Finally today is the last day of hotel quarantine. We will head back to our home tomorrow. We had to call the security to arrange when we are planning to leave. Theoretically, we can leave after midnight today but for us, it is not possible so we had to wait the morning. They brought us a paper to confirm that we can leave tomorrow, and then they came to ask what time we will be leaving tomorrow.
Here is our last breakfast in prison:
Breakfast for 7th September, arrived at 8:33 AM
Here is our lunch:
Lunch for 7th September, arrived at 12:29 PM
We ordered from out so there is no photo from last dinner.
And for the last time, I would like to rewrite the questions:
What is the scientific reason to keep us locked for another 2 days in this prison while
Our Day 8 result is NEGATIVE
There is no symptom
We are double vaccinated
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 2? And demographics of these people? Which country did they come from?
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 8? I do not think people tested positive on Day 8 has brought the Covid from origin country, it is because of the queues in airport, bus etc.
How many people staying in a quarantine hotel tested positive whereas that person is double vaccinated? It should be pretty easy to collect and analyse this data. Both me and my husband are double vaccinated in the UK and we have this information in NHS, we are prepared to share the proof of our doses.
Why double vaccination is not a key parameter to decide a person`s quarantine status when that person is coming from a red list country where it is a key parameter for people coming from an amber list country?
Why this “award winning travel company (CTM)” is putting the people in random hotels instead of putting people coming with the same flight into the same hotel in order to minimise the risk of infecting other people in the bus etc.?
I hope no one will ever need to stay in a managed quarantine hotel and this practice will end soon. At least, hopefully we will get a proper explanation for this inhumanity.
We received the PCR results today and as you can guess, we both have NEGATIVE results. Unfortunately, this does not make any difference and we still need to stay here for another 2 days. I guess we should be thankful to the UK government that they saved us from the toxic environment by locking us here(?). I mean, when I think about it, I cannot even get excited to go out finally..
Here is our breakfast for today :
Breakfast for 6th September, arrived at 8:49 AM
I have updated my previous post but I will also mention here too. You know the total cost of this quarantine hotel was £3715 to us. This used to be £1,750 per person, plus £650 per another adult, $2400 before 12th August. And then, they decided this money was not enough for the service they provided in the hotels!!! Yes, this is the funniest thin I have ever heard in this whole process.. (Please check the news, and yes it did not stay as plan, they made it real). It might be a case where you made the reservation before 12 Aug to arrive after 12 Aug (like end of August, or maybe even September) but for our case, we did not know when we were going to come back.
Here is our lunch for today if you are still feeling ok after reading above:
Lunch for 6th September, arrived at 12:29 PM
For dinner, we did not want to have the prison food and ordered from out and we called them not to bring us dinner, so no photo from that.
Yes, and walking, another exiting part of prison. I called them at 17:00 PM to arrange a walk at 20:00 PM. The security guy told me that they are changing their shift at 19:00 PM and asked whether I wanted to go out around 19:00. I said yes, does not matter any more. And the guy told me to call 30 mins before 19:00 to remind. I called them and he said they are about to change shift and he wrote down our number but it might get lost and to call the other crew… I called like 3 more times again, it is 19:54 PM now and we are still waiting in the room to out to get some fresh air.. (They came to pick us at 20:17 PM) I mean is this really this hard to keep record of the room numbers vs. their walking times and pass it to other shift?? I really do not get it. I mean if you cannot keep track of this then why don`t you decide already our walking times as you do for our meal?
And here is the questions I would like to recap, with one addition:
What is the scientific reason to keep us locked for another 2 days in this prison while – Our Day 8 result is NEGATIVE – We do not have any symptom – We are double vaccinated (I cannot even believe myself, I am an hopeless stupid who is trying to have a “scientific” explanation to all these things…)
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 2? And demographics of these people? Which country did they come from?
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 8? I do not think people tested positive on Day 8 has brought the Covid from origin country, it is because of the queues in airport, bus etc.
How many people staying in a quarantine hotel tested positive whereas that person is double vaccinated? It should be pretty easy to collect and analyse this data. Both me and my husband are double vaccinated in the UK and we have this information in NHS, we are prepared to share the proof of our doses.
Why double vaccination is not a key parameter to decide a person`s quarantine status when that person is coming from a red list country where it is a key parameter for people coming from an amber list country?
Why this “award winning travel company (CTM)” is putting the people in random hotels instead of putting people coming with the same flight into the same hotel in order to minimise the risk of infecting other people in the bus etc.?
