Are All Travellers Quarantine Stories Likely To Be The Same?

[pastafreak]

This sounds horrific...and the cost! This is not the first account like this that I've read either.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/06/south-africa-birmingham-quarantine-hotel

[pastafreak]

Very true Lottie. I just wonder about these things sometimes.

Isn't the price charged set by the government in some way? Not just any hotel can provide the proper accommodation for quarantine.

[pat2604]

Personally, I think people expected to go back to normality far too quickly. In my view our old normal regarding travel and holidays has gone for all but the rich. We may well go back to the 1960s before package deals and cheap airlines began to emerge.

[cashier]

An unaccompanied 11 year old, having to quarantine for two weeks is a bit worrying. Bednobs' post. I wouldn't have been amused if the child was mine.

[bednobs]

we have no idea what her hotel is like really - she doesn't name it and the only indication we have is a chipped formica table and a socket not working. If she werent quarantining she would probably just get it fixed or change rooms. But she is.
She wrote it as i said when she'd ust arrived after a nice holiday and not expecting to have to use it, so im not surprised her assesment of it is bleak.
PS re travel lodge, i did a mis calc pasta - i thought it was 14 nights, not 10, so probably not, although 1 week in a premier innn near the airport is in the region of £450 without food

[bednobs]

ashier, that's why he was moaning - he had to go into quarantine to be with the 11 YO too despite the fact he had not travelled

[Deskdiary]

bednobs at 3.28pm - but she didn't travel to a red list country, it became a red list country the day of her planned departure from SA. Surely it's not beyond the wit of man for the prevailing designation on leaving the country to be carried over to the return.

There were no restrictions when she left for holiday, so it seems fundamentally wrong to me that she's now lumbered.

Pasta's question at 3.41pm has crossed my mind in the past - what happens if you can demonstrate to the powers that be that you are completely potless, do not have the wherewithal to pay over £2k, and have no other way of raising it? Do you get the hotel gratis? Do the Govt provide a loan? What happens?

[bednobs]

i suppose what im saying desky is that people should anticipate that things might change, going by experience

[Mamyalynne]

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/hardship-arrangements-for-those-unable-to-pay-for-managed-quarantine-or-testing

[bobbinwales]

Since Covid always a risk when booking a trip away to somewhere like SA or a flight here from abroad. There was lots of criticism in the early days about not closing the border or quarantining when we are letting people in from abroad and just allowed to travel here freely. Now something more is being done about quarantine which I think is right for Red Country's and until we know more about Omicron. Yes ideally the traveller would get decent accomadation at a fair price, but its not as if theres loads of empty hotels that the gioverment can pick from and negotiate very cheap rates, so am not sure what people expect. Should the quarantine be scrapped and we let everyone in? Should the goverment provide it free? Should the goverment commandeer some hotels and cruise ships and turf out those whose already booked? Dont see that happening.

[pat2604]

Exactly Bobbin. There's a huge blame culture these days.

[Stickybottle]

pat2604
Personally, I think people expected to go back to normality far too quickly.

That is exactly it

Proof that it is not going away any time soon

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59561876

[Stickybottle]

Deskdiary
There were no restrictions when she left for holiday, so it seems fundamentally wrong to me that she's now lumbered.

As has already been pointed out
In such a fluid and ever changing situation the idea of foreign travel is hardly uppermost in the thoughts of the sensible

[pastafreak]

I do feel sympathy for this woman as she was visiting her aged parents. I'm sure they would not have been able to visit her.
I've also read that the actor Richard E Grant is experiencing similar. He lost his wife in September and chose to visit his 90 year old mother, only to get caught up in quarantine outside Gatwick.

Unfortunately he's being ridiculed as a spoilt brat for complaining about the grim food. TBH, it looks like the worst sort of cheap food...but that's a whole other story.

[naomi24]

Piggynose, whose sensitivities would you like bednobs to consider?

If people choose to travel in uncertain times they have to be prepared to deal with the unexpected.

[237SJ]

I`ve heard stories of lone female travellers being harrassad by security guards at these hotels as well. Prison would be preferable. It's all well and good saying "It serves them right for travelling in these uncertain times" but these uncertain times could go on for years and it's not acceptable to say that people can't see their elderly relatives on the other side of the world before they die. It's also not acceptable for the rules to be changed with very short notice, thus catching people unawares. That's the problem.

[pat2604]

Unfortunately it has to be short notice. Covid doesn't wait. There were complaints when the government took too long to change things,and now complaints when they act swifly. As I said earlier, they just can't win whatever they do.

[237SJ]

We already have Covid. Waste of time shafting people and making them pay upwards of £2K to stay in a crappy hotel in the UK.