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Very pleased with our trip although BA were not great. On the way out I checked in 10 minutes after it opened and could not get two seats together. Checking in online they would not issue boarding passes and we had to get to the airport early. The food on the way back was terrible. Films on board were OK but the music choice was all cheapie covers - like some sort of massive cheapo compilation - bizarre. Confirmed my dislike of BA
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Our flights with Air France to Ottawa were fabulous. They were all on time even though there was a global "IT glitch" on Friday 19th July, the day we commenced our return journey. The DialAFlight app is handy, a one stop shop for everything you need. Stuart and Graham always available to answer any questions you might have. Would book with DialAFlight again.
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I would not recommend Air Canada as they cancelled our first flight and on our return put us on standby and split us all up even though we bought our seats together. They were very unhelpful
Hertz desk at Calgary was hopeless as insufficient cars and we had a long wait for cars. Hertz Granville street in Vancouver is in a really rough district so would not recommend drop off in this location
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Gary was very helpful with our Canada trip which included 4 destinations and 3 train journeys. He assisted us from the onset, providing useful information and suggestions on hotels for each stop and also was very helpful with the various flight options available. He was always on hand for any queries we had from the time of booking and up to our departure date. His knowledge and suggestions ensured our trip was thoroughly enjoyable.
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Not a criticism but please note July 1 is Canada Day so Niagara area is particularly busy. We checked out at 11am but weren’t picked up until 1:45 …pick up could have been earlier even if we spent longer at Toronto airport…which was a great airport in our opinion.
All the staff and especially Shelley go out of their way to organise great holidays. I have booked a few now with DialAFlight and will be booking more
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To ride the Blue Train between Pretoria and Cape Town is to travel along part of Britain's imperial history; a journey that is at once luxurious, breathtakingly beautiful and thought-provoking.
The railway heading north from the Cape was part of Cecil Rhodes's grand colonial vision: the 19th-century mining magnate, today the focus of intense political controversy, imagined a trans-port network from one end of Africa to the other to enable British trade and political dominion. It didn't happen but this remarkable train is part of his legacy.
After a night in Fairlawns in Johannesburg, a chic boutique hotel and spa set inside a former country estate, my companion and I head to Pretoria station and enter an older, genteel world, with a nostalgic colonial twist.
We board the bright blue train, with some 80 other passengers, and enter a world of wood-panelled comfort, with brass fittings, crisp linen and low golden lighting. The Blue Train is the Orient Express of Africa.
Once offering an overnight journey to the Cape, the Blue Train is now a deliberately slower experience, taking two nights for the 997-mile trip.
Our charming butler, Angela, has brought a bottle of South African spark-ling wine. The compartments are roomy, about 8m2, each with an Italian marble bathroom.
The train feels venerable and experi-enced, adding to the feeling one is riding a bit of history. I couldn't be happier.
A cocooned quiet pervades the cabin, just a faint rumble of the tracks audible through the wide picture window - double-glazed for tranquillity.
It's time to dress for dinner; dress code is 'elegant' for ladies and jacket and tie for gentlemen. I've opted for the linen suit with leather waistcoat, as worn by Robert Redford in Out of Africa.
The dining car is a vision in starched white tablecloths and heavy cutlery. Our waiter, Collen, has a deep sonorous delivery and virtually sings the menu. The food is delicious - seared scallops, cured salmon, duck breast, South African cheeses. The list of South African wines is positively tidal.
Collen is explaining that he once met the Queen. For a glorious moment I think he may be referring to Queen Victoria.
We totter back down the corridor, the sway only partly induced by the train's movement. You can sense the vastness outside; not a single light is visible, save a flutter of stars.
In the 1920s, steam locomotives plied the line between Cape Town and Johannesburg. After the war, the Blue Train service was launched, named after the blue steel trains introduced a few years earlier.
Rhodes died in 1902, but countless colonists still took this route north for the diamond and gold fields. Rhodes even had his own private carriage; his body was transported along this very line, stopping at every station for mourners to pay their respects.
In the morning, a blinding African sun slices through the blinds, which lift to reveal the plains stretching into the distance. We eat eggs benedict and fresh fruit and watch herds of tiny antelope flickering through the scrub.
Watching Africa glide past at a stately 30mph is mesmerising.
At mid-morning we pull into Kimberley, where diamonds were discovered on the farm belonging to the De Beer brothers in 1871, prompting the greatest diamond rush the world has seen. Here, until 1914, some 50,000 miners using picks and shovels extracted 6,000lb of diamonds.
We are driven to The Big Hole museum - exactly what the name indicates, a pit 460m wide and 240m deep, the largest hand-dug hole in the world, a testament to human ingenuity and man's hunger for gems. Now it's a ghostly place.
At Kimberley station, the station-master hands out South African sherry in tiny glasses engraved with the Blue Train logo.
The train sets off into the Great Karoo desert, the vast plateau the size of Germany whose name comes from a Khoi tribal word meaning 'land of great thirst'.
I sit in the observation car at the rear, watching the vast bushveld drift by, an undulating tableau of rock, semi-desert and sparse scrub. High tea is served in the lounge car, with cake and scones; another extravaganza is staged in the dining car in the evening, to the accompaniment of Collen's echoing baritone.
We awake descending towards the Cape, with vineyards stretching away under high granite outcrops, as our journey on this historical artefact rolls to a close. And our holiday is rounded off in wine country, with a few days in Majeka House, a delightful boutique hotel just outside Stellenbosch.
First published in The Times - May 2019
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