to think that this is absurd?

I have just realised that this is on the sunbed thread

Why?

and I responded without realising.

I could go business class and even pay for the cattery fees too ..... just one litter would do it!

I think it all comes down to "Why do I want a cat?"
(well, I don't, as I'd rather have a dog
If you want a cat for companionship, warmth, love, something to care for then any nice moggy will be fine.

If you want a cat which will never be allowed out because it is too precious (cats can get run over or may even prefer to live up the road with someone else) or because you don't want the breed to die out, then I suppose you would pay for one.

I am with you jalima....just doing the sums as annual far flung luxury beach holidays spring to mind. Now how many times a year do cats have kittens........hm...

'Thinks'
I may start breeding cats
One litter of, say six kittens,

What breed of posh kitten justifies a price of £700?

Why buy a kitten- when there are so many needing good homes from shelters- and even more so, older cats.

I hope you will rehome one of the many beautiful kittens in animal charity shelters instead?

Sorry that you lost your cat, but £700 ?!?! Cant believe that can be true. How about rehoming a regular fluffy companion via an animal charity. For free. Good luck.

Am I being unreasonable? My cat died last week and I contacted a breeder about buying a kitten from her. She has just emailed me - she has a kitten for me (just a few weeks old) but wants to charge me £700 for the baby!!! As an OAP there is no way I can afford that sort of money for a small, fluffy companion???

Presumably if the holiday companies/hotels had enough sunbeds, there would be enough to go round and there wouldn't be a need for people to have to reserve them. After all, not everybody wants to sunbathe on holiday so it wouldn't mean providing beds for the entire hotel population. Perhaps if, as Jalima mentioned, it was the norm for someone to be employed to remove books and towels from sunbeds that had been left for more than 20 mins or so, that would go some way to resolving the issue.

In some ways the hotel benefits from providing sunbeds because it encourages people to stay on the premises and buy snacks and drinks.

I prefer not to stay near the hotel pool as sometimes there is music and general noise. I like to go on the beach. Sunbeds and shades on the beach are expensive but we don't like to spend more than a day or so sunbathing.

I have been on a holiday where you had to wait behind a link gate for the pool area to be opened. When it did people ran to book their bed.

Oh that was daft of me - didn't see the other thread. Sorry!

Our usual holidays don't involve sunbeds but if we do go to a hotel with a pool we tend to go out for a walk in the mornings then might want a swim/sunbed in the shade in the afternoon. At the last hotel we stayed at like that, if anyone left towels on a sunbeds to reserve them the pool attendants removed them and put them to the wash.

There is another thread on this subject here

We wentt to cyprus in october and the sun beds were chosen and reserved at no cost for the duration if the holiday. It meant being able to go out and return to your sun beds knowing there would be somewhere to sit. It worked really well.
Its not just the germans that reserve beds, we were on holiday with brits and irish in portugal on ce, not a german to be seen, but the sunbeds were all reserved anytime from 5 am onwards by people creeping out in their pj’s and then left empty for most of the day.

I've never been on one of these holidays - not a sun-worshipper anyway! - but I can see how annoyed I'd be if - on holiday! - I had to get up early to beat those pesky Germans to the sunbeds! - so I thought it was a good idea There will still be 'unreservable' sunbeds left.

It made me chuckle when I heard that! It's a way of extracting money I guess.