https://www.wsj.com/articles/locked...ning-the-quarantine-hotel-lottery-11599503831
Sept. 7, 2020 2:37 pm ET
Joy Van Dee arrived in Singapore after a 12-hour flight from Amsterdam, dreading two weeks of mandatory quarantine with her toddler in a government-designated facility.
Until, that is, their shuttle bus parked at the five-star Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore, and they were taken to a luxurious 549-square-foot room, with river views. “We hit the jackpot,” said Mrs. Van Dee, a 42-year-old interior designer, who didn’t know her destination until the last moment.
This is Singapore’s quarantine lottery, where most arrivals to the island city-state have to spend 14 days holed up in a hotel room. No one has any choice in where they go and bus drivers shuttling travelers from the airport won’t say where they are headed.
For some that means staying somewhere with marble bathrooms, big televisions and dramatic views, and which might run upward of $400 a night, for a fraction of that or even free.
It is still far from a full five-star experience. Guests can’t leave their rooms, and there is no housekeeping. Hotel staff drop meals off outside guests’ doors. In many hotels, guests get fresh towels every three days, and new sheets after a week.
Lottery losers might get two weeks cooped up in cramped quarters in smaller hotels, in rooms with windows that don’t open, travelers say. Rooms might be equipped with little more than a bed, desk and chair, and there can sometimes be little or no choice for meals, they say.
Jessie Ling, a 41-year-old consultant, was put up at the glitzy Marina Bay Sands Hotel earlier this summer after coming from Dubai. She was impressed with the wide selection and quality of the food. “I finished every dessert,” she said. “And I’m not a dessert person.” She said feeding times resembled a zoo, with boxes left outside her door and other quarantine guests emerging at the same time to collect their meals.
On arrival, she said, staff warned her: “The keycard can only work once. If you leave the room, you can’t enter again.”
The hotel declined to comment and said it is no longer used for the 14-day quarantine for returning travelers.
The highlight of her stay was voting in her pajamas. Her return to Singapore coincided with national elections, and the government made allowances for those in quarantine. On polling day, poll workers wheeled in a hotel table, converted into a makeshift voting booth.
While some hotels provide limited laundry services free, others charge for everything, and many in quarantine have opted to do their own washing.
Joy Van Dee dried her child’s clothes in their hotel room while waiting out quarantine in Singapore.
Photo: Joy Van Dee
Mrs. Van Dee, the interior designer, said she washed her young son’s clothes in the Ritz-Carlton bathtub and hung them up to dry next to the windows. To entertain him, she blew him bubbles and balloons, and let him frolic in the big tub.
To make their stays more bearable, many show up with cleaning products and other sundries in their luggage. Others get family and friends to drop off supplies at the lobby.
Barbara Voskamp, a 44-year-old lawyer from the Netherlands who now lives in Singapore, returned in late August with two of her children, aged 10 and 12, after visiting her mother. She got her husband, who had stayed in Singapore with their two other children, to bring wet wipes, a sponge, cleaning sprays, fresh fruit and even a vacuum cleaner.
Barbara Voskamp pretended to have an ‘apres-ski drink’ while wearing her jacket because her hotel room was so cold.
Photo: Barbara Voskamp
Her five-star hotel’s fierce air-conditioning seemed impervious to the room’s temperature controls, so her spouse also brought warm clothes, although outside it was more than 86 degrees Fahrenheit. “It is so cold inside. We’re all wearing our ski jackets,” she said.
Her family also inadvertently got around the rule about not leaving or entering rooms. Her 10-year-old daughter Fay found her jewelry box, tried her ring on and couldn’t remove it. Eight paramedics in protective gear turned up to take the pair to hospital to remove the ring.
The quarantine rules apply to people arriving from all but a few countries, and Singapore’s government says this is effective in isolating people until they prove virus-free.
Most arrivals pay the equivalent of about $1,460 per person per room, for the 14 days, plus $146 for a Covid-19 test during their stay.
Some local residents pay nothing, if they had left Singapore before the coronavirus began spreading widely. In contrast, the cheapest room available on Booking.com for two weeks at the Ritz-Carlton in early October costs nearly $5,850 with taxes and fees.
The Ritz-Carlton didn’t respond to a request for comment.
