Summary

The author recounts their experience with a hotel's daily "virtual" happy hour during a 21-day quarantine in Hong Kong, highlighting the problematic assumption that all guests find relaxation in alcohol.

Abstract

Upon returning from India, the author and their family were required to undergo a 21-day quarantine in a hotel that offered amenities to make the stay more comfortable. The hotel provided a unique service: a daily "happy hour" where guests could receive alcoholic beverages at their doorstep. Despite being teetotalers, the author and their wife were consistently offered alcohol, which they could not enjoy. The author expresses frustration over the lack of non-alcoholic options and the societal expectation that alcohol is the primary means of relaxation and celebration. The hotel's insistence on gifting a bottle of champagne at the end of the quarantine, despite the family's abstinence from alcohol, further underscores the author's point about the narrow view of leisure and enjoyment.

Opinions

The author is annoyed by the hotel's assumption that all guests appreciate alcohol as a form of relaxation.
The daily happy hour and additional drinks for achieving fitness goals were not appealing to the author and their wife due to their preference for non-alcoholic beverages.
The author criticizes the lack of consideration for non-drinkers, as evidenced by the continued provision of alcohol despite their clear preference otherwise.

My Alcohol Problem During My 21-Day Quarantine

Our hotel had a “virtual” happy hour every day!

I recently got back to Hong Kong from a short trip to India and had to go through the mandatory 21-day quarantine.

We picked a hotel that we’d heard made the quarantine period quite seamless with some services that were small gestures, but big impact. We are a family of three — my wife, our two-year-old son, and I, and so we’d booked a suite, so we had a bedroom and a living room. There was a coffee machine, TVs in each room, a mini-treadmill or “walking pad” — so it was worth the money we had to pay for it.

There was one USP the hotel had though — the happy hour.

In a 21-day quarantine, when you can’t even step out of your hotel room, you surely need some form of “relaxation.” So, this hotel decided to have a “happy hour” every day from 4 pm to 5 pm where they’d send a drink of your choice to your doorstep and you can enjoy it all by yourself, or occasionally over a “zoom call” with other hotel guests and a random local businessman for some chatter.

My wife and I were two adults — so we got two drinks every day. My wife doesn’t drink at all, so you know what that means.

Twenty-one days, 2 drinks — during the middle of the day too — and it was indeed a recipe for trouble.

I’d try and finish up work by 4 pm — not only slacking on my day job (I was still working remotely) but also looking forward to the 1 hour of drinking that made me unproductive in general.

To add to the regular happy hour, a couple of days — like Fridays they’d send an extra drink. And if you did 10,000 steps in a day — which I often did thanks to the in-room treadmill — you’d get an extra drink for a prize. We’d also recently bought a new Fitbit each — so my wife would join the party. Now we’re talking 3–4 drinks a day on average.

My wife and my son would also not like the fact that I’d spend all day waiting for the alcohol, an hour enjoying it, and the rest of the day slightly buzzed, and sometimes a bit more than buzzed, coz I am not usually much of a drinker. None of it was great for me personally or professionally — it was all hurting us a ton.

Well, luckily for me, that isn’t how it all went down.

Everything about the abundance of alcohol is true — only that my wife and I are both teetotalers. We don’t have alcohol — at all.

That is what my real problem with all the alcohol was.

Why is alcohol a universal standard for “relaxation”?

It is quite annoying how a hotel would assume that everyone just needs a glass of wine or a beer to unwind and relax.

Well, of course, we had the option to order “juice” for the happy hour or coke — but I am not game for ordering a glass of sugar-filled liquid daily either. After a while, my wife and I gave up on doing the 10,000 steps because the incentive was a lame-ass sugary orange juice or a diet coke unless we wanted to stack up beer bottles — how much can that really incentivize you?

Also, trust me, if you know anything about fitness — people don’t run or jog and stay fit only to consume a beer or a sugary drink right after to undo all the hard work!

At least the daily social hour had non-alcoholic options, on certain special days — public holidays, etc. they’d have specially crafted cocktails or some branded beers or wines just dropped at our doorstep.

Despite us having made it clear we don’t drink — we were served alcohol with no other option available. All we could do with that was pour it down the drain and feel infuriated that the definition of enjoyment totally excluded non-drinkers like us.

Why is “champagne” the only way to celebrate?

Oh, and let me remind you of our lovely parting present at the end of the 21-day quarantine.

I bet it isn’t a surprise anymore since I said it already — we got a bottle of champagne with a hand-written card. My wife really wanted to enjoy popping a champagne bottle for the first time — so we did pop it open — but I was still civil and didn’t shake it at all for a tiny little pop.

Because, hey, I am sure the hotel wouldn’t be happy if I left alcohol all over their walls or beddings, and I’d have had an extra charge on my credit card for the cleaning.

I mean, wasn’t 21 days of complete captivity enough time for them to know us better and replace the freaking champagne with something else? If not anything, maybe chocolate for our 2-year-old son?

Oh well…

Well, I could go on and on but I think that’s where I’ll stop my rant. However, a gentle reminder to everyone in the world, that alcohol surely isn’t the only way humans can unwind — there’s more to us than mindlessly drinking. And I am sure my alcohol-loving friends will agree too.