Slovenia and Guadeloupe added to quarantine list, Singapore and Thailand off

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• John says:

  18 Sep18 September 03:40

  Can you get to the UK from Guadeloupe without passing through a naughty list area?

  • ChrisC says:

    18 Sep18 September 05:01

    There are a few places on the safe governments list where you can only get there via a country not on the safe list.

  • Phillip says:

    18 Sep18 September 05:47

    Yes – it would just require two stops! Guadeloupe-Dominica-Barbados/St Lucia-London.

    • John says:

      18 Sep18 September 06:03

      Nice. So next question: is it possible to do that between the time of the quarantine announcement and the deadline? (Yes I could search it myself but I can’t be bothered)

  • Andrew says:

    18 Sep18 September 06:51

    Earlier, Monaco was exempt but France wasn’t – and the only way to leave Monaco without passing through France is by yacht or helicopter!

    • TGLoyalty says:

      18 Sep18 September 08:26

      Or car straight to Italy / Calais

  • Anon says:

    18 Sep18 September 12:04

    My understanding is that if you return from a country on the exemption list and your journey involves a flight transfer in a country not on the exemption list, then so long as you didn’t leave the airport then you don’t have to quarantine for 14 days.

    I think the same kind of thing applied to Eurostar when Belgium was on the exemption list but France wasn’t. it would have been insane to ask Eurostar passengers arriving in London from Brussels to self isolate just because the train went through France for a bit.

    I wonder what the deal is today if you get a train from Germany (on the exemption list) to Brussels (not on the exemption list) then change onto the Eurostar back to London. I guess there’s no need to quarantine so long as you didn’t leave the station in Brussels.

    Can anyone clarify?

    • TGLoyalty says:

      18 Sep18 September 12:32

      Incorrect if you mix with other people in the country anywhere you need to qaurentine.

      Transits where you leave the plane = quarentine

      If your journey involves a transit stop in a country, territory or region not on the travel corridor list, you will need to self-isolate when you arrive in England if:

      new passengers get on
      you or other passengers get off the transport you are on and mix with other people, then get on again
      You don’t need to self-isolate beyond normal timescales if, during your transit stop in a non-exempt country, territory or region:

      no new passengers get on no-one on-board gets off and mixes with people outside passengers get off but do not get back on

      • Anon says:

        18 Sep18 September 13:30

        Thanks. That’s interesting. What about car travel? You wouldn’t mix with other passengers in the non exempted country so I guess that might might exempt you from the quarantine.

        So in theory if you drive in your own car from an exempted country eg Germany via a non exempted country eg France so long as you never get out of your car while you’re in France there’s no need to quarantine. I suppose you would have to go on le Shuttle to allow you to stay in your car before arriving in the UK. On the ferry you have to leave your car while it’s still docked in Calais so that would count as having mixed with other passengers while in France although I suppose you clear the UK border in the port of Calais.

        This is all very confusing and as the quarantine is largely unenforced, the chances of you being fined or even getting a ticking off for making such a minor breach of the quarantine rules is effectively zero. However, I guess a lot of people would still the 14 day self isolation anyway because they think it’s the responsible thing to do.

        • John says:

          18 Sep18 September 15:49

          Correct. If you tell the truth on the form then you have about 20% chance of being called to check that you are quarantining. I doubt that anybody is fully checking whether you told the truth on the form though, how would they even gather evidence to prove that you stopped in France when driving from Germany (unless your car has a black box)?

          If you stopped on a minor road in France with nobody else in sight then there is basically zero additional risk.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          18 Sep18 September 20:24

          If you travel by car you can stop in France for fuel / food etc as long as you don’t mix with any locals and take le shuttle you are fine to not isolate.

          Of course they can’t prove you didn’t mix with anyone else they are just hoping you stick to the rules. Unless you are shopped for clearly breaking the rules.

          Also your work may not be too happy if you turn up for your shift when you should be self isolating and you are caught.

• JP-MCO says:

  18 Sep18 September 06:00

  It made me exhausted just reading about that Dubai trip. If it’s a short trip, especially a business trip, I would prefer to maximise my time in one hotel not spending time checking in, checking out and travelling between 3 hotels. I grant you that the 4PM Guaranteed Late Checkout is a very good FHR benefit though. That said I’ve yet to find a decent travel agent that can’t negotiate it on a Virtuoso rate if they tell the hotel I’ll book it on FHR if they don’t.

  • John says:

    18 Sep18 September 06:06

    Rob’s business in Dubai was to review the 3 hotels!

    • Rob says:

      18 Sep18 September 06:54

      No, it was flight reviews. I try to minimise, within reason, the time I am away from home as the burden then falls on my (has a more chaotic job than me) wife.

