Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
Great service and a fantastic trip Lovely to have personal service and attention from Robert .
Thank you for a very smooth trip
The only problem we had was at Sao Paulo on the outward leg where we had great trouble getting boarding cards via Gol Airlines. I failed to do it on my phone and a girl at the desk took some time to achieve it too.
Had an issue with a flight from Salta to Buenos Aires being cancelled and moved so we would arrive at the estancia around midnight. But Rosie managed to get it changed to a morning flight which made the experience better as we would have had only a full day there otherwise
Manny and his team couldn't have been more helpful - including rescheduling a missed flight. I've used DialAFlight for many years, and friends I've recommended have also been delighted to find they offer prompt and friendly service. You can actually talk to one of the team 24/7, they are unfailingly helpful, efficient and nice.
Thank goodness for the 24/7 helpline. On a bank holiday Monday we had to reschedule our flights home. Out of ten other people doing the same our new flights were sorted in the hour. Others could not even get to speak to their agents! Imagine the stress when this situation occurs.
Everything went like clockwork. PERFECT.
Luke helpful as usual
Love Abbie!
Mollie was excellent. She did exactly what we asked, kept in touch and helped us with any queries we had.
I was going through a different agent who messed me around. I spent the weekend trying to arrange something with them having been told it was confirmed and then they told me they couldn’t secure the seat and I’d have to pay a different price. I called Bradley at DialAFlight on the Monday and within 15 minutes he managed to resolve my issue. The price I was given was 2nd to none and I was very impressed with his conduct and his after service. Thank you so much DialAFlight
Will be back if and when I fly again!
Thank you Gavin. Professional and honest advice and service every time.
Smooth process from start to finish - great work again and DAF remain my go-to travel agents.
Great service, thank you.
We were really impressed with every aspect of our experience and highly recommend Ethan.
Everything worked out perfectly
Edward Scudder is an asset to your company. Not only did he alleviate any worries I had. But his overall professionalism was fantastic. I’m advising friends and family to use DialAFlight
Very efficient!
Been with DialAFlight for a few years and always receive the best service. They are very helpful and responsible.
Harvey and Abbie were brilliant... please tell them!
Keep up the good work and looking forward to my next travel with you!
Excellent support
Excellent, attentive, personal service
I wouldn't use anyone else to book our holiday/flights. From luxury holidays to daughter's gap year flights. Joe Orton sorted everything. He found us an upgrade to First Class and the BA service to Santiago was very impressive and was definitely worth doing as it's a 15 hour flight. But we flew back from Buenos Aires and the BA business class was very disappointing, as was the food. Very poor.
Marshall a superstar as always
Everything went well
We were disappointed with our seat allocation on Iberia
As always, very efficient and helpful.
Tristram as always was excellent. I always recommend
Frankly, I was at the bottom of the learning curve when it came to Tampa. I had heard of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the local football team, but that was about it. Most British visitors to Florida make a bee-line for Orlando and Miami.
But the old pecking order is changing fast. That's probably why Virgin Atlantic, scenting a winner, is now offering direct flights to Tampa. Parts of the city are run down; public transport is pretty basic. Tampa has been up, down, up again, down again, like one of the rollercoasters in Busch Gardens, the family theme park to the north of the city centre.
But its overall trajectory is emphatically up. I stayed for three nights at the spanking new JW Marriott hotel, in the heart of Tampa, and had a blast.
The city combines the dynamism of 21st-century America with just a hint of old-fashioned Southern charm. It is quite a cocktail - and Floridians love their cocktails.
All around the sunlit bay, I unearthed parks and museums, terrific bars and restaurants, quirky neighbourhoods and, best of all, a wealth of history.
In its heyday, Tampa was known as Cigar City, thanks to Vicente Ybor, a Spanish born entrepreneur who moved here in the 19th century, bought up swampland, then lured thousands of Cuban migrant workers to join him. Soon Ybor City, as the area became known, was turning out more cigars than anywhere else on the planet. No longer, alas.
But I would not have missed Ybor City for anything. Like Little Italy in New York, or the French Quarter in New Orleans, it encapsulates the American Dream - beautiful but fragile - in perfect miniature.
After disembarking from a rickety old streetcar, I soon found myself in a rabbit warren of scruffy streets, some overrun with chickens, some featuring bars and businesses, both weird and wonderful. 'Save a horse, ride a cowboy,' read one sign. 'The only shop in Tampa where death and dysfunction dance a graceful ballet,' boasted another, with dusty skeletons in the window.
Should I risk it? Or play safe and visit the more sedate-looking J. C. Newman Cigar Factory and Museum? I played safe. I am scared of skeletons.
Newman is not just a world renowned company, but the last operational cigar manufacturer in Tampa. Watching highly skilled workers cut tobacco and hand-roll cigars with such loving care was a revelation.
Vicente Ybor wanted to build a community, not just churn out cigars. The 19th-century migrant workers were well housed, got a good education and, after work, met at a Cuban club, of which a local guide gave me a tour. It was built on a palatial scale, with a ballroom fit for a king.
Lunch beckoned - and what a lunch. The family-run Columbia restaurant has been a fixture in Ybor City since 1905. I have never had Spanish food of this calibre outside of Spain. Unable to decide between the grilled snapper and the shrimp and crabmeat casserole, I had both and was soon whinnying for more. Olé!
If Ybor City evokes Tampa past, Hyde Park Village, across the bay, embodies its future.
It's a substantial urban development, less than ten years old, beside a much older residential area - the sleepy pre-war Tampa of shady streets, rocking chairs on porches and tattered Stars and Stripes fluttering overhead.
There are no rocking chairs in Hyde Park Village because everyone is on the move: joggers, dog walkers, teenagers on electric scooters, friends snatching a coffee before repairing to their laptops. The village has already become a magnet for young people working in the creative industries. They hang out in shared work spaces and, after hours, meet at the sort of bars where everyone knows everyone else and the cocktails flow like water.
Want to watch an arthouse movie in a funky bistro? Here's your chance. Or eat excellent Italian food in stylish surroundings? Look no further than Timpano, another humdinger of a restaurant.
For lovers of museums and galleries, the new Tampa Riverwalk is another must, linking a string of visitor attractions, from the vibrant Tampa Museum of Art to the Henry B. Plant Museum, an oasis of tranquillity.
I had brunch at the nearby Oxford Exchange, a much-loved Tampa institution. Part cafe, part shop, the Exchange is a lovingly crafted shrine to books. They even present your bill discreetly folded into a dusty old novel. Class.
.
On my last morning, I had breakfast in Goody Goody, a retro American diner, then took a mini powerboat out into the bay.
The views were so thrilling that I nearly disturbed a nesting pelican just 50 yards from the general hospital.
My final port of call was Sparkman Wharf. Millennials in shorts and T-shirts sipped craft beer in refurbished shipyard crates, soaked up the sun and yakked about baseball, love and life without a care in the world.
It was hard to drag myself away to catch my plane home.
But isn't that true of all great cities? They leave you wanting more.
First published in the Daily Mail - November 2022
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