Excellent service from Dylan as usual
DialAFlight deliver what they promise. Abbie is always helpful and goes above and beyond to ensure all our travel needs are met.
DialAFlight are the best and Reece you have booked 2 trips for me this year both without any issues so thank you for always providing excellent service.
Thank you team, and massive appreciation for Jessica. Everything went smoothly as usual. Roll on next year
Vincent, the driver that picked me up to and from the airport was very professional and on time.
Callum explained the holiday and hotel accurately to the point it exceeded our expectations. Will definitely use your company again!
Ryan was amazing. Thank you for all your help. Very much appreciated
Ryan who we use regularly is certainly an asset to DialAFlight. I recommended some 20 people and all enjoyed the experience.
The Bodyholiday, organised by Troy was simply superb. Loved the holiday. All went smoothly ….clear instructions, flights on time, private transfers organised via Troy were on time, clean, with AC and such lovely drivers and the room and hotel experience were even better than our previous visit (only place ever revisited ). Also the app on my iPad is great for further info such as links to online entry customs forms to save time and check in.
All very good. Helicopter transfer had to wait for a long time in hot cafe and was not private. Road would have been quicker
Great advice, package put together leaving everything covered. Great communication and follow up prior to trip. Overall excellent service from Jessica. Will definitely use again
Great holiday. Everything went smoothly
Our only disappointment was that the transfer was not a BMW. We were collected and taken back to the airport via a minibus.
Zac provides fantastic service at all times
Excellent value for money package arranged to suit our needs.
Olivia was great, very helpful
The Hotel Rendezvous was excellent in St Lucia. Ross and his colleagues did a great job in finding the hotel, booking the flights and transfers. It was one of the best holidays we have ever had
DialAFlight were helpful during the flight booking process and provided updates by phone and email. Excellent service and we will use DialAFlight for our next trip
Thanks as always to Ralph Summers. I always recommend DialAFlight to family and friends and I will soon be booking a trip to the USA this summer.
Toby was wonderful
As always, many thanks Dylan Harris for all your help and support.
Great help finding our holiday - excellent support to book what we wanted and follow through to ensure we were organised to travel
I loved the personal service and the phone call before my flight to make sure everything was OK. Brilliant
Marshall put together the perfect holiday to St Lucia for us. Will definitely return to DialAFlight
Paul Jones provides an excellent service. I couldn’t ask for more.
Amelia did a great job yet again
Very well organised itinerary and a great holiday
Great customer service and support from Saf Patel - great app for ease of checking in and itinerary view. Will definitely recommend and use again
Harvey Edwards was excellent
Amazing hotel, service, food and everything excellent.
While the British have long had a love affair with the West Indies, it wasn't always an idyllic haven of rum punches and swaying palm trees.
When novelist Anthony Trollope visited in 1858 he had to cope with poor claret, rotten walnuts and withered apples. Trollope, who was also a senior Post Office official, sailed aboard SS Atrato from Southampton on a six-month tour to survey land and conclude treaties for the British government.
He wrote a travel book about the islands he visited, people he met, exotic foods, tropical climate, earthquakes, Panamanian railroads, Cuban cigars and colonial customs.
MIND THE STINGRAYS
He might have enjoyed some of the quirky moments in my trip - in particular the odd warning from our jocular sea captain Joshua in Antigua as we stepped off his speedboat into the warm turquoise waters.
His concern was that the stingrays we had come to float alongside might well nibble our inner thighs, leaving a mark suspiciously like a love-bite.
He was just putting it out there, he said with a mischievous grin, in case we needed to warn anyone back home in advance of any telltale nips.
At Stingray City, 35 minutes off the Antiguan coast, dozens of these slippery creatures gather. But all were on gentlemanly behaviour and left no marks.
THE PERFECT LOCATION
Later it was back to Zen-like tranquillity at Pelican House, an idyllic villa in Blue Waters Resort, so-called because the azure sky is perpetually dotted with these exotic, large-billed birds gliding overhead, waiting to dive for their fish lunch.
A white gate in a picket fence opens on to a blaze of pink bougainvillea - framing the picture postcard perfection of this whitewashed villa with its own swimming pool.
A white four-poster bed, colonial-style furniture and a balcony opening on to the sea make this a heavenly retreat.
The hotel is managed by a guitar-playing Scots-born manager with a beady eye for detail. There were candlelit dinners of mahi mahi cooked with fennel, pernod and olives, served to the sound of the sea washing the shore.
Think not of rotten walnuts but gourmet dishes: particularly good were pan-seared snapper and grilled lobster tails. At Nicole's Kitchen we learnt to make roti, curry and coconut puddings, all with rum freely flowing. Nicole is Antigua's Nigella and we were soon rolling pastry, slicing and dicing coconut and sprinkling hot spices into shining saucepans.
Like Trollope we island-hopped, by plane rather than boat, to St Lucia where the Sugar Beach hotel has a sensational setting. Sitting in the shadow of the mountainous Pitons, the towering rock outcrops that define and enhance the view.
EASILY CONVINCED
It was this stunning natural beauty that made Lord Glenconner, one-time owner of Mustique, buy up this cove. He attempted to make this his second West Indian paradise with a hotel called Jalousie, but it has now been reincarnated by Roger Myers, another Englishman, into a fabulous haven.
The hotel is an epicurean masterpiece. You are obliged to chill, with brightly coloured tuk-tuks always available to sweep you to bars or spas.
The Caribbean is now a gourmet's paradise, with hotels providing exceptional cuisine. Myers created the Cafe Rouge brand and has been a big cog in the music industry (clients included The Beatles at one stage) but he fell in love with this site between the pitons.
His schooner often sails by as he keeps an eye on standards.
St Lucia is an extraordinary island where Orlando's restaurant in the nearby town of Soufrière has entertained the likes of John Major and Marco Pierre White as well as hosting local poets' readings.
But then literature is part of the DNA of St Lucia. It's where the Nobel Laureate for English Literature, Derek Walcott, was born and recently died aged 86.
No wonder Trollope felt the lure of the West Indies and was fascinated by these dazzling islands - as was I.
First published in the Daily Mail - February 2018
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