together. He said most sunbeds had already been taken by guests who put their towels down, despite the hotel having a rule explicitly against this.
The dad, who sued a tour operator at a district court in Hanover, said even at 6am most of the sunbeds had been “taken” meaning his two kids were often forced to lie on the floor.
READ MORE: Jet2 holiday update for all passengers with flights booked from end of MayREAD MORE: Martin Lewis says ‘you won’t have rights’ in common travel booking mistake
He also claimed workers at the hotel failed to intervene and enforce their own policy against reserving spots with a towels in advance.
The furious man took the case to a German court and the judge sided with him, as the court found the package holiday was “defective” as the family did not get the “character” they would have expected as a contractual right.
While the tour operator did not run the large Greek hotel the family had been staying at, the judge said it had an obligation to make sure each customer could have access to a sunbed during their stay.
The judge also said the travel company needed to make sure the hotel could ensure there was a “reasonable” ratio of sun loungers to tourists.
This tour operator, which was not named, was forced to give the dad a refund of £850 (€986.70) and it initially only paid £300 (€350). This major ruling comes weeks before Brits are set to kick off their Summer holidays, with similar pool and beach resorts popular with many UK tourists.
The phenomena of the so-called “dawn dash”, where people wake up early to secure sunbeds, is nothing new. Last Summer, holidaymaker Ben Smith said he was left gobsmacked when he discovered the prime loungers were already nabbed three hours before the pool opened at his hotel.
The tourist said it was pitch black outside by most of the poolside beds were already occupied by people who appeared to have fallen asleep on them overnight to hold their place.
He said: “It’s a bit silly. I do get why people do it, but it’s a vicious circle, so to speak. They’re the ones creating the problem that they’re aiming to avoid. If people didn’t reserve beds they didn’t need, then there wouldn’t be an issue. I haven’t seen the beds anywhere near full in terms of people, just towels.”
Another holidaymaker, last year, said she and her fiancé were forced to wait for over an hour to get a bed while at a £1,000-a-week hotel.
Laura Smith and her fiancé Eric Whittaker said their holiday was “chaotic” due to the so-called “sunbed wars”. She said the hotel implemented a one-hour bed reserve policy to help the situation. This involved pool workers placing a ticket on an unoccupied sun lounger and coming back an hour later to remove the towel if it was still unused.
