One of the hot topics right now is hotel quarantine, in particular 14 day stays. This is not something that we’ve ever really had to address in the past, but now we have business people and families moving around the world and facing quarantine periods to ensure that they remain safe from covid-19. Because of this, I asked a new colleague of mine to help me put together a quarantine guide.
She was worried initially about her family remaining happy, healthy and mentally intact throughout the 14-day quarantine. As we put together a survival list or quarantine guide to making the complete process as comfortable as possible.
Why do you need a quarantine guide?
Unfortunately, her family’s move had been planned nearly 18 months ago, long before covid-19 had ever struck. They had arranged for her house to be sold and a new one to be purchased. Her children moved schools, even her husband changed jobs all of us to allow her to pursue her dream career.
As a result, it forced her and her family to cross borders and transited with a couple of teenagers and a dog. In our quarantine guide we added some time she learned during their 14-day hotel quarantine.
Before she set off, she did as much research as she could look for quarantine guides using Facebook groups, Google, Instagram, etc she collected a plethora of information. However, this didn’t ease her anxiety regarding how her family would take to the two weeks in a hotel room.
The journey to quarantine
The first step of the journey was that everyone was kept socially distanced. I had to wear face masks throughout as the airline had a strict covid safe policy. On arriving at the airport with the army and the police greeted us, after they inspected our arrival documents to prove that it had approved them to fly and then on a bus with other passengers to their quarantine hotel.
Quarantine check-in
Arriving at the hotel, the covid passenger boss pulled up to a side entrance, and they hurried us into the hotel and straight to our rooms without ever having to check-in. Thankfully, they had set us up with two interconnecting rooms, which really made the complete experience variable. The rest of this article focuses on what we learned from the experience I’ve put together, a series of tips that should make surviving a hotel quarantine much more achievable.
Here is our Quarantine Guide based on personal experience
#1. I tried to start with a positive mindset and keep this for as long as possible, taking note and timeouts whenever you feel it’s living.
#2. Prepare in advance having streaming services such as stand on Netflix ready to go.
#3 make sure you have your food delivery apps installed on your phone and such as Uber eats or anything of its equivalents.
#4. Pre-order bottled water, soda wine beer, etc.
#5. Remember that I need local family or friends able to drop off care packages at the hotel for you.
#6. if this is a big move chance are you going to arrive at the hotel with everything verification sink how you packed in advance is going to be vital to surviving the 14 days in a hotel room
For example, I made sure I had plastic containers cling film cutlery and other utensils including plates and bowls made from melanin. These are vital to storing and eating any spare food behind.
#7. Thankfully I packed dishwashing liquid laundry powder tea towels cleaning clothes, rubber gloves pipes and spray.
#8 My husband ordered portable clothes hanging rack just before we left, they delivered it to the hotel.
#9. We were determined to remain healthy, so we bought a small smoothie blender too.
#10. HDMI cable allowed us to hook our laptop to the TV so we could stream movies.
#11. I thought the second I packed a knife and cutting board this is something that came in very handy.
#12. We packed some balloons, ping pong bats and balls, jigsaw puzzles, Uno cards, and other minor games to keep our teenagers occupied and off their technology for at least a few hours a day.
#13. The amount of plastic waste to generators in the space of two weeks is simply staggering, so having a place of storage it’s important to attack some garbage bags too.
#14. Space is obviously limited, so if you want to continue exercising you may need to bring a yoga mat and some resistance bands.
#15. We bought a burner and some essential oils to help eliminate food smells and try to keep her room smelling fresh as possible.
#16. Trust me when I tell you the half an hour you can find in the bath if there’s one in your hotel room will be something that you look forward to bringing some bath bombs right there.
Things I wish I had known beforehand
Nobody told us to quarantine hotels and Apartments we could have booked, instead we were stuck with a smaller hotel room while others had apartments with full cooking facilities. I was a little upset when I first learned this. Always ask, just in case.
If you don’t like cooking, you’re going to struggle with no cooking facilities. We tried to supplement our deliveries with as much fresh food as possible. I even turned to boiling eggs in the kettle.
I became a whiz at preparing food with next to no cooking facilities. While they delivered the food daily, we supplemented it with supplies from Woolworths that we kept cold in our bar fridge.
Thankfully, our hotel had space on the roof where we could go over 30 to 50 minutes every day during that time we kept moving, making sure we covered at least 6-8 km every day.
I am eternally grateful to our hotel staff who are the most friendly kind, and hard-working people that we ever encountered. We hope you are as lucky as we were.
