COVID-19: Experience – Intercontinental Adelaide

• COVID-19: Review – Qantas domestic economy SYD-ADL
• COVID-19: Experience – Intercontinental Adelaide
• COVID-19: Experience – Adelaide Airport, QANTAS Lounge, ADL-SYD

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Thought you might be interested in my impressions of Adelaide and a 4 night stay at the IHG Adelaide under COVID-19, in September/October 2020.

COVID-19 safe practices are much more relaxed in Adelaide than in Sydney. Mind you, if I lived in a state where there is basically no community transmission for months, and the only cases are travellers returning home, I’d be a bit more relaxed about precautions too.

South Australia has had only 9 community acquired cases since March, with 320 cases of overseas acquisition, and 12 from interstate travel.

Masks

There is much less mask-wearing in Adelaide than there is in Sydney. It’s rare to see someone wearing a mask in central Adelaide and even rarer out in the suburbs. Social distancing is often an after-thought, especially when exercising, despite constant signage, care of Adelaide City Council. There is hand sanitiser at the entrance and the counters of most retail outlets and restaurants, but usage is definitely not enforced, and there is not much voluntary use.

No venue entry registration

The biggest difference I noted, since I ate out in Adelaide a lot, was there was no QR code to scan to register entry into restaurants, so no mandated tracking of attendance. Frankly, except for a minimal amount of additional distance between tables, Adelaide is much the same as it was pre-COVID-19.

At the Intercontinental Adelaide

The hotel had the usual social distancing stickers on the floor, in lifts and at reception. Hand sanitiser at entry, and ‘sneeze’ guards at reception. Apparently, the hotel had closed for the day before my stay – presumably for some COVID-19 safe set-up.

IHG uses some ‘Clean Promise’ branding which you can read about here. I take all this stuff with a grain of salt – given that the first point in their promise (to provide ‘Individual guest amenity cleaning kits and personal-use sanitiser/wipes for guests’) was not fullfilled.

There was no bellman out the front under the porte cochère for my stay, until the Friday – when I think they had an influx of guests for the weekend.

Having booked a standard room for 16,250 IHG points per night plus AU$40, I did get an upgrade to a river view room on the 23rd Club floor – although the club was stripped and non-operational.

Stripped down rooms

Rooms had been stripped of hotel guides, breakfast menu, non-essential signage and cushions. There was a card by the bed stating that the room had been extra carefully cleaned before my arrival (debatable), and on the reverse, notice that your bed linen would only be changed every 5 days. I say debatable because there was evidence of the last guest – pink shampoo on the tiles above the bath, amongst other things.

The mini bar had been stripped of everything except the UHT milk which was refreshed each day. Minibar items were listed along with food and drink items on the disposable stapled together menu, but then the previous occupant ( or maybe even the guest before that ) had left theirs in the desk drawer. So much for their ‘Clean Promise’.

Turn-down service

Turn-down service was offered each evening I was there, and involved emptying bins, chocolates, and a compliment about how tidy I kept the room!

Dining

I couldn’t order lunch in the room the first day, as the kitchen was not re-opening until 2 pm on Monday after the full day closure. Other than that, everything else was pretty normal. I used in-room dining twice, with the usual service level and inconsistency of chip portion size with my burger and the entry-level bar was open. I think the usual breakfast venue was open too, but I didn’t use that, so I can’t be sure.

2PAXfly Takeout

This is another timely reminder to wear your seatbelt when seated. Holding you close to your seat will protect you from the sort of injuries sustained on this flight, when unsecured passengers flew to the ceiling of the aircraft, and then came crashing down once the ‘drop’ ceased.

The hope will be that this is an anomaly – a ‘freak accident’ in casual parlance. If it is a systemic error either mechanical or electronic, then this is a larger concern for the airlines that fly Boeing Dreamliner 787 aircraft. Let’s hope it isn’t. If it is, it will pile on the woes to Boeing’s existing stack.

The Intercontinental Adelaide is a very reliable business hotel, with good, if sometimes inconsistent service. It is my preferred option in Adelaide for its cost and facilities. I would rate the Mayfair as the best hotel in Adelaide, but you usually pay much more for that.

The hotel has adapted well to the COVID-19 pandemic, and you feel safe, clean and secure. Overall the hotel and Adelaide felt much less anxious about COVID-19 than Sydney does. With good reason, considering South Australia’s extremely low rates of infection.

I suspect the hotel had very low patronage during my stay. It just didn’t seem that crowded.

It’s sometimes hard to know whether the changes in service levels are about reducing contact for COVID-19 transmission mitigation, or just cost-cutting in these difficult pandemic related economic times. The same is true for the service on Qantas, as the next instalment in this trip report will describe.

Other Posts in the Series

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