Please tell me about your favorite pool floats and accessories.

November 30, 2021 9:57 AM

After many years of waiting, qlmommy will be having an inground pool installed in our backyard early next year. I would like to buy her some things to make her pool time most enjoyable. So, for those of you who have pools, what are your favorite floats and accessories?
posted by qldaddy to Home & Garden (13 answers total)

We have a floating mat. We use it a lot in our above ground pool. The kids toss each other off and wrestle. We wrestle with kids etc.

One of the best uses, we all rest our arms on it, and float around while chatting. Lots of great conversations around that.

Something like this

https://www.amazon.ca/Floating-3-Layer-Tear-Resistant-Mooring-Roll-Up/dp/B098QPY374/ref=sr_1_17?keywords=Floating%2BMat&qid=1638295746&sr=8-17&th=1

Ours is smaller, and was around $300.
posted by Ftsqg at 10:11 AM on November 30, 2021

We like these whale-tail things and have gotten from them from Costco and similar.
posted by jquinby at 10:28 AM on November 30, 2021

My favorite pool float is called a water hammock - it has two inflatable tubes connected by a fabric sling. You can sit in it like a seat, with an arm on each tube, or put your head on one tube and your legs on the other.
posted by Lycaste at 10:29 AM on November 30, 2021 [4 favorites]

I also really love the water hammock, and also the slings that turn into chairs with pool noodles.

Related: a deck box bench to keep all your pool stuff in.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:49 AM on November 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

This is my all-time favorite hammock. You can lay in it and sit in it two different ways. It takes up very little space when inflated, as well as deflated. Works well for adults and kids. I even pack it to take on vacations with me. We have several of them. I also like this mat but it is more expensive and is really best for full reclining. Your body is mostly out of the water, so if it is really hot out, it is not as refreshing. They are fairly heavy and obviously take more space for storage as you can not really fold or roll them up. We have gotten a lot of the novelty shapes over the years but they are not as comfortable for relaxing on.
posted by maxg94 at 11:03 AM on November 30, 2021

We have two favorite pool floats, the Aqua Leisure Campania and the Big Joe Captain's Pool Float. The Big Joe one is also great as a beanbag chair outside the pool. We use it inside in a rec room in the winter.
posted by mjcon at 12:05 PM on November 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

If I won a lottery, I'd get a bunch of these floating lights, or the planet ones, and a pool.
posted by theora55 at 12:23 PM on November 30, 2021

My sister has a pool and loves flamingos: flamingo drink holder

Also, a waterproof kindle/ereader case because she reads in the pool.
posted by Ms Vegetable at 12:23 PM on November 30, 2021

Nice plastic drinkware. Maybe chill-able plastic drinkware.
posted by brachiopod at 2:18 PM on November 30, 2021

I also like the floating foam things like Ftsqg posted. I have one of these. They aren't particularly cheap (this is $140 for something for one person) but the quality is good. There are lower quality knockoffs that don't float as well or fall apart quickly. Same goes for pool noodles btw; worth it to pay a few extra bucks for better material.
posted by Nelson at 3:33 PM on November 30, 2021

This is my all-time favorite hammock. You can lay in it and sit in it two different ways. It takes up very little space when inflated, as well as deflated. Works well for adults and kids. I even pack it to take on vacations with me. We have several of them.

We have these too and they are great in the lake and in the pool. Easy to store (and ours actually stayed inflated in the house all winter).

A decent set of pool-safe drinking glasses is nice. I hate drinking out of acrylic so I got some stainless steel insulated tumblers. Normally I try to avoid the wacky name, mass produced stuff on Amazon but we had a pool party on a day it hit 108 and these tumblers did an excellent job keeping drinks cool, much better than insulated acrylic tumblers I've used at Air BnBs.

I've also been happy with our waterproof Anker Soundcore speaker (never actually gotten it wet). Face it toward a nearby wall (or some other acoustically reflective thing) and the sound is pretty big.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:25 PM on November 30, 2021

This avocado pool float was a huge hit this summer. The pit is a satisfying size to play with and the avocado part is a great float. The whole thing is darn cute.
posted by nkknkk at 11:16 AM on December 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

Fun fact: the reason the avocado pool float has so many great reviews is that they are the #1 product for being able to sleep while recovering from a Brazilian Butt Lift! You put your newly-lifted butt in the pit hole.

Anyway, I came back to this thread to recommend a thing that we use every time we use our spa pool: a picnic-basket-style collapsible silicone wash tub. We keep our bluetooth speaker, rechargeable waterproof lantern, the lighter and firestarters for our fire pit (which is on a mat to keep the deck clean), a couple of quart freezer baggies for our phones (gallons work for most tablets, I also have some 2gal if needed), and a tube of my ever-present lip balm. If we ever used the pool in the daytime I'd keep sunscreen in it, but we're vampires. That washtub lives indoors near a USB charging station for plugging in all the gadgets. When we're headed out to the pool we add our glasses and beverages, snacks, any other accessories, grab, and go. This way nothing gets left out by the pool because it's too many trips back and forth.

I do have a number of beautiful Turkish peshtemal towels but we primarily use robes as towels instead.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:38 PM on December 2, 2021