Excellent customer services 10-10
Excellent service and trip - can’t wait to make our next booking!
Always a great service
Brilliant holiday destination. Had the best time and would love to go back.
Another well managed booking, all ran smoothly. Holiday was fantastic. Galley Bay Antigua was luxurious.
It was very helpful to speak to a person when I had to make a change in travel plans.
Guy was incredible and ensured our whole holiday was perfect from start to finish. Thank you so much
Excellent service from Dylan as usual
Great. Always OK with service given.
BA plane two hours late taking off. One hour late returning. No apologies, not impressed with their customer care. Missed connection coming home.
Ashley was amazing. He was very patient whilst we were deciding on the perfect location for our family holiday! Once we had eventually nailed it down to a location he was able to come up with a selection of resorts within our price range which helped making a decision very easy!
Elliot is the best
Robbie was amazing. Very helpful
Wayne Bailey is excellent and always responsive
Firstly thank you to Emma for sorting out the filghts, she was very helpful and always happy to take my call. With all connections getting back home, it took us 19 hours to get back to Gatwick, now I understand why - Winair are short of staff, hence all the notifications from you that the flight times had been changed. I will not be useing Winair again, for now. Prefer to pay the extra money and use the French or Dutch Airlines to St Maarten.
Any problem always fixed quickly.
DialAFlight deliver what they promise. Abbie is always helpful and goes above and beyond to ensure all our travel needs are met.
Thank you very much Tommy for the organisation and support. Mum had a fabulous birthday.
Stuart always goes above and beyond, never lets us down and is always there if a problem arises
Tara was absolutely excellent in helping us find and book the honeymoon of our dreams. I can’t speak highly enough about how great her communication was, how friendly and polite she was, how knowledgeable she was on the best destination during this time of the year, and helping us find the best available trip for our budget.
James was extremely helpful and supportive
Very impressed with DialAFlight and keeping in touch up to a few days before travelling. Flights are also reasonable with options on payments.
Trevor and his team were very knowledgeable and kept us informed. Their customer focus had our best interests in mind at all times making us feel valued customers
Excellent service once again from Darryll and the team
Fantastic customer service from Calvin. He was patient and accommodating with our request which helped make our holiday a memorable one.
Great service and a pleasure to deal with
Jason is an excellent manager
Always great to work with such a great team.
Jamal was amazing - great service, helpful and our holiday was perfect.
As always you delivered a fantastic service. Efficient, reliable and helpful. Thank you DialAFlight and especially Amelia
Whoever wears a silk tie in the Caribbean? Prime ministers and funeral directors, perhaps - yet, here, in Gustavia, capital of the minuscule French territory properly known as Saint Barthelemy, they are on sale for £155 a pop.
Hermes, Prada, Louis Vuitton - all the designer stores have mini outposts here, lining Rue de la Republique like courtiers eager to impress visitors who step off the superyachts glistening in the harbour.
In the winter season, St Barths becomes a magnet for billionaires and celebrities, from Sir Paul McCartney and Simon Cowell to Pippa Middleton, whose in-laws, the Matthews, own the iconic Eden Rock hotel.
But this gorgeous island, classy and seductive, is also ideal for a pampering break for us mere mortals.
St Barths is a well-groomed and sleek island, where they heat the pools and chill the red wine.
Bizarrely, all the street names are in French and Swedish - so Rue General de Gaulle is also Ostra Strandgatan. This topsy-turvy isle was part of Sweden for almost a century - the only Caribbean island under Swedish rule for any length of time - and you can bet your woolly socks the snowed-in Scandinavians still rue the day, in 1878, when they gave up this little speck of paradise. France's Louis XVI had given the island to Sweden in 1784 in return for trading rights in Gothenburg - and Sweden returned it to France following a referendum!
Framed by bougainvillea and palm trees, the little church of St Bartholomew's delivers an amusing coup de theatre at noon, when its bells ring Praise To The Lord, The Almighty across the Gallic tin-roofs.
As far as the eye can see
From the Beach Club at the Hotel le Toiny on the island's Cote Sauvage you can spot a number of other islands. The hotel's English co-owner, Mandie Vere Nicoll, kindly gets off her sun-lounger to settle a dispute my wife and I are having about exactly which ones are visible - Saba, St Eustatius and St Kitts it turns out.
'This is my office,' says Mandie with a grin, pointing to a palm-roofed palapa where her little dog Gladys is standing guard.
And away from peak season, says Mandie, when the celebrities have moved on, can be the best time to visit - and it's easier to get reservations at the restaurants.
We hired a car, a tres sportif Mini Countryman, from a local firm - and found, admittedly, that driving was the only stressful thing here; think dodgems on top of a rollercoaster. Steep hills, sudden bends, potholes, goats, crazy Frenchmen.
The narrow roads are a Wacky Races of quad bikes, mokes, electric cars and scooters - plus trucks, vans and cement mixers as the island rebuilds after the devastation of Hurricane Irma in 2017.
There's little evidence of storm damage to be seen now, but it took St Barths more than a year to get its mojo back.
The majority of the island's 28 hotels have reopened, looking better than ever. A quarter of these are five-star, with lavish rooms and gastronomic restaurants.
Glamour and sophistication
If you're content with a big pool, but no beach, Hotel Christopher has a St Tropez-style glamour, while Hotel Le Toiny is quiet and sophisticated, with breakfast served beside your private plunge pool. If swimming from your front door appeals, Hotel Le Sereno is set beside Anse de Grand Cul de Sac, a lagoon with turtles, stingrays and richly-coloured coral.
Wherever you hang your straw hat, superb sands are nearby. St Barths is only ten square miles but has 16 beaches.
Colombier, Gouverneur and Salines are the stars, but when we arrive at the latter, it’s clear we’ve made a mistake.
I’d assumed there’d be all the usual beach bars, loungers and hawkers you find across the Caribbean, but non! Here, the glorious bay looks as unspoilt as it did in 1493 when Christopher Columbus named the island after his brother, Bartolomeo: a blaze of spotless white grains and turquoise waters with not a rum shop or boombox in sight.
Sheepishly, we head back up the hill in search of cold water and le pique-nique, marvelling at how the French have managed to create such a fabulous playground while still preserving its beauty.
First published in the Daily Mail - May 2019
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