Hotel Quarantine in Toronto
We spent three nights in hotel quarantine in Toronto in March 2021, here is what we experienced.
Booking Our Quarantine Hotel
As a travel advisor I thought this process would be simple, I make arrangements for travellers world wide, how hard could it be?
The phone number provided connected me with an agent who was clearly new to using his system and ultimately the rates he quoted me for the hotel we booked was more expensive than if I had just booked it through their online portal myself. For those hotels who are offering online booking, which is not every quarantine hotel option, I would recommend you book online.
Available hotels are being updated almost daily. In Toronto, when they first introduced this requirement four hotels were listed. As of the time of writing this, twenty hotels are listed. Close to half of the Toronto Quarantine Hotels are offering an online booking option. Use this link to see what hotels are available to quarantine for your airport in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver or Calgary.
Check the availability in advance - our first choice hotel (Alt Hotel) was sold out for check in on the date we arrived. If you know you’re coming home at X future date, look now to see what hotels have options, perhaps hotels you had wanted to stay in are fully booked for quarantine at this time.
We pre-paid $1635.88 CAD for our three night stay at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel in Toronto International Airport.
The mandatory stay is three nights - whether or not you get your results prior to the third day or not. You must pre-pay for all three nights and no refunds are given if you check out early
Our Hotel Quarantine Food Experience
Remember your second cousin’s wedding where it was a cash bar at that run down hotel on the highway? Our food experience at this hotel was like that - it’s decent enough to eat, but it’s still banquet food. Nothing special, and nothing entirely terrible either. Large portions, but things like powdered eggs and pre-made mousse desserts. Do I need dessert with lunch? Of course not, just next time prepare me a sandwich on bread that isn’t so stale please.
I had expected that if the food wasn’t to my liking, we would order something in, no problem. However, I learned at this particular hotel as it is on the airport grounds, there are virtually no delivery options at all. This was a surprise to me and I would expect other hotels, off the airport property in Toronto would have vast delivery options from the restaurants directly, or through delivery apps. No delivery apps would deliver to our hotel at Terminal 3.
For picky eaters I’ll say this. The final night of our hotel quarantine our dinner options were A or B, and both were curries - a butter chicken and an aloo gobi. We like Indian dishes of many kinds and butter chicken is very standard, so we expected it to be edible. What arrived was inedible to us and we opted to pay extra for the hotel to prepare us some chicken wings - decent, hot, made to order. If you have picky eaters in your traveling party - try to get menus in advance. As the hotel quarantine period continues, I expect more hotels to publish sample menus. The Canadian Government has said all dietary requirements will be catered to, so I imagine there would be something available for everyone.
Is there a kids menu for hotel quarantine? Good question. Our hotel did not have a specific menu for children. I suspect some hotels do have them, although it was not forthcoming. My top tip for surviving hotel quarantine food (with our without children) is to be specific! While we have no allergies, it would have been wise for me to ask for all sauces (like condiments and dressings) to be on the side. Further I should have asked things to come without things we don’t like, fake cheese, mayonnaise, olives etc. As some dishes where you wouldn’t suspect an ingredient seemed to include some surprises - who knew you could hide olives in so many things?
To order food we got a menu with A and B options the night before each day, and we had a page for each meal. You could specify which non-alcoholic drink you wanted with your meal, and we opted for bottled water each time. When we asked for more bottles with each meal we got it. We had read stories of people not accessing enough water, this was not at all our experience, we could drink as much water as we could.
Alcohol was provided for purchase and the pricing was like any typical room service. To me a $9 bottle of an Ontario wine for $46 is a price gouge, but hey, I wasn’t doing a hotel quarantine without a few drinks. There were beers by the can or bottle and they were $9-$12 and included world brands like Corona, Heineken as well as domestic craft options Gateway Traveller Belgium Wit and Dead Elephant IPA. The single cheapest glass of wine on the menu was $17 and to me that is par for the course of room service wine anywhere, although not cheap.
Our Hotel Quarantine Room Experience
I chose this particular hotel as it offered the same price per night for either one or two travellers, so it was more affordable to us as a couple traveling together. Our room was a standard, traditionally decorated king bedroom on the third floor with city views. We had a large window and overlooked a parking lot and the Viscount parkade in the distance. The room was very outdated and incredibly dusty. The hotel is under construction (good timing with lower travel volumes!) but it meant that we were not in a renovated part of the hotel and our room clearly needed upgrading, twenty years ago.