It was a sunny day here even tough I do not care or it has any impact on my mood any more. Today was the test date for us for Day 8. A hotel clerk brought the test kits to our room, we registered them to NHS, did the test and same person came and pick it up. Normally, we receive the results by tomorrow morning but for some reason we are not allowed to leave the hotel premises until 8th September 00:01 AM. This is another stupid thing, we had to stay here tomorrow Day 9(even we have negative results), and Day 10 and we can leave after midnight on 10th day. I mean how are we supposed to leave at midnight? What is the point of staying almost 2 days more in this prison if our result is negative? Of course we have to sleep here on Tuesday night and leave first thing in the morning on Wednesday, which is 11th day(12th day in theory).
Here is our breakfast for today:
Breakfast for 5th September, arrived at 8:54 AM
Here is our lunch for today:
Lunch for 5th September, arrived at 12:54 PM
Today I called the security around 13:00 PM to arrange our walk at 17:00 PM. Then, I called them around 16:30 PM to confirm our walk and the guardian came around 17:05 PM to bring us downstairs. It was a sunny day in London and hopefully all free people had enjoyed the last sunny days of this country for this year..
Here is our dinner for today:
Dinner for 5th September, arrived at 18:07 PM
And here is the recap of my questions:
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 2? And demographics of these people? Which country did they come from?
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 8? I do not think people tested positive on Day 8 has brought the Covid from origin country, it is because of the queues in airport, bus etc.
How many people staying in a quarantine hotel tested positive whereas that person is double vaccinated? It should be pretty easy to collect and analyse this data. Both me and my husband are double vaccinated in the UK and we have this information in NHS, we are prepared to share the proof of our doses.
Why double vaccination is not a key parameter to decide a person`s quarantine status when that person is coming from a red list country where it is a key parameter for people coming from an amber list country?
Why this “award winning travel company (CTM)” is putting the people in random hotels instead of putting people coming with the same flight into the same hotel in order to minimise the risk of infecting other people in the bus etc.?
We have spent most of the day(saturday) watching Netflix. Thank god, it is possible to cast your device to the TV in the room and the internet is not too bad. Yes, it is also unbelievable for me too but I could spent the whole day eating something in front of tv.
Today is also the first week of our arrival and I realised the menu has returned back to the first day. When we first arrived, we filled the meal preferences for the rest of 10 days upfront and here is the menu`s for Day 0(28th Aug) and Day 7(4th Sept), Day 1(29th Aug) and Day 8(5th Sept) for you to see the similarities.
On the meal pages, I guess first day was started as Day 1. In our leaflet, our arrival date is considered as Day 0.
Here is our breakfast for today:
Breakfast for 4th September, arrived at 9:15 AM
Here is our lunch for today:
Lunch for 4th September, arrived at 13:08 PM
We called the security at 17:33 PM to go out for walk and the guy told us that a guardian could come and pick us up in roughly 30 mins, I also specified that this is our first walk in today. After 45 minutes, we called them again to say no one showed up. The guardian told it was very busy outside and they could bring us up around 20:00 PM. So, even tough they told us if it is our first walk, we had the priority; this was not the case. The guy told me that this was because other people were calling earlier and specifying the times beforehand for their walks. I guess part of us is still fighting with this system..So, if you have to stay in a quarantine hotel, set your walk times in the morning for that day. We had dinner and called them to go out and they brought us downstairs around 19:35 PM.
Here is our dinner for today:
Dinner for 4th September, arrived at 18:50 PM
I would like to recap my questions:
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 2? And demographics of these people? Which country did they come from?
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 8? I do not think people tested positive on Day 8 has brought the Covid from origin country, it is because of the queues in airport, bus etc.
How many people staying in a quarantine hotel tested positive whereas that person is double vaccinated? It should be pretty easy to collect and analyse this data. Both me and my husband are double vaccinated in the UK and we have this information in NHS, we are prepared to share the proof of our doses.
Why double vaccination is not a key parameter to decide a person`s quarantine status when that person is coming from a red list country where it is a key parameter for people coming from an amber list country?
Why this “award winning travel company (CTM)” is putting the people in random hotels instead of putting people coming with the same flight into the same hotel in order to minimise the risk of infecting other people in the bus etc.?
If we do not count Wednesday, there are 4 days left to our freedom. Today was a quiet day with no major problem. I remember there was some information in the leaflet about laundry service. So, I wanted to check that out again to see what we are eligible. It turns our we are allowed for 7 small items per person, yet another cruelty for people who have not enough clothes. Do not forget to bring 2 sets of pyjamas(!), some warm clothes, and t-shirt as the weather is sometimes sunny for 10 days if you are coming from a red list country.
