Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
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Travel manager Riann Ross was professional and I have referred my friends and flights have been booked. Thank you for your hard work
Another perfect trip
Doug Scrivener and his team deliver excellent service and have for the 20 years I have been coming to DialAFlight. Thank you
Excellent work
Whilst I did not need any assistance whilst travelling, I felt confident that should I need any, DialAFlight would have been there. Also the booking process was easy and straightforward.
Dealing with a human being gives you great peace of mind, and as my flight was cancelled it was great being able to speak to Graham about the problem. Computers don't care about you - DialAFlight do!
Ruby was very helpful and professional.
Finn Conlon as always did an excellent job for which I am very grateful.
Not aware that Palm Springs car rental at Alamo did not open until we had to check-in. Checked their website and found their advice about checking in early morning.
Always keeps us up to date on all of our travel arrangements.
Everything went to plan. Had a wonderful time with my family and seeing my grandson graduate from university.
For the many, many years I have dealt with DAF and Ewan and his team, they have never let us down, and our recent trip was perfect as well. Thanks DAF for being just a 100% perfect company to deal with.
Always very professional - look forward to the next one
Disappointed not to have adjacent seats from Sacramento to Dallas. Suffice it say we will never fly BA again. Got our lost baggage back last night.
Peter looked after my trip from beginning to end, thank you
Everything went like clockwork - very nice resort
Excellent contact and communication. Clear information on flights and good choice of hotel. Probably need to inform customers about hotel tax!
Very polite and efficient service
Have dealt with Christian for many a year and would not organise a trip through anyone else. Superb as always.
Everything was perfect thanks. Great seats on the plane. Great car. Excellent connections. Thanks.
Mason has always helped us with travel plans superbly and the app from DialAflight is really helpful.
I know someone is looking after me from booking to arriving back home. Makes my trips stress free
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Gino gave great service and even booked us upgraded seats for the best price - a nice touch and much appreciated
A bit more clarification re US time zones would be good.
All good thank you
Thank you for the ongoing support, even whilst we were on holiday and needed to call! Des was great right from booking through to the travel date.
Philippa was great throughout the whole process - thank you for your help!
A BIT OF HISTORY
In his 1891 book Palms And Pearls: Or Scenes In Ceylon, Alan Walters highlights a 14th century Icelandic work which names Paradise as an island off India 'studded with flowers', which he believes to be Ceylon, renamed Sri Lanka in 1972.
And French author Hugo Victor is believed to be referring to Sri Lanka when he writes: 'Paradise is a spot in the Orient productive of all kinds of woods and pomiferous trees: it contains the Tree of Life; there is neither cold nor heat but perpetual equable temperature.'
Arrival in Sri Lanka, with the chaos of Colombo airport and the surrounding roads, seemed some way from that early notion of Paradise.
But once you reach the areas of natural beauty, you'll see why the Paradise description is so apt. There are 26 national parks in Sri Lanka, each one teeming with wildlife. I stayed at the Uga Escapes resort of Chena Huts, in Yala National Park.
A PLACE TO RELAX
The hotel is intimate, with just 14 luxury suites, and they're spread out to ensure maximum privacy.
A sign on the path to the hotel declared that an elephant had last been sighted here just three days before.
One lunchtime, we were enjoying a watermelon martini at the bar when four monkeys sat down just yards away. And on another occasion, we wandered down to the sandbanks below the resort and heard a huge crash. Turning around slowly, we came face to face with an elephant. He was unfazed, but we were overcome with emotion. It was one of the best moments of my life.
You might think that the staff would become blasé about living so close to wildlife, but they delighted in showing us photos of leopards, crocodiles, wild boars and elephants which had all meandered into the hotel grounds. The private suites at Chena Huts are similar to safari lodges: vintage camping lamps, a freestanding bath, a huge bed, colonial style rugs and - a safari essential - Nespresso machine.
There's a plunge pool in the garden of each suite, too - as well as an enormous, lagoon-like pool moments away.
Meals and alcohol are inclusive and you can turn up to eat at any time. And once you've tasted the Sri Lankan fish curry, you'll want to sign up for the cookery classes offered by the head chef.
At 6.30am every day you can set off on a safari tour of the park (or at 3.30pm, though morning gives you a better chance of leopard sightings). Driving through the park, you'll suddenly come to a clearing which looks as if you've been transported to Africa, with huge lakes covered with water hyacinths, and mountains looming in the background.
We saw toucans, elephants, leopards, monkeys and water buffalo - a fabulous experience.
Following our stay at Chena, we set off on a three-hour drive to Weligama, a popular surfing beach on the south coast. Here we stayed at Cape Weligama resort, perched on a clifftop.
The resort has an activities centre where you can take out surfboards, snorkels and paddleboards. There are also scuba-diving courses. I was happier sitting by the Moon Pool - an infinity pool fringed with palm trees where you can watch the surfers bobbing like buoys, waiting for the next big wave.
A VISIT TO GALLE
The nearby town of Galle is one of the most distinctive on the island. It features a 16th century fort built by the Portuguese. We had tea at the Galle Fort Hotel, the most chic destination on the coast.
Back in Colombo,Residence, another Uga Escapes hotel, is the
perfect sanctuary. It's a ten-minute walk from the Town Hall and near the
Gangaramaya Temple, so ideal for sightseeing. We sat by the hotel pool sipping
a gin and tonic and plotted how to return to Paradise as soon as
possible.
First published in the Mail Online - September 2018
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