Now we all know what us Brits are like when it comes to wanting the best position for our sun loungers on holiday but this week Thomas Cook have announced that they are charging £22 to hire a sun bed. Would you pay the £22 per holiday to stop scenes such as the one filmed at the Marina Torrenova? Thomas Cook are trialing it in three resorts and you will be able to book this 6 days in advance by looking at a map of the sunbeds. There is even a compass so you can work out where the sun will be at different times of the day. Although great to get sunbeds together as a family it does mean a family of four will need to spend £88 just on sunbeds! I wonder if this would work on a cruise, as this is one of the annoying things about cruising, when passengers put their towels’ on the sunbeds at 7am and don’t turn up till midday. If the cruise line enforced a policy of removing passengers items if the bed was vacant for longer than 90 minutes then I would not get so irate. However , this could become a slippery slope with cruise lines seeing it as an extra source of revenue, and before we know it we will have to pay for the towels in the pool area. Other areas they could make revenue on by allowing people to reserve could be the following:
- seats in the theatre
- tables in the bar
- tender launch seats
- front row at Captains Cocktail Parties (maybe this should have a high premium attached)
Or they could even charge for the pool towels and maybe when you need the Pursers Desk there could be a charge to jump the queue and what about the Daily Schedule surely that’s worth £5 per day! Okay I am jesting now but as cruise lines start to look at other areas of revenue then maybe I am not too far off the truth. What do you think? Would you pay for a sunbed? Any other ways you think they will start charging extra for? Your comments as always are received with interest.