09 August 2023 , 10:59
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Dozens of holidaymakers were filmed running at full speed to claim sunbeds the moment pool opened in the latest skirmish to unfold across Spain.
A video filmed at the Melia Hotel in Benidorm shows the tourists armed with their beach towels hastily making their way to the poolside furniture. Clare Fairbrother, 49 from Warrington, Cheshire was on holiday with husband David, 50, and daughter Lily, 10, at the time and described the scene as "crazy".
Clare and her family had booked a VIP packages which meant that the family's sunbeds were already reserved. She said: "Ok we thought it was funny and crazy to watch this at 9am having breakfast.
"We were sat in the VIP area watching at breakfast time we also had our own reserved sunbed area which is part of the premium room we got. About 50 people in the queue and 20 of them ran. I didn't see it get violent but people were sending their children ahead first as they are quicker I think.
"The hotel restricted the doors being open to the sunbed area until 9 am, so people queued up then ran when the door opened, as I said no need to run there’s loads of sunbeds." The video was filmed on August 7.
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About 20 sunseekers broke out from the pack (Fairbrother Family Fun / SWNS)Sunbed wars have been raging across holiday hotspots beloved by Brits as the ferocious south European heatwave fails to deter solar-starved tourists from scrapping for a top spot by the pool.
From Spain to Portugal, Greece to Turkey, the beaches and poolside of the Mediterranean have been turned into battlegrounds over the past three months. Normally civil people with 9 to 5 jobs and impeccable manners have been forced to increasingly extreme actions.
Some have taken to waking up at the crack of dawn to make it to the front of the queue for when hotel staff swing open the pool-area doors, helping them gain a few yards on their more slovenly competitors.
Others realising the situation was far too serious to be hampered by flip-flops donned running gear to beat the rush, while one man watched his fellow British compatriots line up towels as a kind of overnight placeholder queue.
Earlier this week the sunbed wars seemed to have descended into violence after two British men allegedly tipped a mum out of her lounger in order to poach her spot.
The incident unfolded at Melia Hotel in Benidorm (Fairbrother Family Fun / SWNS)A family of holidaymakers staying at an hotel in Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands, Spain say they intend to file a police report alleging an attack near the establishment's swimming pool. They claim the 53-year-old mother of two daughters was tipped out of her sunbed by the two Brits who said she had poached their spot.
Civil Guard officers were called to the un-named hotel to calm the situation down and to split the various parties up. Diario de Avisos says the Spanish family experienced a "violent episode" which brought "hammock wars" to their limit in the Canary hotel, local newspaper Diario de Avisos reported. "We were afraid," the family said.
The husband of the allegedly tipped woman said she headed to the hotel's pool area with their two daughters, aged 18 and 22, while he took a nap on Monday afternoon. The woman, who "doesn't know any English", claims she was sat on an empty sun lounger when two British men, in their 60s and 30s, "started insulting her" and claimed she was sitting on their sunbed.
The older man is accused of overturning the sunbed which fell on the woman's foot before her daughters were pushed. The woman's husband said other hotel guests who were in the pool at the time immediately criticised the violent attitude of the two men.
"I went down and two seconds later the Civil Guard arrived, which separated everyone," he told Diario de Avisos. The family said they refused to stay in the hotel as they were scared and asked to be moved to a different hotel instead.
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They claim they will be filing an official complaint when they return to their home in Albacete on the Spanish mainland. They will also be seeking a medical report on the mother, saying she has suffered ankle and back pain.