Key Aspects:
- A German tourist has successfully sued his tour company for chair hogs at a resort in Greece.
- While a cruise line was not involved in this lawsuit, this could be a precedent for similar legal action.
- Most cruise lines have policies limiting lounger reservations, but enforcement is inconsistent.
Lounging by the pool is the perfect cruise activity for thousands of guests every week, but thousands more get frustrated and angry when they can’t find that ideal lounger in the right spot. While cruise ships do have hundreds of loungers available, chair hogs often “reserve” prime loungers for hours with little regard for sharing with other guests.
On sea days, in particular, every lounger by cruise ship pools or in adult-only areas may be reserved very early, with no further seats available throughout the day.
Using towels, books, hats, or even pieces of fruit to claim a chair, often in the wee hours of the morning, is a common tactic by inconsiderate guests. Cruise lines do set time limits for such claims, but guests often report a lack of enforcement of official policies.
One recent lawsuit might have the potential to change that, however. According to the BBC, a German tourist filed a lawsuit against his tour company because he was unable to enjoy a lounger during a hotel resort vacation in Greece.
Like cruise lines, the resort had a policy banning reserving loungers with towels, but the policy was not enforced. Each day, the tourist, who has not been further identified, searched for loungers for his family of four for 20 minutes as early as 6 a.m., but was unsuccessful.
Arguments included the idea that the tour company failed to ensure the resort’s ban on lounge reservations was enforced, which impacted the overall quality of the vacation experience.
Judges agreed, and the court awarded the man a refund of €986.70 (approximately $1,150 USD) on his €7,186 ($8,371 USD) holiday package. This roughly 14% refund might just take the sting out of not getting a lounger for those poolside days.
Could Cruise Lines Be Sued Over Loungers?
While this particular lawsuit does not involve a cruise line, it could serve as a wake-up call to cruise lines about their lounge reservation policies.
Most cruise guests have seen chair hogging in action, when a lounger is “reserved” with a towel or other simple item. Some chair hogs have gotten even more creative, such as tying chairs together to rope them off or, as Cruise Hive recently reported, using a mannequin to create the (not very good) illusion that the lounger is in use.
These incidents happen on every cruise line, every sailing length, and every size of ship. With larger and larger ships hosting thousands of guests on each sailing, prime loungers can be even more coveted and hard to secure.
Read Also: The 13 Worst Types of People You’ll Meet on Every Cruise
Typically, cruise lines have a limit to how long any lounger can be reserved. Carnival Cruise Line, for example, has crew members who note when loungers are reserved and work to enforce a 40-minute time limit.
“Shipboard team members, the ‘ChairShare Team’ monitor sun lounger usage and if they observe a seat that contains a towel or personal belongings (flip-flops, books, etc.) but appears to be unoccupied, a sticker is placed on the chair indicating the time the sticker was placed and when personal items will be removed,” the official policy reads.
“If the chair remains unoccupied for 40 minutes, the contents are removed and held for the guest’s safekeeping.”
Announcements are made over the public address system, printed in the daily FunTimes newsletter, and posted in the Carnival Hub app to ensure everyone is aware of the policy. Signage is also posted near pool and sundeck areas.
For Royal Caribbean, the policy states, “If a pool chair is left unattended for more than 30 minutes with no signs of any guests returning, our crew will remove any belongings and place them in the lost and found.“
Similar policies are in place on most major cruise lines. In practice, however, such time limits are not always enforced and crew members may be reluctant to remove guests’ personal possessions in case doing so sparks a more unpleasant confrontation.
Nevertheless, if guests could successfully sue cruise lines that fail to enforce their own lounger reservation policies, perhaps chair hogs would be more strictly monitored and loungers might become more available to everyone.
