Hotel quarantine experience when returning to Australia

These two points are irreconcilable - flights arrive all day and they hand out directions all day, so there is always a variance from 14 x 24 hour time periods. Qld Health will pay your taxi fare to the airport, but everyone else is on their own after release.
Sounds really confusing. Maybe they count arrival day as Day 1 not Day 0?

In Sydney we were ever so lucky that our flight reached that gate at 11:58 am. We were due in at 12:15. If we’d taken just 2 minutes longer during the taxi to the gate we would have had an extra 9 or 11 hrs in quarantine, instead of leaving at 7am like we did we would have had to stay until 4pm or 6pm ( I can’t remember if after midday arrivals departed 4-6pm or 6-8pm).

WA’s is by far the easiest to work out. Land at 3pm Monday. Leave at 3pm Monday. Kudos to them .
 
Maybe they count arrival day as Day 1 not Day 0?
Yeah, that makes sense. So big incentive to get an evening arrival into BNE from wherever rather than a morning one. Flying QR I gamed the system without even knowing it 😀.

Seems states love points of difference. Qld runs off direction issue time (process after you clear Customs and AQIS) as opposed to flight arrival time.
 
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Back in AUS soil, at last!

We arrived in Sydney on Sunday evening 20th June, are now serving 14 days mandatory detention in a quarantine hotel ☹ ☹

After almost 4 months staying in an ultra luxury and spacious flat owned by a prolific poster of this forum (I have previously posted about this and a few of you know them well) – it has 3 marble / stone bathrooms all larger than ours, a large kitchen with all mod cons and top brand appliances, and 270 degree views! We have come down hard to earth in the quarantine hotel! The offer to us was completely unexpected and extremely generous (they paid all the bills) to help us planning our trip home. Words do not express adequately our gratitude.

Last October British Airways (BA) had a 50% off point redemption for flights to Sydney. We thought it was a good opportunity not to be missed. We booked one-way flights to SYD from LHR, via SIN – first class – for May this year. We hoped that the pandemic lockdowns would be over by then, and no hotel quarantine. Then two months later, BA cancelled all flights to SYD until at least November this year. Having followed a frequent flyer forum, we took their advice not to accept a future travel voucher but to wait until closer to travel dates and ask to be re-routed. Things got worse around the globe, the vaccine program started in England around last Christmas. We thought we would wait until after fully vaccinated to return to Sydney in the hope of being allowed to self-isolate at our home. However, as we know things got even worse and the AUS government has had no plan on when the borders would be re-opened. Having been fully vaccinated we decided it was time to fast track our return to Sydney. Thankfully, a wonderful staff member at BA agreed to re-route us on Qatar Airways. We were quite nervous about whether this booking would stick, as it was on frequent flyer point redemption. We monitored our booking every day for almost 6 weeks to make sure it was still there. We did not tell our families as we did not want to disappoint nor crush their hope if things did not go according to plan.

We left London early Saturday morning 19th June (lockdown day 452). We flew with Qatar Airways from London to Doha (6½ hour flight), transit in Doha for 2h 30m, then onto Sydney (14 hour flight). Both flights were excellent – we were in business class, Q-suites (same as BA first, if not better). There were only 33 pax on the long flight from DOH to SYD. Our selected seats were on the window, and we asked the cabin crew to make up a double bed in the middle two seats for us to sleep – it was so relaxing.

When we arrived in SYD, it took 3 hours from the time we got off the plane to when we arrived in our hotel room for detention. Health, army, and police personnel asked questions and checked our passports and documents, and met us at the hotel to check us in and escort us to our cell – oddly enough, no-one has asked us whether we have been vaccinated. We were put on a bus with 6 other people, all socially distanced – sitting on it for more than an hour before it moved – to an undisclosed location. As hubby said, we got “the rough end of the pineapple” for quarantine hotel – as many on facebook groups appeared to have got apartments with balconies or much better named hotels. We can’t tell you the name of our quarantine hotel, but it ain’t the Hilton Waldorf Astoria or Conrad, nor JW Marriott, nor Intercontinental, nor Park Hyatt 😊 where we have stayed over the years.

