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First class service as usual from Elliot
This was an amazing trip! Everything was beyond our expectations. We would highly recommend DialAFlight and have done many times.The Oberoi won the travel awards for 2024 whilst we were there as the best hotel in Mauritius. In our opinion, well deserved!
Mason is amazing - knows exactly what we require from our holiday and delivers - backed up by great customer service
Just perfect!
Fabulous service for fabulous holiday
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Amazing holiday beyond our expectations. Troy was so right recommending the resort - can’t wait to go back!
I had been recommended to you and you did not disappoint. Excellent service - will definitely use you again and recommend to colleagues and friends.
Our first holiday in the Maldives was wonderful and everything went smoothly from start to finish.
Happy with the service I get every time. Theo is the best.
Kylie put together an amazing trip for us that we will remember for the rest of our lives. It was seamless from start to finish and I'd reccommend the service to any of my friends or family. A great success!
Thank you George
Absolutely brilliant, we will always come to you for a quote.
Arthur never fails to deliver the best holiday with attention to detail and a very personalised.service
Keep on doing what you're doing. It's first class
I have travelled with DialAFlight many times. I often deal with Orlando Spragg and his team. They are always extremely helpful, friendly and knowledgeable.
Bobby Tuggey was excellent - he worked tirelessly to help us on our trip
Tammy is just amazing, everything was SO perfect and I’m very grateful for her diligent attention to detail. Every trip is just perfect and she is over and above what I could hope for in a travel planner.
Roy Copeland was lovely and helpful, he went above and beyond to help us
As always excellent customer service from Kennedy and everything ran smoothly
Five star service
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Good holiday thanks. Well organised by Taylor
Everyone is always helpful, always clear, and we had great trip all round.
Wonderful trip as always. Thanks for organising everything
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Just the best service
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Slip, slop, slap time has arrived on the Whitsunday Islands in Australia. That's slip on a top, slop on the sun cream and slap on a hat, as they say over here.
These bountiful islands sit off Queensland's subtropical east coast within the Great Barrier Reef - and on a trip Down Under, it's crazy not to include a few days here.
They're accessible via a short (for Australia) internal flight - two hours from Sydney and 90 minutes from both Cairns and Brisbane - and boats leave from the popular backpacker spot, Airlie Beach.
Captain Cook came across the islands (there are 74) during his epic 1770 voyage on what was recorded as Whitsun. He christened the stretch between the islands and Cape Conway (to their west), Whitsunday passage - hence the name.
It doesn't quite do their exoticism justice. They're brimming with extraordinary life; the fattest of parrots, iridescent fish, fascinating bush landscape and the squeakiest sand on the planet. Most of the Whitsundays have national park status.
Hamilton Island, our first port of call and the most developed, serves family-friendly fun with big resort panache.
At the Reef View Resort there's a pool alongside the restaurant so parents can eat and watch their young squeal and splash.
The big selling point is best appreciated from the upper floors, where this lovely expanse comes to squawking life each evening as great flocks of cockatoos swoop about.
Guests tend to travel around by golf buggy, but you can reach everything you need on foot. There's a yacht-filled harbour with beach shops, boutiques, ice-cream booths and even fish-and-chip counters.
We take a buggy here on our last evening for posh cocktails in the stingray shaped yacht club.
I'm a sluggish sort in the sunshine. My sister Felicity isn't. In local terms, she is the kangaroo to my koala. I would be happy to watch the weddings go by on the beach, but am marched up to Passage Peak - a fairly challenging climb, especially in a warm climate - for the rewarding views.
Then it's off to Dent Island, a golfer's honeypot, for lunch. Dent is a ten-minute boat ride from Hamilton and popular with keen golfers such as F1 driver Fernando Alonso. We aren't golfers, but the course is an attractive diversion and the restaurant serves a tasty lunch.
The big attraction, though, is the water. The Whitsundays are a jumping off point for the Great Barrier Reef.
If you're not inclined to take the full day excursion to a floating pontoon moored beside it and you're not a diver, there are other snorkelling sights which cost much less and don't attract so many visitors.
We opt for one of these, largely because it includes a drop-off at the pearly ribbon of Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. This four-mile stretch is a 'beaut'.
A short walk from the beach takes us to Tongue Point Lookout, from where we see water swirling away across sand and mud flats like a marble cake.
Stingrays and blacktip reef sharks are dotted about in the shallows. They are common in these waters — and nothing to worry about. Hammerheads have been spotted, but there have only been three recorded shark-related fatalities in the Whitsundays.
So relax — up to a point. It's the jellyfish I am watching out for. Irukandji are tiny (about 1cm) but deliver a punchy sting, which can be fatal. So we all don head-to-toe stinger suits and sally into the sea with some trepidation.
Once we've got over the initial flap of flippers and goggles, the water is a joy.
Clownfish (of Finding Nemo fame) guard their anemone homes, parrot fish chip away at the coral, munching noisily as if on crisps, black-and-white striped zebra fish flit about and jellies bob near the surface.
The coral is like a well-stocked sweet shop, with blue-tipped wands, purple puckered lips that kiss the water, thick wafts of tagliatelle and sugary pretzel twists. It's all very much like the breakfast buffet at our next stop, Hayman Island. This sultry place has a different pace altogether. It's positively quiet.
Reached by a 50-minute ferry from Hamilton, champagne on tap, it offers high living and attracts an international clientele. The hotel is beautifully landscaped with rooms overlooking the ocean, lily ponds, or a cubic pool.
My sister insisted we undertake a four-mile trek through the bush around the island, swiping away spider's webs with a stick and listening for the slightest slither. We see bush wallabies, one with a baby on board, butterflies the size of sparrows, lots of cross spiders (which primly hold their legs together) and ancient grass trees.
We also spot two newly built residences, priced from £12million. Incidentally, if you are in the market for a Whitsunday retreat — Daydream Island is priced at £75million.
First published in the Mail on Sunday - January 2016
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