Chair reservation/Pool towel update

[Dvc808]

I just returned from the July 4th stay and people are just selfish. Seen chairs not used for hours and others looking for anything available. Some families had one for every person that did not use even half of the chairs they reserved.

My family of 4 just use 2 at the most as the children don't use it much other than eating and reapplying sunscreen. Wife tends to lounge and watch Netflix. I would swim every once in awhile to cool off, them doze.

What I did before leaving pool was grab the towels that just laid on the chairs and threw them in the towel bins to free up the chairs. I was there from 8 am and left at noon. No one occupied the chairs, just selfish people who came earlier before I did and "reserved" them.
I even saw the family next to me just leave their towels on the chairs as they left. Still claiming? Are they that lazy that they cannot put them in the towel bin? They feel that priveliged to not clean their mess? Well, that was one the the few chairs I "cleared" up.

People come to Hawaii to experience the Aloha spirit, not much when it comes to chairs.

 

[ehrawn]

I just returned from the July 4th stay and people are just selfish. Seen chairs not used for hours and others looking for anything available. Some families had one for every person that did not use even half of the chairs they reserved.

I can confirm this. We are Oahu residents and have stay-cationed there since opening. The perceived scarcity of deck chairs has snow-balled into the point of absurdity. At first, Guests used what they needed and left when they were done. Now, ridiculously large groups (>8+ with most of the party consisting of small children) will assign one member (usually a stern-looking grandmother) to provide watch from 0600-pool closing. At any given moment there are enough seats for everyone. However, the hoarders make it difficult for everyone else.

One thing we found success with is nicely asking if we could share: if you see someone with more chairs than people in the party currently at that location, see if they will let you set your stuff down for a while, or have a seat while you eat a snack. The worst offenders are never to be found, so it doesn't work with them. But I've found that most people want to be kind and Aloha is infectious.

 

[crystal1313]

We are here now and haven't had an issue getting chairs yet. Wetypically only grab 2, but yesterday were able to grab 5 and only used them part of the day. And we sat there quite a bit. Then we moved to the beach and removed our towels and offered them up to the people next to us. No issue getting chairs at the beach. My husband brought our kids to the pool this morning while my parents and I went to PH and they found chairs together with no issue as well. We plan to go back down a a bit and I'm sure we will find something. In fact, we cancelled our casabella reservations. The ama ama deck was pretty far from where we keep finding ourselves at the pool. And frankly, with little ones, we are on the go a lot. we figure if we cannot find anything poolside we will head to the beach.

 

[kylmac]

Just got back and there were quite a few chair hogs (used to it from DCL). I grabbed 1 chair for the 4 of us most days. Some days we could get 2 or 3 together but I would only take 2 as my kids went back to the room and never used the chairs. My husband and I did enjoy sitting next to the adult only pool as well as the beach.

 

[ktlm]

We've been here since Thursday and it is bad. The beach is easy to find chairs, but the pools are awful. The first day we did the character breakfast so we did not get out to the pool until 10, and we could not find even one chair all day- just empty chairs everywhere with people's things on them. We did not see them enforce anything all day. Yesterday we got out about 9 because I could not get DD moving and there were none. We wound up finding a chair in the sun in the very back corner of the pool area a few hours later. I was sitting there for quite a while and I saw very few people in that area, mostly just chairs with things on them. They were enforcing in the afternoon. They out the warning towels up next to us and I told them I would move to the chair next to me under an umbrella when they moved the stuff, but when they did someone was following them and then grabbed the chair before I could even move my shoe from my chair to that one to grab it. Of course, then they left to play, so I was sitting in the sun again with the empty umbrella chair next to me. If you aren't out before 8, you can forget about a chair anywhere that you can see the pool. I got out at 8:10 today and people were literally racing out the door running to try to get chairs like they were at rope drop at the parks. I managed to find one with an umbrella way in the back, but it is 8:43 now and there are no chairs left anywhere that I can see.

 

[nkereina]

Is the chair situation just as bad at the adult pool as it is at the main pool? Or are chairs a little easier to come by at the adult pool?

 

[crystal1313]

We have been here since 7/11 and haven't had any issues getting a chair except one day when we got down there too late and we just went to the beach and got great chairs.

@nkereina our room faces the adult pool and right now (9:15am) it looks like only the front row has people in it. Adult pool has been consistently dead all week. I wonder why they have cabanas there as the whole area seems to be not crowded.

 

[scrappydew]

When we were there in June, we talked to a CM about the towel saving situation. She said that people didn't understand about only having the chair for an hour; and if you see the towel folded on the back of a chair that is yours, to move it to start the clock again. People didn't know that the folded towel actually meant something and would get angry if their stuff got moved.

She also mentioned cubbies: They would electronically lock, and therefore needed to be under cover. Finding space for them was an issue. I agree that signage could perhaps be improved so people would understand what the folded towels meant.

 

[cmph]

I'm not sure why they could only have locking cubbies, since people are leaving their stuff unattended on chairs anyway... like the ones by Rainbow Reef, those don't have doors/locks. It seems like they could have a wall of those along the buildings where they hand out towels, and it wouldn't be too obtrusive.

We didn't have an issue finding chairs in May/June, except the one time mid-day we tried to go to the adult pool while the kids were at Aunty's. There were like 10 people there, but every chair had stuff on it. We went to the beach instead. Definitely not just people with kids being chair hogs, clearly!

 

[crystal1313]

I'm not sure why they could only have locking cubbies, since people are leaving their stuff unattended on chairs anyway... like the ones by Rainbow Reef, those don't have doors/locks. It seems like they could have a wall of those along the buildings where they hand out towels, and it wouldn't be too obtrusive.

We didn't have an issue finding chairs in May/June, except the one time mid-day we tried to go to the adult pool while the kids were at Aunty's. There were like 10 people there, but every chair had stuff on it. We went to the beach instead. Definitely not just people with kids being chair hogs, clearly!

I agree. I think cubbies are a great idea and really liked them at the rainbow reef.

We mainly sat at the menehune play area (because it was closed for 5 days of the trip and never very crowded in that area) and we saw them folding towels and every time we got wrist bands they asked if we knew the chair policy. It seemed like they were folding towels more often on the weekend. I never saw anyone's stuff removed though.