Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
Hotel in Athens not really a 5 star, but it was fine. Dreams - too many young kids and not much for teenagers
DialAFlight is fine but BA is not….expensive and has almost sunk to the level of Ryanair. BA needs to up its game and reduce its prices. It is not what it was
British Airways getting worse by the minute but this is not your fault!
Dominic and team were excellent, as always
Curtis was very patient and helpful
Flight home affected by the IT glitch last Friday - not your fault.
Really grateful for all the prompt assistance when needed - thank you Charlie and team!
Brilliant flights, hotel and transfer. Great. All smooth!
You did well but the airline didn't!
Munich airport a nightmare - not enough staff at immigration, fortunately had hand luggage. Terminal Two was torn up and had to go back to One for immigration and security. Very little air conditioning on one of the hottest weekends of the year. Just chaos. This for your info. Otherwise a great trip.
Some muddles but we have both learned from them.
Stevi Bourke found us an incredible family holiday which we will never forget and are so grateful for! We gave her our requirements and she quickly found us the perfect holiday for us and our two little ones. Thank you so so much!
Another well organised trip by Lucy. So easy to book - they listen to your needs and come back with the results, but more importantly are happy for last minute changes and adapt accordingly. We have booked another holiday with them already. Thanks team
DialAFlight agents are the best, Larry Anglin in particular in finding the best deal and options. On this occasion there was global disruption to flights and DialAFlight made sure I was informed of the situation by calling and sending an email. One can rely on DialAFlight for an excellent service.
Great trip, as usual
Cameron Bleasdale provided perfect support, assisting us in creating a fabulous Tuscany travel experience, 10/10. We'll be back for our next adventure
It is so nice to speak to a real person promptly, without holding and selecting multiple options, particularly when the service is also excellent. Many thanks to Abbie Magbagbeola who booked our accommodation and flights. I have recommended her at every opportunity.
The Dubrovnik plan by Christian was excellent and the hotel selected was outstanding. There is the hotel and residence. We were in residence 8 and we would recommend that it is essential to have a sea view as the courtyards are rather unkept. Once again your planning and assistance was superb.
Thank you to Edward Scudder for all his help and advice. We had a great trip.
All good. 5 stars
Always a first-rate service from DialAFlight and we feel as though we're in safe hands. We will continue to recommend you to all our friends. Just answering the phone as you do is most refreshing.
As usual first class service from Matthew.
All staff friendly and very helpful. Whatever your query they have the answer. I love the pre-flight phone call to check everything is fine
Great help and advice from Helen and the team.
Many thanks Tony
Tank you Jordan and Jensen
Top marks again
Thank you for your service, really caring
Wonderful service. Thank you so much
Always good service from you guys. Will use again later this year
Some might remember a TV show of seven years ago called The Young Ones (not to be confused with the comedy series of the Eighties), in which six celebrities in their 70s and 80s attempt to overcome some of the problems of ageing by harking back to the 1970s.
They spent their time in a country house decked out as a 1970s time capsule. The idea was to transport them back to their heyday - they walked on shag pile carpet and watched Crossroads, sipping Dandelion & Burdock, to see if it improved their ailing health and failing memories.
The six were cricket umpire Dickie Bird, dancer Lionel Blair, newsreader Kenneth Kendall, radio presenter Derek Jameson and actresses Sylvia Syms and Liz Smith - and it seems that taking them back to a world where everything was strictly 1975 had a miraculous effect. The experiment, particularly the part involving shag pile carpets, was very successful and they did feel younger.
I mention this because I met a very clever man called Bengt in Bequia, a tiny island just a speedboat dash from Mustique, who is conducting a similar experiment. Bengt is the proud owner of the Bequia Beach Hotel, which is full of couples of a certain age congratulating other couples for being so much younger than all the other couples of almost certainly the same age.
Trapped in time
For Bengt, you see, has created a perfect time capsule. By the time you've checked into one of the 1930s colonial-style rooms with 1950s-style posters, and followed 1960s-style wooden signs to the bar and ordered your first Dark 'n' Stormy, you're already feeling 20 years younger.
It's not just the decor, agreeable though it is. Everything here exudes old-style charisma, a Pathé newsreel picture of how the Caribbean used to be before the big bucks and giant cruise liners steamed in.
There's nothing fusty about the Bequia Beach Club, but everything is as it should be. Charming open-air restaurant on the beach: check. Delicious fresh seafood: check. Friendly but unpushy staff: check. Secluded stretch of sand fringing a gently swelling ocean: check. Cool pool with mysterious rejuvenating powers: check. Friendly faces at the bar swapping rum-punchy gossip about how Carole Middleton put people's noses out of joint in Mustique: check.
The island, which hasn't changed much since Harold Macmillan stayed here (someone told me they'd read he came up with 'You've never had it so good' on the island) is proud of its Royal connections.
Princess Margaret once dropped anchor off Bequia. As a result there's a rather fetching beach named after her. A 30-minute stroll away is the capital, Port Elizabeth, a scruffily teeming one-street town packed with shops, markets and harbourside bars.
Forty minutes away by twin-prop plane is the five-star Coral Reef Club in Barbados, where we stayed for our second week. It, too, exudes old-school cool, although this time for very A-list guests.
Had they wished, the owners of this hotel could have adopted the Bequia naming policy and christened its beach after visiting royalty. Or you could now be staying in a Harold Pinter, Agatha Christie or Prince Harry suite. All have enjoyed the hospitality of the O'Hara family, who have owned the hotel since the 1950s.
But this is the kind of hotel where the rich, famous and we lesser mortals can drift in and out incognito.
No wonder Agatha Christie was inspired to write A Caribbean Mystery here.
There's still an air of exotic mystery about the place, as if a man in tennis whites might appear at any moment among the palms and confess to Miss Marple that yes, it was he who committed the heinous murder in the bougainvillea and he doesn't care who knows it.
Every room is high-spec and the restaurant is high-end. But Coral Reef hasn't lost sight of the good old days. You can bet every dry martini here is shaken, not stirred.
If you hanker after a nightclub, well, that's just a short car ride away - this is hip and happening Barbados after all. But at the Coral Reef it's more cocktails and cool crooners.
Family values
The Coral Reef Club is built on good old-fashioned family values. And that's down to the O'Haras. They may look as if they've stepped out of a Ralph Lauren catalogue, with their brilliant white shirts and glossy good looks, but they are a very real sleeves-rolled-up presence in the hotel.
Matriarch Cynthia glides around the reception rooms and hosts an elegant cocktail party once a week, and sons Mark and Patrick patrol the restaurant.
This is not just their livelihood, it's their home, and you are made to feel like their guests, not just hotel guests.
First published in the Mail Online - February 2017
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