  • Andrew says:

    18 Sep18 September 06:49

    Posted on wrong article?

    • Tim says:

      18 Sep18 September 09:30

      Seems to be a link issue – the FHR email link comes through to this article, hence multiple comments on the wrong article!

  • TGLoyalty says:

    18 Sep18 September 08:27

    I agree but FHR is great for one night stays in the UK

    • Rob says:

      18 Sep18 September 09:03

      I’m sure if your employer had offered you £400 cash to do what I did (which was my cash saving) you would have done the same.

      Also note that I saved 40 minutes taxi time late at night by staying near the airport and not at the Waldorf. Similarly I could get up at 5am and not 4am on the Friday.

• Andy says:

  18 Sep18 September 06:41

  Firstly, it’s not just England.

  Secondly, there is no “quarantine list”. There is an exempt list, people entering from anywhere not on the exempt (note not “excempt”) list are required to self-isolate.

• patrick C says:

  18 Sep18 September 07:15

  I am amazed that this brainless idea is continuing. Your infection risk is largely determined by your number of contacts without masks / distance, not by country…

  • GaryC says:

    18 Sep18 September 07:29

    How do you measure and enforce that?

• Novice says:

  18 Sep18 September 10:03

  Where is Guadeloupe? I have never heard/read anything about it and honestly, I’m quite good at Geography. I have a World Map framed in my study.

  • Rob says:

    18 Sep18 September 10:07

    Ever watched ‘Death In Paradise’ on BBC? That is filmed in Guadeloupe. You can imagine film crews fighting over themselves to get that gig ….

    • Optimus Prime says:

      18 Sep18 September 11:32

      We’ve started watching it during lockdown…

  • Catalan says:

    18 Sep18 September 10:38

    It’s a French Caribbean island located between Dominica and Montserrat (British territory).

  • John says:

    18 Sep18 September 11:05

    Knowing the names of random islands doesn’t really have much to do with being good at geography.

    Caribbean and Pacific Islands are quite tricky because there are so many groups and names and it’s very difficult to visualise where they all are in relation to each other. Despite this the natives were able to reliably navigate between them by boat centuries ago.

    • Novice says:

      18 Sep18 September 11:24

      @Rob, I don’t think I’m the target audience of ‘DiP’.

      @Catalan and @John, thanks for trying to help. I’ve found it on the map now. It is tiny. And, it is awesome how the navigators managed to navigate using the stars. According to archaeologists and scientists, the Polynesians were the first to navigate to S.America because the proof is in the DNA. Of course, historians like to say it was the Europeans because apparently Europeans are the greatest race in the world. LOL

  • Anna says:

    18 Sep18 September 11:54

    It’s an island in the Caribbean under French jurisdiction. The popular TV series “Death in Paradise” is filmed there. It will be a teeny dot on your world map below Antigua. I went there on a cruise once and hiked through a rain forest to a waterfall which was all very picturesque.

    • John says:

      18 Sep18 September 15:59

      Not exactly. Guadeloupe is a department of France that is formed of over 10 islands located in the Lesser Antilles.

      The “mainland” of Guadeloupe is actually two islands separated by a river.

      Unlike Antigua** which is a Caribbean island under British jurisdiction.

      **double-checked before I clicked post, and I meant Anguilla. Antigua is part of Antigua and Barbuda, an independent country. Which proves my point in my comment of 1105.

  • Crafty says:

    19 Sep19 September 22:21

    This and all the subsequent replies are bizarre – why couldn’t you Google it? Congratulations on putting up a map by the way.

• Anon says:

  18 Sep18 September 11:46

  There is no quarantine list. There are only exemption lists. There are separate exemption lists depending on whether you live in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland although the differences between the places on the different exemption lists are minimal.

  The current advice is to self isolate for 14 days if you arrive from abroad unless you’re arriving from one of the countries on the exemption list.

  Also the FCO is advising against all but essential overseas travel except to those countries on the exemption lists. In theory this invalidates most travel insurance policies but how harshly insurers are denying claims on this basis is not clear.

  I do wish the media, HfP included would stop talking about this mythical quarantine list.

  • John says:

    18 Sep18 September 16:01

    Does it really matter, every territory in the world falls into one or the other (for each UK country).

    Although I did notice the BBC made a mistake this morning when they published an article saying that arrivals from Singapore and Thailand now needed to quarantine

• Graeme says:

  19 Sep19 September 01:39

  Meanwhile if you are lucky enough to be allowed to come to Thailand, you have to pay to spend 14 days in a real quarantine hotel.. none of this self isolation rubbish.

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