The Vancouver Airport was mostly deserted; just like the 2 other airports we'd seen in the last 24 hours.

Customs took us a while, but that was just because we were repatriating. There were only a few people in line, probably just from our flight. We had to wait a few minutes extra at the gate for our stroller to be brought up and so we were at the end of our flight group. We also had to step aside to fill out the forms.

Filling out forms for 5 people after not really sleeping for 48 hours is hard. Also our situation didn't really fit in some of the yes/no boxes. We left some blank and when we were ready we walked right up to customs with only one person in front of us.

Customs was friendly and helpful. Our luggage was revolving around the belt waiting for us when we got to the luggage carousel. Just one other family was picking up their luggage at the same time as us. We got our 3 luggage carts and headed towards where we would declare all our household goods. That took a while. We had our inventory of shipped goods, a rough list of what was in our carry-ons. We started trying to add it all up, but they stopped us and said we didn't have to pay duty on any of it so just to ball park it - When we pick up our Shipping Container we will have to pay duty on new goods in it.

After declaring our goods, we were shuttled into the Covid Test line - no way to miss it; it's all part of the exit path.

We had warned MsE that this was coming, but she was not impressed with the idea - Remember it had taken 4 adults to do her Covid test in Singapore. No surprise to me it took 4 adults here too. What was a surprise is that Life Labs had no plan in place for resistant children in the Airport. The lab tech had no clue what to do. I won't bore you with the details; the Covid test experience is a few posts back if you want to read it.

After the covid tests were done, we were handed our self-tests to do on day 8 and were immediately at the exit of the Airport. There a man without a mask was directing people out of the building. We asked for the Quarantine Shuttle to the Hilton Airport Hotel and he directed us to take a taxi. We didn't believe him, our quarantine leaflet specifically said we must use the hotel shuttle. We called the hotel directly, but they also told us to take a taxi. We said we would need two and they said not to worry, they would reimburse us for the taxis at the front desk. That's not what we were worried about. These Quarantine Hotels are supposed to have shuttles to protect the rest of the public from us potential Covid carriers.

I'd also like to point out that we didn't even get an official Quarantine order - nothing with our names or passport numbers or dates or anything. Just a general leaflet.

Jonathan took one old Taxi Van and I took another. The driver griped about my number of luggage (I had less than 1/2 the luggage), and made me help him load the suitcases into the back, while the 4 year old and 6 year stood on the side of the street.

After Grab Premium services in Singapore, where I just leave my stroller beside the door and only have to click my seat belt, not even touch the door handle, I was feeling a little frustrated.

At the hotel, they didn't have a room ready for us, despite our flight getting in 2 hours later than anticipated and we had to wait in the general lobby with people coming and going for about 30 minutes. We were here for a government mandated 3-day Quarantine. I looked at them in horror, when they said, "You are free to use the facilities, including the pool, once your Covid tests come back negative." Yeah, we would not be using the pool with the other people who just got their 2nd of 3 Covid tests, and could still be carrying Covid. There was also a large sign saying we could leave the hotel for exercise and to ask the desk for directions to near by walking trails.

We told the Desk about our food allergies and they said we'd have to talk to the chef. They were supposed to be providing us 3 meals a day. Gluten-free meals were reasonably plentiful and highlighted on the menu, which was mostly burgers. But there was almost nothing dairy-free. They offered my kids lettuce wrapped burgers as the dairy free options. We were told that they would deduct any meals we ordered in from our hefty bill, so we did that a number of times. The chef did give us a call in our room and offered a number of ways to accommodate us. The food that we did eat there was very good, but I was surprised that they hadn't prepared in anyway for us when all this information was requested in our reservation.

When they showed us to to our room, I realized that there were only 2 double beds. We were 5 people. We were supposed to be in a suite with a pull out couch for 2. We intentionally chose the Hilton Airport because they were one of the few places that had proper beds for 5.

Instead of the pull out couch, they had put us in a suite where they had replaced seating for 3 or 4 (a couch and a armchair) with seating of 2 small arm chairs with only an end table between them. When I said they needed to give us the room, we had booked, they said all the rooms cost the same. I went back to the Front Desk and demanded the other room. They did move us and all our luggage, and I accepted the 2nd room.

At least, they asked if we had touched anything to which I replied that sadly we had. The kids had run immediately to the bedroom to pick a bed, so they needed to re-clean our room before they could give it to anyone else. Everything was so dusty, that I questioned if and when it had been cleaned and ran around with anti-bacterial wipes constantly wiping surfaces for our time there. There were no "security seals", "I've been cleaned stickers" or even a "handout" saying our rooms had been sanitized. I've been in many cleaner rooms, way before anyone heard of Covid.

When we settled in we saw that the couch was so worn out that it left a hole when even the kids sat on it. We actually added the bedroom pillows to be able to sit on the seats, but at least we had a coffee table for the kids to eat 3 meals a day over. MsC slept on the "love seat," because I couldn't figure out how to pull it out and there were no instructions for it in the room. It was probably just too heavy for me to pull out. The next night I asked for a cot for MsC and but night the kids didn't sleep until 3 am, because they were rested and hadn't adjusted to the dramatic time change.

When meals arrived, they didn't just drop them and run away, to make it contact-less. Instead they put them on a cart, knocked on the door and stood holding the cart - no more than 3 feet from me as I gathered up the bags of food.

I put a mask beside the door and made sure to put it on before I opened the door every time. I can't imagine that everyone thinks to or even remembers to do that. At this point, I was a lot more afraid of getting Covid in the Hilton than I was on an Airplane.

I told Jonathan that without a doubt, that if we caught Covid, we would have got it in this hotel. When our 2nd Covid tests came back negative early on day 2, we immediately asked to move our last flight up a day to save us about 28 hours in this "Quarantine" hotel.

Upon check out the hotel deducted $200 for uneaten meal for us and did not check to see if we had actually gotten negative Covid test results.

It's really just the honour system folks.