Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
As always a great experience from start to finish. Big thanks to Mason for making everything such a simple process. Here’s looking to the next one
As is usually the case with the travel that DialAFlight organise for me, this was a complex itinerary. On this occasion the team went over and above to sort out a hiccup with one the flights I was taking. We did this, long distance by email, and the team were very quick with their responses, sorting the problem out very satisfactorily. I'd never hesitate to recommend them.
Kieran has been amazing!
Everything was planned to precision and went smoothly. An exceptional holiday and service provided
Cannot fault this company or Jackson and his team. Brilliant, thank you.
BA flight home was delayed and I didn't get the seat I had booked and paid for, however this is something I have to take up with BA . As far as DialAFlight is concerned there is nothing whatsoever that you could have done any better than you did. Thank you for your help in organising my trip.
Everything was fine - have used DialAFlight on lots of occasions and will definitely be using you again
Good hotels in great locations. Thank you.
I would like to thank Natalie for all the help she provided in helping to organise my trip to Hong Kong. She provided all the information I needed and kept me updated as the departure date approached. Excellent service.
Fantastic service as always
Great holiday and professional service throughout. Now looking to book the next one!
I have been using your company for over 10 yrs and have no regret. Nice staff and good approach with listening skills.
Thank you Connie
Stan Castle does a great job as always
Fabulous holiday, beautiful resort, perfect in every way. Could not wish for better. Thank you Gareth and DialAFlight
Elliot was fab at sorting our trip
Michael very helpful
Seamless arrangements. Thank you
Thank you for your valued service once again. I always feel assured by DialAflight wherever I go and will continue to book with your company - one of true quality.
Once again Darryll at DialAflight and his team delivered what they promised. The flight, hotel and all other information were spot on.
Perfect. 5 stars
I had a wonderful time. Brought back so many memories. Thank you
Everything went well. I can recommend Blue Beach Hotel Waduwa. A lovely room with large balcony overlooking the garden and pool areas and wonderful sea views. Flights were OK but long journey. Thanks to Patrick and Liam
Saf, as ever, was amazing. Available, responsive, dealt with everything even our last minute room requests on a Sunday! Thank you so much!
Advise any clients leaving from BHX that they need plenty of time to get up to departure gates and through security. It was a shambles there on the day that I flew out.
Hassle free, thank you.
Couldn’t have been any better. Usual high standard. More than happy to recommend to anyone.
Excellent trip, everything went to plan. Thank you to Oscar!
5 stars
Nothing was a problem. We bonded through great rapport. Excellent service
A Sikh in starched white uniform suddenly appears and scrunches across the gravel drive to greet me, his white beard almost merging with his turban. I hadn't seen him emerge from the building but he somehow seemed to materialise from nowhere.
This could only be Raffles, one of the most famous hotel names in the world.
I am whisked into the cool embrace of the lobby, where a glass of chilled mineral water arrives almost before I've had a chance to park myself on a leather sofa.
The brand-new atrium is not that different from the old one. It has cleaner, sharper lines, but retains the same bold sweep that suggests an impressive and desirable combination of elegance and sophistication.
It was here that, according to some reports, 300 Japanese officers and men fell on their swords after the surrender of Singapore to the Allies in 1945.
But such grisly ghosts hardly hit the right note following a multi-million-pound refurbishment that has taken two-and-a-half years to complete. It officially reopened in the summer of 2019.
The hotel says the restoration was designed to ensure that everything that is so special about Raffles was carefully preserved – the ambience, the service, the charm and the heritage of the hotel. They have certainly succeeded in that.
There are still the graceful courtyards to relax in, while new bars, restaurants and shops have been added.
The changes have simply enhanced the comfort and splendour.
Raffles Singapore was born in 1887, the year the Armenian Sarkies brothers took over an unprepossessing ten-bedroom bungalow and set about pulling in the great and the good.
From such humble beginnings, the hotel was quickly expanded and word of mouth brought in royalty, as well as celebrities.
It was named after Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, who colonised Singapore 200 years ago for the British East India Company and became Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies. It was a bold move to summon up this heroic, swashbuckling frontiersman – but, my goodness, it has paid off.
Noel Coward first stayed for a month in 1931, after completing Private Lives. He recalled in his memoirs drinking his first Singapore Sling and he remained a loyal guest until his final visit in 1968.
The literary roll call is impressive – Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham, French novelist, art historian and statesman Andre Malraux, German-born poet, novelist and painter Hermann Hesse and Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda for starters.
Then there are the glamorous fans: Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor and, more recently, Johnny Depp and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
There are 115 guest-rooms, all suites. I am shown into a State Room Suite overlooking the quad, with a huge marble bathroom and a bath the size of a small cargo vessel.
The double sink seems excessive for one man and his toothbrush. Ditto the opulent bed. But I'm not complaining.
The flat-screen TV has been discreetly inlaid into the wall so that it looks like a decorative obsidian plaque. 'I think we should pop down to the Long Bar and take a refreshment,' says my charming hotel guide.
Good idea. First, I pop into the Writers Bar, taking in the cool granite and mahogany, contrasting with marble and alabaster walls. It's as 'airy as a birdcage', as Conrad put it in his novella The End Of The Tether.
I wander down the colonnaded corridors and around the green quadrangle before settling at a table in the Long Bar.
A cast-iron hand-cranked contraption on the bar, designed for shaking multiple cocktails, gets to work producing the hotel's signature drink, the Singapore Sling. It is a powerful concoction made from Cointreau, pineapple and lime juice, gin, grenadine, cherry liqueur, Benedictine and Angostura bitters. That's all.
Order this in my local back home and the barman would think I was taking the mickey. Here, it's the most natural thing in the world.
First published in the Daily Mail - March 2020
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