The bathroom was small (you have to close the door to use the toilet), and the carpet was likely original to when the hotel was built. It was mostly clean, but when you look close enough, very few hotels are actually quite clean. We did have a lunch bag out front of our room door when we checked in - which we later learned must have meant the previous guest checked out between breakfast and lunch and the bag arrived anyway. I did not like knowing, in a quarantine hotel experience that a previous guest had been there just mere hours before in the same room. The ventilation of most hotels isn’t great, and certainly not of the Sheraton Gateway. We used sanitizing wipes to wipe every surface and many surfaces had clearly not been dusted, not to mention ‘sanitized’ in any way. Perhaps it is overkill to use wipes, but it makes me comfortable and takes less than ten minutes - for peace of mind, I consider this an essential thing to do while traveling during a pandemic and is worth the minimal cost and effort to me.
The television channels were sufficient, we watched movies and The Grammys on Sunday night. The wifi connection was reliable and fast enough to surf, watch YouTube videos and do any web browsing like check emails or scroll through social media.
This hotel seemed very busy - every room around ours was occupied. We knew this from the sound - the walls were very thin - and from the food delivery bags. The person dropping off our room service would knock on our door, we’d go to pick it up contactless, and the person would have just dropped bags at every door. In the evening when we got our menu for the next day - we could see the menus had been placed at each door. Either the hotel was fully occupied, or what I believe is more likely, they grouped quarantine hotel guests on one specific floor and it was fully subscribed in our area. We heard families and children, some playing in hallways (I thought that wasn’t allowed?) and I even waved at a little boy from our window once while he was playing and facing out. It was not only solo travellers and certainly there were quarantine guests of all kinds.
Checking In/Out of our Quarantine Hotel
Upon arrival our check in process was smooth. After clearing customs and proceeding through the new COVID protocols at Pearson Airport in Toronto, we walked from the arrivals area indoors through to the light rail train, taking it one stop to the adjoining Sheraton Gateway Toronto Airport hotel. The check in space was actually crowded, with two other people also checking in and three others waiting to check out. We were directed where to stand by third party uniformed security personnel. There was no health screening during the check in process. At our hotel, check in time was 3:00pm and check out time was 12:00pm noon. We arrived early at 1:25pm and had no problem gaining access to our room.
At check in we received our room key cards and provided with the daily menu. We were also given some printouts provided by the Canadian Government on the rules of how we were to spend our stay at the hotel in quarantine. The information provided was generic in nature and also available online. It was nice to receive some printed material even if it were just a simple review of the process. We were informed we could have two chaperoned 15 minute periods outdoors each day, but never used this. We then rolled our luggage up to our room and here we remained until our quarantine period was over.
We were informed that check out would be contactless, so we phoned down to let them know we were leaving. They told us to come to the desk to check out. The staff person asked if we wanted to settle up our room incidentals (read, wine!) with the credit card we provided upon check in and once we agreed we were told we could leave. At check out again there were uniformed security personnel and only one other person was there at the same time as us. We had no paperwork to sign and no one asked us if we had symptoms or if we had received our covid PCR arrival test results. We walked out of the hotel, crossed over back into the airport, took the escalator down to the arrivals area and hired a waiting van taxi that was awaiting new fares.
Tips for Surviving Hotel Quarantine In Toronto
Call or email Jakki to discuss your quarantine hotel options and answer your questions. As a travel advisor who has first hand experience with this process - she is best informed to support your needs. 519-362-3672, travel@princeadventures.com
Book in advance with Jakki, or online where possible, to ensure you get the hotel and room category you want
Compare prices. If there is more than one person in your travel party, look closely at the per person additional charges
Call the hotel and ask if outside food delivery is permitted, ask if they permit delivery apps, or just local restaurant/fast food delivery options
Ask the hotel in advance for sample food menus, children’s menus or if they can accommodate certain dietary requirements you may have
Consider a bigger/more upgraded room than you’d regularly book. You’ll be spending up to 72 hours confined in this space, so perhaps the extra dollars per night is worth it
Buy your alcohol in Duty Free prior to arriving in Canada. This way you can enjoy it while in quarantine without the huge mark up
The Government of Canada can announce or make changes to this program at any time, do not book your hotel too far in advance in case it will not be required for your return to Canada
Check the Government of Canada Travel website frequently to ensure you are up to date with the latest information as it evolves. COVID-19 Mandatory Hotel Stopover.
Hotel Food Wasn’t Great
It’s like banquet quality food, delivered in take out containers mostly lukewarm.