Eddie Mair speaks to holidaymaker trapped in Tenerife hotel in coronavirus lockdown
27 February 2020, 18:34
Taking calls on how to best manage your holiday during the spread of coronavirus with Simon Calder, Eddie was joined by someone stuck in quarantine in a Tenerife hotel.
Calling from isolation in Tenerife, Jen shared her account of the happenings in the last few weeks in the quarantined hotel.
"Its the most bizarre holiday I've ever had" she told Eddie after he asked if the holiday had been inconvenienced by the news.
"The communication has just been appalling" she said. The hotel staff have been as helpful as they can be according to Jen, but the hotel management have kept residents in the dark, where the messages of relatives are more informative than the hotel management.
Travel editor of The Independent Simon Calder was in studio to take calls from anxious Britons unsure if their holiday is covered. He was amused by the situation Jen found herself in.
"Have you become a tourist attraction" Mr. Calder wondered. Jen didn't hold back in her account of her treatment.
"The first day was an absolute nightmare." She recalled journalists screaming through the barriers of the hotel gates trying to get soundbites from the guests.
When asked about the uncertainty some guests were experiencing, especially how most guests are unsure how long they're spending in isolation. "There's a couple of people kicking up a bit of a fuss." She claimed. Jen understood the confusion of most guests and expressed her own concerns.
Jen shared the story of her family being separated by the quarantine. She told Eddie of her son who is still in the UK with his grandparents and is distraught with the absence of his parents.
"We would never intend on being away from him for this amount of time" she shared with Eddie. Jen mentioned she may be eligible to go home by the 10th March and Eddie and Simon wished this to be the case.