Here is our breakfast for today:
Breakfast for 3rd September, arrived at 9:28 AM
Here is our lunch for today:
Lunch for 3rd September, arrived at 13:31 PM
Here is our dinner for today:
Dinner for 3rd September, arrived at 18:35 PM
I will repeat my questions again..
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 2? And demographics of these people? Which country did they come from?
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 8? I do not think people tested positive on Day 8 has brought the Covid from origin country, it is because of the queues in airport, bus etc.
How many people staying in a quarantine hotel tested positive whereas that person is double vaccinated? It should be pretty easy to collect and analyse this data. Both me and my husband are double vaccinated in the UK and we have this information in NHS, we are prepared to share the proof of our doses.
Why double vaccination is not a key parameter to decide a person`s quarantine status when that person is coming from a red list country where it is a key parameter for people coming from an amber list country?
Why this “award winning travel company (CTM)” is putting the people in random hotels instead of putting people coming with the same flight into the same hotel in order to minimise the risk of infecting other people in the bus etc.?
Please share this blog with as many people as possible to make a difference and to end this cruel practice.
Yet another day passed in this prison, we are almost in the middle of this process. I have never been so thankful to have a job that can take my mind off from the other things. do not even realise of the time while working, and suddenly it is evening already, which is really good feeling these days.
Here is our breakfast for today:
Breakfast for 2nd September, arrived at 9:39 AM
Here is our lunch for today:
Lunch for 2nd September, arrived at 14:12 PM
We did not have time to go for a walk during the day and we decided to go for a wlk at 17:30PM. I called the security at 16:36PM to arrange our walk in 1 hour. The guy told me to call 15 mins before (where the same guys told me to arrange the walking in advance). I hung up and called at 17:24PM and they came in after 20 mins. The problem for today was the terrace was very crowded. I know Covid is not very transmittable in outside but you know, it still feels very disturbing to be with people in a small area with also a guard for almost each person..
For dinner, we did want to order from outside because of food quality from yesterday. We called the food service and asked them not to bring us any food in order not to waste it. They just brought us water as per our request. They deliver the food to the reception and one of the guardians brought the food from reception to our room. So, it is not allowed to go and pick up your own food or they do not allow the delivery guy to bring it to you.
I will repeat my questions again..
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 2? And demographics of these people? Which country did they come from?
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 8? I do not think people tested positive on Day 8 has brought the Covid from origin country, it is because of the queues in airport, bus etc.
How many people staying in a quarantine hotel tested positive whereas that person is double vaccinated? It should be pretty easy to collect and analyse this data. Both me and my husband are double vaccinated in the UK and we have this information in NHS, we are prepared to share the proof of our doses.
Why double vaccination is not a key parameter to decide a person`s quarantine status when that person is coming from a red list country where it is a key parameter for people coming from an amber list country?
Why this “award winning travel company (CTM)” is putting the people in random hotels instead of putting people coming with the same flight into the same hotel in order to minimise the risk of infecting other people in the bus etc.?
How many cases spread among the people hotel quarantine vs. how many cases spread after UEFA Euro 2020 matches?
Please share this blog as many people as possible to make a difference and to end this cruel practice.
If everything goes well, next week on Wednesday we will get out from this hell. As the day passes, you try to convince yourself that you are getting used to it. But if I am being honest with you, it is not something you can get used to when you know this is unfair. Most of the time, I`m trying to find ways to keep myself busy, but when I cannot find something and start to think about it, I start to feel like I am drowning. Why do i need to spend my time and energy in this cell? What am I going to do if something happens to someone else in my family? What if I catch the virus in this place? What sandwich will we have for today? (no, we are not thinking about this of course; we learned that it is always chicken with something)
During this pandemic, I have seen very limited stories of people who have not seen their families for months, or people missing the special moments of other family members.. Mostly what is covered in media is all about what holidaymakers will do, where they can go or not, and what is the situation of popular holiday spots, whether they can get last minute chance of some sunshine… There are a lot of people living in this country whose parents, families, friends are living abroad and many of them did not have an opportunity to go and visit them even once. Do you think this is less important than holidaymakers?
Politics and my inner voices aside, I will continue to write about our quarantine day. I hope people reading this blog will not have to come to this hotel neither during the pandemic nor after this period. There is a constant noise of water flowing in pipe (bubbling and gurgling) in our room. You do not realise it too much when there are other noises around but when it is night and there is no background noise, it is very very annoying for a person like me (I hate every unnatural, distracting noises). So if you have an option, I advise you to pick another.
