Last time I told you about visiting the McArthur-Burney Falls in Northern California and how we finally got out of the house to do a little road trip during the COVID-19 pandemic. After staying home ever since March, this break was really needed. Now that the traveling is restricted the Americans are traveling in their own country. I have been a little surprised how brave they are with going to vacations. We have taken all the safety precautions in to consideration and even changed our plans because we didn’t feel it was safe enough to travel very far.
Now, I can’t say that traveling at this is 100% safe, or recommend traveling to anyone. The safest place is still your home! But we can’t stay home indefinitely and there are occasions when we need to go somewhere. If you end up staying in a hotel, here is some tips and our experiences from couple of weeks ago.
WHAT SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS THE HOTEL MADE
Before booking our stay we looked into the several hotels and their Covid-19 procedures. We decided that it would be best to stay in a hotel that offers us a direct entry to our room from outside. This way we could avoid being in the public spaces. This kind of hotels are quite common in the U.S., and they are not all just motels. You can park your car in front of your room and just walk in to your room. By choosing this kind of room we would also get our own A/C, and that way the air is not circulated around the hotel. And obviously it would be very easy to do social distancing when we wouldn’t run into other customers at the hallways or elevators.
Some of the Covid-19 procedures in the hotel we chose included keeping the rooms empty for at least 24 hours prior the new customers would arrive. A room was also left empty between the occupied rooms. This we were able to confirm see when they delivered the breakfast since only every other door had a breakfast bag. They also said they would clean the rooms more thoroughly and sanitize the surfaces. They had removed all the small things from the rooms such as pens and papers.
I was a little surprised that they were not able to offer a contactless check in like some other hotels. Instead, I had to go into the lobby and talk to the receptionist to get our key. I didn’t mind though since everyone was wearing masks, and they were offering hand sanitizer at the door. The personnel was also behind a plexiglass. When we checked out they had a box were they asked us to drop the keys instead of going up to the counter.
I was also very surprised to see that their pool was open. I guess it was because different counties were able to open places in different phase depending on their covid situation. Our county is still pretty closed what comes to swimming pools and gyms. I was happy to take my kids to the pool but we quickly noticed that we felt slightly uncomfortable there. Another family was there, and their kids were running around jumping to the pool from every direction. Social distancing was very difficult there and we ended up staying in one spot at the pool. But at least we got to dip in. And rest of our stay we were able to swim in a lake so we were not too dissappointed about this.
Instead of serving the normal breakfast buffet the hotel now offered us a breakfast bag which was delivered to our door. Since we already had coffee and tea in our room, the bag only had a breakfast burrito in it. Not the best (especially for the kids) but we were happy to get any kind of breakfast during this time. They also offered another “lighter” option with granola bars and such, but it didn’t sound like something any of us wanted.
THIS IS WHAT WE DID TO KEEP SAFE
When we entered the room for the first time we wipes all the surfaces people usually touch with sanitizer wipes. We hung up the “No disturbing” sign as we didn’t want anyone to walk into our room. Many hotels don’t even offer room cleaning now if you stay longer. If it wasn’t so hot outside, we probably would have aired out the room a bit, but now we thought we were ok to settle in.
Now many of you might think that we have gone crazy with being this careful. Even I question if this kind of sanitizing is really necessary or not. But it is better to be safe than sorry, and we are definitely as careful as some people are. I have heard that some even bring their own sheets and pillows with them. Also, if you haven’t experienced the kind of lock down we have, I’m sure it is difficult to relate. Hopefully we will soon get more information about how the virus really is spreading and what precautions are unnecessary.
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In overall our experience in a hotel during the pandemic was good. We felt quite safe and could see ourselves staying in a hotel again. We were very happy that we did this little trip and got out of the house for a while. Sheltering with kids for months is very hard and takes a toll on you. It was also good to see that not every place is under a lock down and can continue living a little bit more normal life.
Have you stayed in a hotel during the Covid-19 pandemic? How was your experience?
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