Can you reserve hotel pool sunbeds in Turkey with a towel if you leave for a while?

Guests report that early risers head out around 5:30am to claim loungers (you can hear neighboring doors), and by 7:30am at breakfast it's nearly impossible to find even two loungers together — both at the pool and on the beach, loungers are packed tightly about 20cm apart.

One workaround to legitimately hold a lounger all day is ordering a drink (e.g. fresh juice or iced coffee, about 300 lira each) — the lounger stays yours as long as you keep buying drinks. For two people this runs about 600 lira/day, but lets you use a nearby beach about 50 meters from the hotel where loungers are spaced 2-3 meters apart instead.

At hotel pools in Turkey, a towel alone often does not count as a valid reservation. Travelers report that if nobody returns for roughly an hour, staff may remove the towel and make the lounger available to other guests.

Even if you place towels early in the morning and step away briefly, the loungers may still be taken by other guests. This is especially an issue for larger groups trying to keep several sunbeds together.

Popular Turkish beaches can also have practical bottlenecks. At Kaputaş Beach, travelers report that changing-room queues can take up a large part of a short beach stop before and after swimming.