Maybe an End to Chair Hogs

[chrysalis]

If they would police the situation in the early morning--6 AM to 9 AM mostly--they would eliminate the vast majority of the problem. These are the people who are causing the most problem, arriving at 7 AM, dumping books/towels/shoes on multiple chairs and then heading back to bed, or breakfast or whatever and then returning 2, 3, 4 hours later. Make one circuit every half hour or so, dump the offending chairholder junk in a bin somewhere and the problem would be solved in a day or two.

 

So true...one sea day morning (8am) I went to check out the forward pool beside the Sanctuary on the Emerald. There are only 8 or 10 loungers beside that pool but they are "high end" ones..wooden with thick foam pads.

 

Each one of them was "taken" with a Princess towel and a book from the Princess library (no fear of someone stealing your own book).

 

I monitored those prime loungers from the sun deck above, and it was not until 11am that the first person showed up to use them.

 

They all had been empty and saved for at least 3 hours.

 

There is no way that that should be happening.

[Julia’s Journey’s]

I'm right with your point of view here. Saving chairs whilst not in the vicinity of the pool is one thing but I do not see a problem with you saving chairs if you are in the pool itself, regardless of whether you're in there for more than thirty minutes or not.

 

I agree, I would hate to have to go look for chairs everytime we got out the pool, we tend to sit in the shade and don't notmally have a problem finding chairs for the short time we hang out by the pool.

[johnmik1]

How are they going to know you've been gone for 30 minutes? Are they going to walk around with a stick of chalk and mark your chaise lounge like they do with limited-time parking spaces? :confused:

On Sea Princess last year,they had laminated cards with numbers on them and they would attached them to the back of reserved chairs and would remove any items when the time was up.

[Netta7]

The Sea Princess system sounds lovely. I do hope they implement it on the CB before our cruise. The one thing I don't want to have to do on vacation is worry about rushing to find a seat. A vacation is supposed to be relaxing and Princess should help make it so by solving the chair hog problem.

[Colo Cruiser]

Or leave a note on your chair that you are in the pool;)

 

Then every chair would have a note on it.

 

And they would be available on E-Bay. :eek:

[YoPhilly]

The Sea Princess system sounds lovely. I do hope they implement it on the CB before our cruise. The one thing I don't want to have to do on vacation is worry about rushing to find a seat. A vacation is supposed to be relaxing and Princess should help make it so by solving the chair hog problem.

 

Isn't it awful that we're asking the cruise lines to force us to be more considerate to each other!! :rolleyes:

[espo56]

I recently witnessed this on a land vacation. We had a balcony facing our resort pool during Spring Break in Orlando. We would see people coming down at 8 or 9 am and reserving their chairs and disappearing for 4 to 5 hours to go to the theme parks. When we finally went down to the pool at about 11 am there were no loungers left. So I removed the towels used to save the chairs and moved the chairs to a different location. When the chair hogs returned 3 hours later, they shot me a look and mumbled something about someone taking their chairs. I really could care less. When I go on the CB in June, I will do the same thing and if I am questioned I will just say that the attendant removed the items so that we could use the chairs since no one has been using them for more than 30 minutes.:rolleyes:

[Dorset Cruiser]

On Sea Princess last year,they had laminated cards with numbers on them and they would attached them to the back of reserved chairs and would remove any items when the time was up.

 

 

I was on Sea Princess in April - did not see any such system in operation on that cruise:mad:

[4cats4me]

I think you are supporting the OP position. If you are spending the bulk of your time in the pool or pool hopping - why are you taking up a chair??:eek:

 

When we are in the pool or hot tub we place our towels near us not staking a chair. That is the considerate thing to do. Then, when you are ready to sit in a chair is when you take up chair.

 

 

Puh-leaze. It's nice that you can bring your towel and put it nearby

while swimming, but realistically, if everyone were to do that all the

towels would get mixed up and you might be drying off with somebody

else's dirty towel -- ewwwwwww. Where would I put my sunscreen, my

book? My book will be all wet if I place it near the hot tub. It is unreasonable to save a chair for a long time, but if I'm in the pool for

31 minutes, then I'm going to be p!ssed off if someone takes my

things off the chair if i'm one minute over the "limit."

 

I think the cruiselines should give you the chairs on a first-come first-serve basis. Have a check-in pool desk, give you a slip of paper with

the time that you arrived, taped the slip to the chairs, and if you

haven't returned then your chair is forfeited. It would be pretty

obvious which chairs are unused, since the towels are never wet,

the one bottle of lotion, et cet.

