Early dinner, lukewarm food: What it’s like in hotel quarantine

Early dinners, lukewarm food and cameras watching your every move. There are worse things in the world than hotel quarantine, but any novelty quickly wears off and the toll of isolation sets in fast, writes Hayden Johnson.

Motion sensor cameras watch every move, there are strict rules about opening the door and wait patiently for your food – this is life inside Brisbane hotel quarantine.

The convoy of police cars and motorcycles that tailed our bus from the empty Brisbane International Airport had thrown a security blanket over Stamford Plaza in preparation for us inmates to disembark.

Outside the hotel – the city’s newest quarantine digs acquired to cope with the influx of Olympians and support staff – half-a-dozen Queensland Police officers stood guard to stop any potential escapee.

A fair but firm Sergeant boarded the bus to deliver instructions as each passenger savoured the last breaths of fresh air.

“Once you’re in, that’s it,” she warned – ending any sense of excitement us tired travellers had left.

A suite at the Stamford Plaza Hotel in Brisbane’s CBD.

The blunt direction was followed with a warning about the fragility of the room key cards we were about to be given; they would only work once.

If you unlocked the door and accidentally let it shut while turning to reach for your luggage you would be locked in the hallway and require police assistance.

“It happened yesterday,” the officer said.

There is no balcony or opening window and every door is watched by a motion-sensing camera in the hallway, making escape virtually impossible.

Contrary to the experience facing many other quarantine prisoners, the food at Stamford Plaza was sublime.

Roast beef, fish and burgers are accompanied by mud cake, croissants, cheesecake and enough fruit to stock a green grocer.

The downsides; dinner arrives at an elderly 5pm and, due to the number of mouths that need feeding, is usually lukewarm.

One of my UberEats orders also sat at the front counter for 40 minutes one night due to the dinner rush.

The novelty of quarantine quickly wears off and the emotional toll of isolation begins to set in from day six.

A cleaner inside Brisbane’s Stamford Plaza hotel, which is now a quarantine facility. Picture: Liam Kidston

It makes you cherish the fleeting moments of human contact with Queensland Health Covid testers, who bang on the door every few days to poke the brain.

This is Australian-style international travel in a Covid-19 world where even leaving the country is a privilege.

The night before arriving in Brisbane our travelling party – made up of three exhausted Olympic journalists – faced an arduous eight-hour stopover at Singapore’s Changi Airport.

In non-Covid times we’d have been spoiled for choice at the world’s ninth-busiest airport with its butterfly garden, indoor waterfall and luxury retail brands. As this ruinous virus has repeatedly demonstrated – these are different times.

After arriving from Tokyo passengers were ordered to line-up in the gate gangway where we would be tagged with a green bracelet and led through an eerie and empty Changi Airport – lights off, chairs and equipment covered in plastic wrapping to prevent decay.

Courier-Mail journalist Hayden Johnson spent 14 days in hotel quarantine after returning from Japan where he covered the Tokyo Olympics. File picture

We were herded like sheep into a pen where weary passengers were already seated, sipping their lukewarm coffee while waiting for the next flight.

It’s unusual to have a row to yourself on an international flight – it’s even more unusual to have half an aircraft to yourself.

Thanks to Australia’s isolationist approach to managing the virus fewer than 25 passengers had boarded the 250-seat airbus to Brisbane.

There was a sense we were the lucky ones.

At last count 38,500 Australians are stranded overseas, desperate to return home – yet journalists and athletes were granted passage to the Olympics.

Here’s hoping the squishy long-haul flights resume soon.