Here is our breakfast for today:
Breakfast for 1th September, arrived at 8:34 AM
Here is lunch for today:
Lunch for 1th September, arrived at 12:35 PM
After lunch, I called the security to go out for a walk. I asked the guardian if I can record video of the corridors when they are escorting us to terrace without recording any person. However, the guardian told me that I am not allowed to take a video even if I do not record them. He told me that he would talk to his manager and let me know. As you can guess, the manager told him that it was not allowed. Even tough it says opposite in the leaflet (see section in the middle Interacting with media).. I would never record anyone in the video without their consent but I feel really exhausted to fight for something…
Instead, I took the video of the terrace. Hope you can get some idea of the area. I took only floor in order not to have people in the video. As you can see, it is an area that you can walk in 1 minute so all we can do is to pace back and forth in the same area.
Here is dinner for today. In the first photo, you see how they know our door and leave the food at each meal time.
Dinner for 1th September, arrived at 17:44 PM
In previous posts, I wrote the food was not too bad, but today I cannot say the same thing..
I will again repeat my questions.
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 2? And demographics of these people? Which country did they come from?
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 8? I do not think people tested positive on Day 8 has brought the Covid from origin country, it is because of the queues in airport, bus etc.
How many people staying in a quarantine hotel tested positive whereas that person is double vaccinated? It should be pretty easy to collect and analyse this data. Both me and my husband are double vaccinated in the UK and we have this information in NHS, we are prepared to share the proof of our doses.
Why double vaccination is not a key parameter to decide a person`s quarantine status when that person is coming from a red list country where it is a key parameter for people coming from an amber list country?
Why this “award winning travel company (CTM)” is putting the people in random hotels instead of putting people coming with the same flight into the same hotel in order to minimise the risk of infecting other people in the bus etc.?
How many cases spread among the people hotel quarantine vs. how many cases spread after UEFA Euro 2020 matches?
We started today with our NEGATIVE PCR results. Yesterday, they brought Day 2 test kits to our room, we did our tests and we received the results via SMS and email from NHS. Now, we will wait until the next test which will take place on Day 8. Here is the schedule that the hotel gave us when we arrived.
We will receive another test on Day 8
Other good news was that, our car which was stuck in London Stansted airport, we managed to reach out to them from Twitter and they told us we can book another 9 days from the same car park, in other words extend our stay. Happy days!
I would like to share other information from the leaflet. Here is the other page for meal times. I will also share the time we received each meal below each food photo. This is not to blame the hotel or complain about the timings. I find our delivery times very reasonable. I just can not stop myself imagining the people having their breakfast delivered at 8.00 AM – 8.30 AM and dinner at 5.30 PM – 6.00 PM. We are in 6th floor and there are other people in both downstairs and upstairs. How long they need to wait without eating anything? Should they order if the portion is not enough? Or should they leave the dessert for later?
Here is our breakfast for today: I do not know what we have done to deserve honey & marmalade (they were not listed in the menu as you can see). And we have our 2 slices of bread (today we had 4, guess they put the 2 from yesterday)
Breakfast for 31th August, around 9:10 AM
Here is the lunch. I picked salad option for myself and the other option (sandwich) for my husband when they first asked us to select the meal options at the very first day. I do not know what you think but I do not find it healthy to eat sandwich everyday..
Lunch for 31th August, 13: 28 PM
After lunch, I called security around 14:00 to arrange my daily exercise and asked them to come and pick me up in 30 mins. This is because they told us to do so in order to make the arrangements, and avoid crowd in the terrace. My guard came around 14:45 to pick me up and we were out around 14:50 for 20 mins break.
Here is the dinner:
Dinner for 31th August, 18:40 PM
I do not get the charm of this cake to be honest. We are getting the same cake everyday with different flavours. Is it easy to make? I am asking just because I do not know. Sorry but I am a Mediterranean and we have a variety of desserts and this is not one them…
By the way, it is true that we are allowed to order food from outside, which is good, as you may check from their policy. (Sorry for the page order of the pages but they put information about food into 2 pages and I would like to share them all.)
For the second walk of today, we had to call 3 times (first call around 17:45); both to security and to reception because no one came to pick us up after 1 hour. Finally, someone knocked the door at 19:15 and brought us to 4th floor terrace for 20 mins walk.
In order to emphasise what I am trying to fight for, I will repeat my questions in each post:
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 2? And demographics of these people? Which country did they come from?
How many people tested positive during quarantine hotel stay on Day 8? I do not think people tested positive on Day 8 has brought the Covid from origin country, it is because of the queues in airport, bus etc.
How many people staying in a quarantine hotel tested positive whereas that person is double vaccinated? It should be pretty easy to collect and analyse this data. Both me and my husband are double vaccinated in the UK and we have this information in NHS, we are prepared to share the proof of our doses.