Our cell is a standard hotel room with 2 double beds, a single person sofa, a small table just big enough for our laptop, one chair (we have asked for another chair), a small bathroom barely enough to swing a cat (with a shower over the Lilliputian bath, and a single hook for a towel), a window overlooking another building, no sunlight, and no fresh air. We are not allowed to set foot outside the room, other than to open the door to pick up 3 meals delivered a day in paper bags, or to get tested on day 2, day 7 and day 12. Hubby has been very paranoid about people coming near us. I am mentally wrecked in not having a balcony for fresh air.

We are not likely to eat much “specifically catered food”, we will order dinner from our friend’s restaurant to be delivered to the hotel. Another friend will bring fresh fruit and 2 mugs for our tea / coffee (hotel only supplied a dozen small disposable paper cups, we asked for proper cups / mugs but they said not allowed due to quarantine rules ☹)

Well, at least we are back on Australian soil. We had been in London for 9 ½ years. We loved living there, having our 2 dogs with us (one for less than year and another for 9 years), being able to travel to more destinations easily, and seeing the length and breath of the UK and Ireland with one dog). We left London with mixed feelings (Samuel Johnson who said “The man who is tired of London is tired of life”). But hopefully we can call Australia (small-minded though our politicians and many of its people are) home for at least the next few years.

Stay safe and well and hope to meet some of you one day.

PS - @kpc: please fire up that BBQ as you have promised :)
@cove: we look forward to get our 2 home-made Christmas cakes by Mrscove - warehoused for us!
 
Welcome home....almost! @cove told me you were due back soon! Drove past your house last night and it looks OK...I guess someone has 2 weeks to clean it up. Any reason you can't disclose your prison? Bbq is ready to go and we are all fully vaccinated too....just in time for the latest Sydney outbreak! Ps happy to buy / organise anything you need to be dropped off at your prison. ;)
 
Welcome home....almost! @cove told me you were due back soon! Drove past your house last night and it looks OK...I guess someone has 2 weeks to clean it up. Any reason you can't disclose your prison? Bbq is ready to go and we are all fully vaccinated too....just in time for the latest Sydney outbreak!
Yes, someone has 2 weeks to clean our house and make room for us 🤣 It is the Novotel in Darling Harbour / Chinatown. Great to hear that you are all fully vaccinated 👍
 
Great news that you managed to get into Oz on an award ticket. Welcome home!

Can I ask what fare bucket the DOH - SYD flight was in please?
 
Great news that you managed to get into Oz on an award ticket. Welcome home!

Can I ask what fare bucket the DOH - SYD flight was in please?
Z - according to another forumite, it is QR first award - since we had F awards with BA, so they must have re-booked in the same class, but there was no first on QR flight, only Qsuites (we are not complaining at all). When we telephoned BA youfirst we were told they were not allowed to do QR re-route on award tickets, only revenue. HUACA worked and we got a really nice person who did it for us - but we were very nervous till the end as not sure if booking would stick. Phew! we made it.
 
Ps happy to buy / organise anything you need to be dropped off at your prison. ;)
Many thanks, kpc. With my 2 girlfriends' help, we should be OK for now. If we do need anything else (other than the 2 mugs - instead of drinking tea and coffee out of small disposable paper cups; and some fresh fruit) I will certainly shout out to you. People said hotel deliveries are not reliable, as they don't always deliver things to rooms within a reasonable time frame. So, hoping dinner from my girlfriend's restaurant will get to us hot and not lukewarm. Someone said an inventive way of using the hotel iron would be to make toasted sandwich with waxed paper. But, I am not game enough to try it. Hubby said he worked out if he walked 62 lengths (of the room) back and forth, he would walk 1km!
 
That hotel sounds pretty pov. At Rydges in the valley there were a couple of china mugs as well as wine glasses in the plat d'accueil. Washing up the china was a daily highlight right up there with opening the door for lunch. Surely you have wine glasses?
 
That hotel sounds pretty pov. At Rydges in the valley there were a couple of china mugs as well as wine glasses in the plat d'accueil. Washing up the china was a daily highlight right up there with opening the door for lunch. Surely you have wine glasses?
Ditto at Pullman Sydney Airport (glasses, mugs). Agree also re the daily highlight. 🤣
 