[LisaH]

I think you are supporting the OP position. If you are spending the bulk of your time in the pool or pool hopping - why are you taking up a chair??:eek:

 

When we are in the pool or hot tub we place our towels near us not staking a chair. That is the considerate thing to do. Then, when you are ready to sit in a chair is when you take up chair.

 

 

Really?

[indyguy65]

We were on the CB in April and we would just take the stuff off and set it on the ground. it was pretty obvious at 9:30 a.m. that there was only 5 or 6 people in the pool that all the chairs could not be for the swimmers. It was so funny to have this woman come by about 2 hours after we moved her stuff (not out of the pool) and complain we took her chair(s), One person, 2 chairs being held. I told her the pool attendent came by 2 hours ago and removed all the stuff from held chairs. She was not happy, but what could she do?

[stoneharborlady]

Why doesn't the cruiseline put in some little cubicals for those that want to swim to place their things while they are swimming? That would free up lots of chairs I would think!

 

 

This would be an excellent idea Toto, that would sure help. There isnt a place to leave things except the wet deck.

 

On my last cruise a man two chairs down from me was sitting with his wife at the aft pool. She told him she was going back to the cabin for a shower and a nap. Five minutes later a woman wandered out from Carib Cafe with a plate of lunch, and asked him if the empty chair was taken. He said yes, it was his wifes. She left to look elsewhere for a chair. He just didnt want someone sitting next to him, and didnt care who heard the exchange. Unreal!!

 

Karen

[nijh]

Can anyone advise if you can take your own sun loungers on board? ;)

[willysgrandma]

If they would police the situation in the early morning--6 AM to 9 AM mostly--they would eliminate the vast majority of the problem. These are the people who are causing the most problem, arriving at 7 AM, dumping books/towels/shoes on multiple chairs and then heading back to bed, or breakfast or whatever and then returning 2, 3, 4 hours later. Make one circuit every half hour or so, dump the offending chairholder junk in a bin somewhere and the problem would be solved in a day or two.

 

You took the words right out of my mouth.

 

And all the cruise lines have to do is empower the deck hands to remove the items. One announcement at the beginning of a cruise should be all that is needed, let the deck hands do the rest.

[Cruise Gypsy]

If they would police the situation in the early morning--6 AM to 9 AM mostly--they would eliminate the vast majority of the problem. These are the people who are causing the most problem, arriving at 7 AM, dumping books/towels/shoes on multiple chairs and then heading back to bed, or breakfast or whatever and then returning 2, 3, 4 hours later. Make one circuit every half hour or so, dump the offending chairholder junk in a bin somewhere and the problem would be solved in a day or two.

 

 

People really do this.:eek: It makes me sad that people are not just reserving a chair for their use but instead intentionally "keeping" chairs from everyone else. It sounds like Princess just needs to enforce the 30 minute rule which is a reasonable one.

[Cruise Gypsy]

Puh-leaze. It's nice that you can bring your towel and put it nearby

while swimming, but realistically, if everyone were to do that all the

towels would get mixed up and you might be drying off with somebody

else's dirty towel -- ewwwwwww. Where would I put my sunscreen, my

book? My book will be all wet if I place it near the hot tub. It is unreasonable to save a chair for a long time, but if I'm in the pool for

31 minutes, then I'm going to be p!ssed off if someone takes my

things off the chair if i'm one minute over the "limit."

 

 

Done it many times - never had a problem. My stuff is in a tote bag so I don't use someone elses towel. I don't use a deck chair as a storage locker. I think a deck chair should be used as a deck chair by someone who is actually going to use it.

[donh1]

A quick question to people nearby will likely confirm its true statis. This way if they are truely being attended to then there is no harm done. I simply move the stuff and help myself. It may seem rude but the end result is we end up with the deck chairs..... What are they going to do....Complain to the Captain? I don't think they have a leg to stand on. They certainly don't have a lounge to lay on!!!!... We always leave someone to babysit our lounges while we are away for brief periods of time.

What is very annoying is people who leave their wet towels behind. It really adds to the confusion as the day progresses.....

[mrbbear]

You laugh but post-it notes would do it.

 

You write the time on the post-it and leave it on the chair....pool staff circle the pool and recheck later....

 

I promise you that it would fix the problem in NO TIME if people knew this was going on....

 

It is totally unfair of people to do this...there would be plenty of chairs if people would only share them.

 

And DJHsolara, you are the total exception and I think you know that....you don't make rules for a minority, you make them for the majority who are entitled to enjoy the same benefits as anyone onboard.

Couldn't agree with you more, Marie.