Why double vaccination is not a key parameter to decide a person`s quarantine status when that person is coming from a red list country where it is a key parameter for people coming from an amber list country?
Why this “award winning travel company (CTM)” is putting the people in random hotels instead of putting people coming with the same flight into the same hotel in order to minimise the risk of infecting other people in the bus etc.?
I would like this data to be shared publicly and understand the logic behind this managed quarantine practice.
We have been trying to reach to Reception to ask whether they have a car park here and if we can give our car`s extra key to them so one of our friends can come and pick it up from the reception. We are calling Park Plaza Victoria reception, they are picking up the phone and saying they will check and come back to us. No one has returned back to us after 2 calls… The reason we need to take our car out is our car was parked in Stansted airport and the stay will expire on 31th of August. If we cannot take it out, we need to pay £30 a day. We are trying to extend the stay but Stansted airport call centre is not working on weekends and bank holidays (not surprisingly).. It is not only the stress we are stuck in a small room, it is the other facts that is making this process unbearable. You are calling and no one is answering, you are waiting for breakfast but they are not brining..Or they are brining but not even knocking the door like we will know when the breakfast came by our instincts.
Here is today`s breakfast for 2 people:
Breakfast for 30th August
In my Quarantine Hotel – Day 1 post, I mentioned I requested bread for hot breakfast for the rest of our stay but as you can see, there is not bread for us for this breakfast.. It is ok, thank god they are allowing us to order from amazon and we ordered our bread already..Like it is not enough to pay £3715, we still have option to spend more and more to feed ourselves..(insert sarcastic laugh here)
Here is today`s lunch
Lunch for 30th August
At the end of the day, we talked with Reception and they accepted to get the keys from us and give it to our friend. We sent an email to them as they requested but no one came to pick up the keys from us. We ignored it because our friend could not make it to come today but who never know whether we can talk to reception tomorrow or not.
For the daily walks, we are allowed to go out for 20 mins breaks 3 times. When we want to walk, we are calling (the number are not working, so we either need to call reception or call our guardian). One of the guardians is knocking our door when the time comes, informs other people that we are coming, escorts us to the elevator and press 4th floor. Another guardian is welcoming us at 4th floor and again escorting us to the terrace. When our 20 mins is up, they are calling us and showing us our ways to our room. Today, I have called security to arrange our walking at around 16:47 PM to arrange our walk in 30 mins. 30 minutes passed and no one knocked our door. I called them again and remind myself; the security guy told me that he was sending someone, another 30 mins passed and no one came. We opened the door and informed the guardians and finally we managed to go out (?), to the terrace at 18:00 PM.
If we order food or any deliveries, they are bringing it to our door.
Here is today`s dinner:
Dinner for 30th August
And here are some photos from the hotel room, or should I call our cell?
When we received the breakfast, we realised there was no bread. We tried to call reception, the number they gave us for Food; none of it worked. We came here yesterday so we were hungry and we just wanted 2 slices of bread. I had to go out to the corridor and ask the guardians. They informed us that there is a problem with the lines today and they are not reachable from any other room. I asked him just 2 pieces of bread and told him that it is unbelievable to beg for a bread in a hotel room in this situation. He called the other people, they called our room and finally they sent us 2 slices of bread (lucky us!1!!!1). The woman on the phone from food services asked whether I wanted bread for every hot breakfast and I said yes.
After a few hours, we decided to go out for daily exercise. We again tried to call the number/reception and there was no answer. I went out to guardians again and to ask for this and arrange the exercise. Please read carefully, he told me that there are a lot of people from Afghanistan who are infectious and I should not be out, and we are not allowed to go out until we make Day 2 test (on the 3rd day we arrive to the hotel), get its result (on the 4th day of arrival to the hotel); then we can go out for exercise. I was like wtf?? This was not written anywhere, no one told me this. I got my negative result 2 days ago before entering to flight. I was already in a bad mood, and already in a cage and now you are telling me that I cannot leave the room for 4 days? This was not acceptable and finally they understand the situation and allowed us to go out for 20 mins walk. Here is where we walk, the terrace of the hotel..
Terrace for walk for 20 mins (3 times a day)
Here is the breakfast, lunch menu and lunch.
This is the food on 29th August
Yes, they are feeding us with Sulphur Dioxide and thank god they are informing us (Please check out to see what it is and what its side effects https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7426352/) I do not want to even mention the plastic cutlery we receive everyday. I never understand the plastic usage in the UK since I moved to here. This is a country claiming to fight with climate change and the amount they use plastic in every supermarket, every packaging item is just UN-BELIEVABLE…
Quarantine Hotel (a.k.a Prison) 