That hotel sounds pretty pov. At Rydges in the valley there were a couple of china mugs as well as wine glasses in the plat d'accueil. Washing up the china was a daily highlight right up there with opening the door for lunch. Surely you have wine glasses?
Am not kidding, nothing here in this prison hotel - no cup, no glasses, only small paper cups! I read in a few facebook groups, people say to bring china plates and bowls, (real) cutlery as food was delivered in paper bags, flimsy boxes etc. No one mentioned bring cups, mugs for tea/coffee at all - if we had known. We gave away 50 of them in London :( There is a bar fridge with nothing in it and not on.
Today, day 1 in prison quarantine, we have collected (unused) water bottles, instant coffee packs, tea bags, biscuits, small apple juice tetra boxes - lined them all up along the window. Hubby has been taken photos of the menus and food to send them to his sister with funny captions. We only consumed 1/3 of the food supplied. Hubby said if we ate everything they gave us, when we leave quarantine we will become so chunky that we would need a whole new wardrobe. Quantity over quality. We are going to keep a diary of the food to amuse ourselves.
 
They have still not delivered the extra chair as promised last night - hubby called reception again and they said it was being considered by another department. Very sparse furniture in the room. We cannot work sitting on the beds, need a proper chair.
 
small apple juice tetra boxes - lined them all up along the window
Oh, yeah! Arranging the juice bottles is quaro entertainment No. 62. Hope that chair comes and NSW Health are up to the mark. Qld Health rang up to enquire about my mental health about every three days (It drove me nuts!) and were quite interested in my feedback on the accom.

Cheers skip
PSX_20210315_131541.jpg
 
Well we did our March,2020 14 day confinement at our home in Perth as that was the way quarantine ran back then. I was able to work as i had my laptop but i was not permitted to leave our half acre.
Getting some fresh air and sunlight was important for mental well being and we were able to get our local IGA and our fruit store and butcher to deliver to our carport.
Of course the rules have tightened and knowledge about the pandemic has improved.
The thing I get concerned about is we treat vaccinated folk the same as unvaccinated folk when the risk of infection transfer is so modest.
At least Qatar pajamas are really good and i heard the Dyson minivac is working a treat.
 
Oh, yeah! Arranging the juice bottles is quaro entertainment No. 62. Hope that chair comes and NSW Health are up to the mark. Qld Health rang up to enquire about my mental health about every three days (It drove me nuts!) and were quite interested in my feedback on the accom.

Cheers skip
Well, the chair was finally delivered last night around 10pm - 24 hours after I requested it. I wiped it down from top to bottom with dettol wipes (brought from London) before sitting on it :)
This morning 2 nurses came around to do the 1st test (2nd day) and they bang on the door, I told them to wait as hubby was naked (well, he was not, he was in his underdacks :) - so he had his test done in them 🤣 Three more tests to go - on day 7th and day 12th and day 16th after we are released from prison quarantine.
 
Well we did our March,2020 14 day confinement at our home in Perth as that was the way quarantine ran back then. I was able to work as i had my laptop but i was not permitted to leave our half acre.
Getting some fresh air and sunlight was important for mental well being and we were able to get our local IGA and our fruit store and butcher to deliver to our carport.
Of course the rules have tightened and knowledge about the pandemic has improved.
The thing I get concerned about is we treat vaccinated folk the same as unvaccinated folk when the risk of infection transfer is so modest.
At least Qatar pajamas are really good and i heard the Dyson minivac is working a treat.
Could not agree more, fresh air and sunlight which we are not getting at the moment, especially for mental health. The lockdowns have caused a huge increase in (silent) mental health. I just looked with envy at balconies from a tall apartment opposite our cell window this morning.
One thing that got us in quarantine, no one asked us if we had the jabs. In London when there were people coming to the flat I always made sure they wore masks (if not, I gave them the masks) and asked politely if they had been jabbed and kept the distance, and I always left the windows and doors open widely.
Yes the QR pyjamas were great - they are White Company and quite comfortable. And Mrscove's Dyson minivac has kept me sane. Hubby said the bluetooth speaker keeps him sane with his music. Hubby said I am germaphobe, dustophobe and dirtophobe and arachnophobe 🤣 and a bad patient (I screamed when the nurse poked around my throat and nose with the stick for the test this morning).
 
With the days flying by you will be out of quarantine before long.
It will be watch out multi year weeds when you get home after being in London for so long.
I know you will miss Waitrose.
 
With the days flying by you will be out of quarantine before long.
It will be watch out multi year weeds when you get home after being in London for so long.
I know you will miss Waitrose.
Counting the days - another 11 days to go, another 33 more square meals
Garden will be a wild jungle
Yes, missing Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and Tesco Extra - and the swan family with 4 cygnets growing fast 🦢
 
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