More than half of the roughly 67,000 hotel rooms in Singapore are being used as quarantine facilities, a top tourism official told a Singapore newspaper recently. The Singapore Tourism Board wouldn’t confirm this statistic.
Tan Yen Nee, the board’s director of hotel and sector manpower, said travelers were assigned hotels based on factors such as timing and hotel occupancy. She said some special requests had been granted, including allowing arrivees and emotional-support animals “to stay together at a pet-friendly hotel.”
The view from Jessie Ling's room during her quarantine at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore.
Photo: Jessie Ling
She said guidelines for the hotels involved include measures to ensure a safe environment for guests and staff, security protocols, and infection-control measures and precautions.
Singapore has had more than 57,000 coronavirus infections, and 27 deaths, out of a population of about 5.7 million. Gatherings of more than five are banned, face masks are mandatory outdoors, and most people must still work from home, though all schools have reopened.
Others were less fortunate in the quarantine lottery.
Ketan Mangal arrived from India recently to resume work as an IT sales manager. The 38-year-old said he found windows that didn’t open, among other complaints. Virtually every meal had the same ingredients, and he threw out most of the food, he said. “It wasn’t pleasant, but somehow we survived,” he said, referring to the other people staying at the hotel.
Ron Kaufman, a 64-year-old author and customer-service consultant, and his wife, Jenny Kaufman, returned from Brazil via London in March. They got a tiny room in a three-star hotel overlooking a parking garage, with a window that didn’t open, and a shower, he said.
“I walk 10 kilometers everyday. But during the quarantine, six steps, you’re at the wall. And you turn around, it’s another six steps to the other side,” he said. Only one computer would fit on the table in the room, so his wife used a suitcase with a luggage rack as a second desk.
Ron Kaufman and his wife, Jenny Kaufman, in their three-star quarantine hotel overlooking a parking garage.
Photo: Ron Kaufman
Jenny Kaufman used a suitcase as a desk in their quarantine hotel.
Photo: Ron Kaufman
It didn’t help that Mr. Kaufman’s friend sent him a list that included the hotels he missed out on. “As I imagined us staying in a nicer space, I could feel my spirit crumble,” he said.
“Then I saw an ambulance pull up to take someone out of the hotel for further medical care, and went back to counting my blessings.”
Sept. 7, 2020 2:37 pm ET
Joy Van Dee arrived in Singapore after a 12-hour flight from Amsterdam, dreading two weeks of mandatory quarantine with her toddler in a government-designated facility.
Until, that is, their shuttle bus parked at the five-star Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore, and they were taken to a luxurious 549-square-foot room, with river views. “We hit the jackpot,” said Mrs. Van Dee, a 42-year-old interior designer, who didn’t know her destination until the last moment.
This is Singapore’s quarantine lottery, where most arrivals to the island city-state have to spend 14 days holed up in a hotel room. No one has any choice in where they go and bus drivers shuttling travelers from the airport won’t say where they are headed.
For some that means staying somewhere with marble bathrooms, big televisions and dramatic views, and which might run upward of $400 a night, for a fraction of that or even free.
It is still far from a full five-star experience. Guests can’t leave their rooms, and there is no housekeeping. Hotel staff drop meals off outside guests’ doors. In many hotels, guests get fresh towels every three days, and new sheets after a week.
Lottery losers might get two weeks cooped up in cramped quarters in smaller hotels, in rooms with windows that don’t open, travelers say. Rooms might be equipped with little more than a bed, desk and chair, and there can sometimes be little or no choice for meals, they say.
Jessie Ling, a 41-year-old consultant, was put up at the glitzy Marina Bay Sands Hotel earlier this summer after coming from Dubai. She was impressed with the wide selection and quality of the food. “I finished every dessert,” she said. “And I’m not a dessert person.” She said feeding times resembled a zoo, with boxes left outside her door and other quarantine guests emerging at the same time to collect their meals.
On arrival, she said, staff warned her: “The keycard can only work once. If you leave the room, you can’t enter again.”
The hotel declined to comment and said it is no longer used for the 14-day quarantine for returning travelers.
The highlight of her stay was voting in her pajamas. Her return to Singapore coincided with national elections, and the government made allowances for those in quarantine. On polling day, poll workers wheeled in a hotel table, converted into a makeshift voting booth.
While some hotels provide limited laundry services free, others charge for everything, and many in quarantine have opted to do their own washing.
