What happened? Plague hotel? Did insurance pay out etc…?

I fear for Father Christmas this year.

Always wondered this myself, it must happen but it’s not something that I’ve seen anything written about.

A friend’s wife did a few months back when you needed to show a test pass to come back, they had to extend their holiday by a week before they could return. Now you don’t have to do any tests (you only have to buy a day 2 test, not actually take it), it’s much less of a problem eg using the Chunnel the only human interaction is to hand two passports through the car window.

Colleague of mine did on a work trip to Mozambique last year. 2 weeks isolation in a converted shipping container on a mine with 500mb a day internet allowance – grim.

YES! We got home last week having had an extended stay in Gran Canaria.

We were there for a week and the short story is that the whole family (2 adults and 1 21 month old) tested positive on our day of departure. We were quarantined in our hotel room for a further 10 days (12 actually, but that’s because my 21 month old son wasn’t tested for two more days so we had to isolate for ten days from that date).

We had to order food to our room and our mobile and room phone range several times a day from covid teams and doctors to ensure we were ok and to enforce our quarantine. They only issued our discharge letters on the morning of the end of quarantine. There wasn’t a guard outside the room or anything, but the hotel were instructed to cater for our needs directly by covid teams and us ‘skipping bail’ as it were, would result in a significant fine. Quite rightly too.

It cost us £3k for that extra stay on top of the holiday plus a significant dent on our business’s income due to our unplanned absence.

One hotel room with a 21 month old and poorly parents was extremely challenging. Luckily we had a balcony and a good view.

It’s definitely put us off the idea of travelling again for as long as there are quarantine rules in place. But I accept it was bad luck and doesn’t happen to the vast majority of holiday makers. But it was a couple of weeks that will remain in our memories for the wrong reasons.

My biggest advice…make sure you have good insurance. We insured with Axa (via Puffin) who happened to have solid covid cover. They paid out for our room, flights and internet-ordered food/essentials shop that we did. They did not cover the £180 over-stay at the airport parking in Cardiff, nor the travel from Bristol airport due to returning to a different location from our original plan.

DON’T SKIMP ON INSURANCE COVER.

Thank you, that’s the reply I was interested in hearing, because the Canaries was on my possible destinations. Not sure I’m comfortable with international travel yet….

@bikedibley

Are you unvaccinated ?
When I checked the covid requirements for the canaries you didn’t have to take any tests if you are fully vaccinated, and under 12’s don’t need a test either.
Just have to fill out a health questionnaire within 48 hours.

Part of the reason we are going there for Xmas

@revs1972

Good question. My wife woke on the day of departure struggling for breath. We called for assistance so she was taken to the local medical centre and was tested there. Therefore I had to also test.

There was no requirement for us to test in order to depart in any other situation…just the day 2 test after coming home. So if you don’t develop symptoms, then there’s no need to test.

It would be up to you if you suspected you’d contracted it and didn’t test before travelling home. It would be much better having to Isolate at home than abroad.

Ah, I misread what you said about departure. I thought you meant on the way out . My bad.

Blimey , that was unfortunate. Good to see the insurance stepped in though. My missus is very fastidious about declaring everything on the insurance forms, even though it whacks the bill up somewhat.

Just checked my NHS covid status and it’s valid until 20th December. I had second jab on 7 July so six months from then is 7th Jan .
Little confused as to whether I’m classed as fully vaccinated if I’m travelling on the 26th Dec or not

What I’m finding with traveling for work is that if the vaccine manufacturer has recommended a booster shot (i.e. Pfizer and I think maybe Moderna) and if more than 6 months has passed from the date of your second shot then you’ll only be classed as fully vaccinated if you’ve received the booster. With others, e.g. AZ, Johnson, etc. then as long as you’ve had the full course of initial vaccination jabs then you’re good.

I recently returned from Lanzarote and luckily no issues, but there’s certainly a level of anxiety thinking what if. From my checks beforehand it seemed if you were staying in official tourist accommodation the Spanish state picked up the bill for any quarantine. I did check my insurance thoroughly though. As said we were ok, and the whole traveling experience was very simple and painless.

Worth noting that some of the islands are being raised to a higher level of restrictions at the moment. Minor stuff by the looks of it such as bars shutting earlier and restrictions on capacity in restaurants, but might be worth checking out to see how it fits with you.

Just checked my NHS covid status and it’s valid until 20th December. I had second jab on 7 July so six months from then is 7th Jan .
Little confused as to whether I’m classed as fully vaccinated if I’m travelling on the 26th Dec or not

The “valid until” date is on a rolling update, every time you log in it moves forward.

Last time I checked mine, it was valid until some time in October. It’s now valid until 21st December

The bikedibley story is what’s putting me off getting in a plane right now. Imagine they’d left a day earlier. Double jabbed, no symptoms and working to all the rules.

How many people would have caught it from them on the flight home? How many new pockets of infection would that have set off when those people went home all over the UK.

When I had it last year, I was 7 days between exposure and being symptomatic myself.

It would be up to you if you suspected you’d contracted it and didn’t test before travelling home. It would be much better having to Isolate at home than abroad.

It would be pretty immoral to get on a plane if you thought you had it – you could very well kill someone. Eurotunnel might be a bit different if you don’t get out of your car.

Gosh bikedibley what an experience, thanks for posting. I come and go between Spain and uk but am lucky to have a house at each end so wouldn’t be a problem if anything happened. If I was in a hotel I would deffo buy insurance,

Some friends were on a flight recently and subsequently contacted that there had been a positive case on the plane, being uk vacced they didnt have to isolate but 1 did get the virus later, whether that was from the plane we dont know.

not me, but heres a couple of examples from the greek forums that i read back in august….

kefalonia

rhodes

Yeah my daughter was on a trip to Russia. 1 adult and 3 kids tested positive just before they were due to return. Loads of urgent calls from British and Russian embassies followed and eventually, after multiple tests (arranged by Russian embassy in quiet room) after having swallowed multiple different concoctions all three produced negative tests. Arrived back in uk on commercial flight and a few more members of the party had it too.

It’s all as dodgy as hell, my daughter spent every waking moment with those effected and never caught it. She is patient x