Video shows just how serious Brits are about bagging a sunbed by the pool

A holiday is not a holiday unless you set your alarm for the crack of dawn so that you can be the first to reserve the sun loungers by the pool, right?

This video, filmed at a hotel Benidorm, shows just how serious British holidaymakers are about getting their sun beds. The so-called "Sun-Lounger Olympics" sees frantic hotel guests racing for the loungers as if it's a matter of life and death, in an attempt to get a bed for the day in a prime spot by the pool.

Every morning at 8.30am, the gates to the pool at the four-star Flamingo Oasis Hotel open - resulting in a stampede that makes the Harrods January Sales look tame.

Security guards battle to keep order as crowds charge out from behind the closed doors to bag a bed from piles stacked up by the pool.

This video footage of the daily scrum, taken by one guest at the hotel, has gone viral. One guest from Newcastle, who did not wish to be named, told the Daily Mirror: "I've never seen anything like it. They start gathering at the entrances to the pool area from eight am, and then at 8.30 on the dot they're off. It's like Wacky Races. Within two minutes flat all the loungers have been bagged. There are security guards patrolling the area trying to keep order, but they've got no chance. I saw one get nearly knocked over in the stampede."

The Flamingo offers rooms for £1,150 a week next July, and is an all inclusive resort. Around 90 per cent of the guests are English, with the remainder a mix of Spanish, Dutch and German.

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