Joy Van Dee dried her child’s clothes in their hotel room while waiting out quarantine in Singapore.
Photo: Joy Van Dee
Mrs. Van Dee, the interior designer, said she washed her young son’s clothes in the Ritz-Carlton bathtub and hung them up to dry next to the windows. To entertain him, she blew him bubbles and balloons, and let him frolic in the big tub.
To make their stays more bearable, many show up with cleaning products and other sundries in their luggage. Others get family and friends to drop off supplies at the lobby.
Barbara Voskamp, a 44-year-old lawyer from the Netherlands who now lives in Singapore, returned in late August with two of her children, aged 10 and 12, after visiting her mother. She got her husband, who had stayed in Singapore with their two other children, to bring wet wipes, a sponge, cleaning sprays, fresh fruit and even a vacuum cleaner.
Barbara Voskamp pretended to have an ‘apres-ski drink’ while wearing her jacket because her hotel room was so cold.
Photo: Barbara Voskamp
Her five-star hotel’s fierce air-conditioning seemed impervious to the room’s temperature controls, so her spouse also brought warm clothes, although outside it was more than 86 degrees Fahrenheit. “It is so cold inside. We’re all wearing our ski jackets,” she said.
Her family also inadvertently got around the rule about not leaving or entering rooms. Her 10-year-old daughter Fay found her jewelry box, tried her ring on and couldn’t remove it. Eight paramedics in protective gear turned up to take the pair to hospital to remove the ring.
The quarantine rules apply to people arriving from all but a few countries, and Singapore’s government says this is effective in isolating people until they prove virus-free.
Most arrivals pay the equivalent of about $1,460 per person per room, for the 14 days, plus $146 for a Covid-19 test during their stay.
Some local residents pay nothing, if they had left Singapore before the coronavirus began spreading widely. In contrast, the cheapest room available on Booking.com for two weeks at the Ritz-Carlton in early October costs nearly $5,850 with taxes and fees.
The Ritz-Carlton didn’t respond to a request for comment.
More than half of the roughly 67,000 hotel rooms in Singapore are being used as quarantine facilities, a top tourism official told a Singapore newspaper recently. The Singapore Tourism Board wouldn’t confirm this statistic.
Tan Yen Nee, the board’s director of hotel and sector manpower, said travelers were assigned hotels based on factors such as timing and hotel occupancy. She said some special requests had been granted, including allowing arrivees and emotional-support animals “to stay together at a pet-friendly hotel.”
The view from Jessie Ling's room during her quarantine at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore.
Photo: Jessie Ling
She said guidelines for the hotels involved include measures to ensure a safe environment for guests and staff, security protocols, and infection-control measures and precautions.
Singapore has had more than 57,000 coronavirus infections, and 27 deaths, out of a population of about 5.7 million. Gatherings of more than five are banned, face masks are mandatory outdoors, and most people must still work from home, though all schools have reopened.
Others were less fortunate in the quarantine lottery.
Ketan Mangal arrived from India recently to resume work as an IT sales manager. The 38-year-old said he found windows that didn’t open, among other complaints. Virtually every meal had the same ingredients, and he threw out most of the food, he said. “It wasn’t pleasant, but somehow we survived,” he said, referring to the other people staying at the hotel.
Ron Kaufman, a 64-year-old author and customer-service consultant, and his wife, Jenny Kaufman, returned from Brazil via London in March. They got a tiny room in a three-star hotel overlooking a parking garage, with a window that didn’t open, and a shower, he said.
“I walk 10 kilometers everyday. But during the quarantine, six steps, you’re at the wall. And you turn around, it’s another six steps to the other side,” he said. Only one computer would fit on the table in the room, so his wife used a suitcase with a luggage rack as a second desk.
Ron Kaufman and his wife, Jenny Kaufman, in their three-star quarantine hotel overlooking a parking garage.
Photo: Ron Kaufman
Jenny Kaufman used a suitcase as a desk in their quarantine hotel.
Photo: Ron Kaufman
It didn’t help that Mr. Kaufman’s friend sent him a list that included the hotels he missed out on. “As I imagined us staying in a nicer space, I could feel my spirit crumble,” he said.
“Then I saw an ambulance pull up to take someone out of the hotel for further medical care, and went back to counting my blessings.”