Chairs are to be used, not abused. Face it. Their main function is to be sat upon, not squatted with...

I certainly don't profess to have the key to an ideal answer, but it seems to me that the institution of some sort of "time indicator" might be the fairest way to ensure equity to everyone.

Imagine the horror and dismay in the faces of all those 'pre-dawn chair hogs' when they arrive 'whenever' and discover that their prized selection du jour has been confiscated in favor of someone who actually was AT the pool area, ready, willing, and able to USE it!! This technique might take a while to catch on, but I don't think it would take long to be effective.

 

Tom:)

[mrbbear]

A quick question to people nearby will likely confirm its true statis. This way if they are truely being attended to then there is no harm done. I simply move the stuff and help myself. It may seem rude but the end result is we end up with the deck chairs..... What are they going to do....Complain to the Captain? I don't think they have a leg to stand on. They certainly don't have a lounge to lay on!!!!... We always leave someone to babysit our lounges while we are away for brief periods of time.

What is very annoying is people who leave their wet towels behind. It really adds to the confusion as the day progresses.....

 

Just throwing in one more related thought.....

Let's face facts. There are those out there (hopefully a minority) who are complerely involved with the "me" syndrome. No matter what the right way of doing things may be, no matter what the acceptable norm of social behavior, it's either their way or the highway!

In life, like it or not, sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. The ideal would be that the cruise line take the lead and institute and ENFORCE a well thought out and WELL KNOWN standard of behavior regarding deck chairs. In the absence of that ideal being acted upon by the cruise line, well then, as far as I'm concerned, all's fair in love and war. Like it or not, the offending party's crap is history---whether they like it or not. Like I said, an enforced method of rigid enforcement will eventually get the message across.

 

Tom:)

[critterchick]

Sadly, this seems to be a problem on the major lines. On RCI (haven't sailed Princess in a couple of years but I'm still a fan) the Solarium is often filled with loungers that have nothing but a chair on them. Some ships (Monarch) have a Towel Patrol that goes around and removes towels from chairs without an occupant. They don't touch the chairs that have personal items on them, though.

 

My new low in March was encountering a gym hog - two women in a yoga class had left their Seapass cards, water bottles and towels draped over two of the four ellipticals while they took a yoga class. The other 2 were occupied. I waited two minutes to see if somebody had run to the ladies' room mid-routine and then hopped on. Three minutes into my routine, the women got up from the floor and one said, "I was using that!" Yeah, with a 30-minute break...:mad:

[Philip217]

Let's see now...............................

A Princess Grand Class ship has 8 Deck Stewards working at any given time.

These fellows are responsible to clean up the open deck areas, set up and remove the deck chairs at certain hours, assist in serving drinks, remove dirty pool towels and bring clean ones.

 

Now we need them to check 2,500 sun chairs on 3 or 4 decks, over an area the size of 3 football fields, every 30 minutes to see if someone has been using the chairs during that period.

[RickSue]

:rolleyes: Frankly, I'm amazed at what sheep people are (sorry, no offense intended to anyone personally here). How can a towel or a book keep you from sitting on a perfectly good chair. Someone famous said "You teach people how to treat you" and if you let people get away with bad behavior you are condoning it with your (non)action. Sometimes people are just way too polite. Here is what I do. I sit where I want. I move the stuff under the chair and if someone else comes to claim the chair I smile sweetly, and move to another unoccupied chair and do the same thing if there is another chair I can be comfortable in. If it happens to be crowded that's a bit trickier but there is NO chair saving. NONE I am teaching people how to treat me. Let me be clear though, I am not a rude person. I go out of my way to be nice to people but I REFUSE to be cowed by rude people. I figure I'm doing them a favor by teaching them a life lesson.:cool: If we ALL did this things wouldn't be the way they are.

[randyfipps]

Why not let the waiters remove the towels, they might free up a chair in the sun where a person might want a drink. They are losing would be customers around the pool to these unused chairs. They are in the area more than anyone else and should pretty much know which chairs are used or are just being saved.

[Don M]

Have you ever noticed that the "chair hogs" never seem to participate in these discussions to defend themselves? Things that make you go "hmmmm"!:)

[Woobstr112G]

Have you ever noticed that the "chair hogs" never seem to participate in these discussions to defend themselves? Things that make you go "hmmmm"!:)

 

Totally agree with you. I don't think people should have to worry about leaving their chairs for a cpl of minutes for them to be taken. What really gets me going though, is certain hogs think their water bottle or towel makes the chair or gym equipment theirs for the whole day.......

 

Bob

 

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