Always answer phone within 5 seconds as they advertise. Very efficient. Email any changes to flights. Will use again
Brilliant service
Great communication and very helpful research as always
Outward flight American Airlines were very unhelpful. Virgin were brilliant on the way back..
I wanted my trip to Costa Rica to be as stress free as possible. Your help in booking the flights made this possible.
All flights arranged by Kylie were good and other than a long wait in Miami they were extremely well organised.
The only issue that I had was no vegetarian meal on the homebound longhaul flight. I do, however, suspect that this was an airline issue rather than DialAFlight.
Note that Ibis Styles does not have transport to airport and the buses from airport don't go there. Would stay somewhere else next time.
Great staff, always available to help with queries. Would definitely use again and recommend
Harriet was very helpful and I got my flights for a good price. The connections worked out well so I didn't have to hang around any airport for too long.
Never received such 5* service when booking flights before. Hugely impressed, will definitely use again and recommend to friends - in fact already recommended to friends who have booked!
Richard is a delight to work with. Have been dealing with DialAFlight for over 30 years in my capacity as Personal Assistant to the Executive Director of International Coffee Organisation and now as Consultant for InterAfrican Coffee Organisation. It has always been a pleasure and a peace of mind!
Thak you Joey - we had a great wildlife adventure!
Had a few complications but all worked out in the end and was very glad for the help with cancelling part of my trip to Peru and rescheduling of my flights.
Richard got me out of a tight spot while I was in Costa Rica and saved me lots of trouble for which I am very grateful.
Great customer service and follow up after booking flights. Kept informed and would use again
People need to be aware that this Dreams hotel in Costa Rica is very family oriented. For example children in all pools and playing in restaurants in late evening. People also need to be aware that the hotel is very isolated 18 miles from the nearest town.
First time we have used DialAFlight and will have no hesitation using you again. Package was put together efficiently and professionally. Thanks to Graham.
Dylan always delivers - must have been dealing with him for nearly 10 years now wouldn't go anywhere else
George and his team were first class throughout and are a credit to your brand. I recommend them wholeheartedly.
Excellent communication throughout and I was really pleased with the flights chosen.
Keep up the excellent work
Needed help while on holiday. Neil was brilliant. Wouldn’t travel without DialAFlight now.
If possible avoid Mexico City for transit - have to clear immigration even for transit. No fast track. Took 3 hours one way and 1 hour on way back. One of worst lounges seen. Avoid AeroMexico at moment as still insisting on masks.
I'm really pleased I used DialAFlight and would definitely use them again for our next trip.
I’m so grateful to Glen for arranging my trip to Costa Rica
Super itinerary and excellent service provided by Travis. Thank you.
We have used DialAFlight for several long haul trips and have always received great service and good value flights. Thank you Tara. Always a pleasure speaking with you and receiving your advice and help!
Megan was amazingly helpful - many times
I'm a repeat customer - Christian Burgess is brilliant
Costa Rica is like an I-Spy book checklist of exotic holidays; you can travel from the Caribbean coast to the Pacific, stroll on white beaches with monkeys and pelicans and zipline through mountainous cloud-forests.
But unlike some of its wilder neighbours, the water is filtered, the hotels are chic, crime is low and the food is healthy, with a heavy focus on meat, rice and black beans.
My trip began at El Mangroove, a sophisticated boutique hotel on a beach on the Gulf of Papagayo on the north-east coast near the border with Nicaragua. There were howler monkeys in the trees, and cocktails at the bar.
It's not far from the Arenal volcano, a natural wonder that looks like a child's drawing. The shape of an incense cone, it sits reflected in Arenal lake, a manmade bowl of water fringed with vine-looped trees.
Luckily it hasn't erupted since 2005, though it still feeds hot springs all around the area. At the Tabacon hot springs complex, it emerged that 'hot' meant 'skinsearingly boiling'. There are more than 20 pools and waterfalls in the black volcanic rock, among tropical plants and flowers.
In one pool, an elderly couple stood blissfully beneath the waterfall, while others floated in glassy jetblack ponds amid floating clouds of steam as evening fell.
I found my own little pool, and lay back with my eyes closed for so long that I opened them to find myself facing a pair of orange Crocs worn by a concerned Texan man who was clearly wondering if I was dead. If I was, it was a good way to go.
That night, I stayed at the Arenal Springs hotel, a Spanish-style resort featuring rows of neat bungalows, like a tropical version of The Truman Show. I was worried that my Spanish doesn't extend beyond 'vino por favor', but almost everyone speaks English in the country's resorts, used as they are to vacationing Americans.
Costa Rica's main draw for me, though, was the wildlife. Already, I'd seen citrus-peel-bright butterflies, vultures circling over the Pan-American highway, and a clutch of hefty iguanas slowly blinking the day away in a tree.
But a cruise down the San Carlos river made all that look like a palatecleanser. As the boat set out across the still, peat-brown water, vines and foliage hanging from the banks, a cayman lay immobile on the sand, watching us with eyes golden as chocolate money.
There were basilisk lizards the searing green of primary-school poster paint, mangrove swallows following the boat, and - high up in the branches - a sloth, dangling upside down.
We saw capuchin monkeys with faces like cross old men and birdlife to make any twitcher weep - a fluffy Great Potoo, Amazon kingfishers and boat-billed herons perched on bleached branches.
The following day, we headed uphill to Monteverde, a small town in the mountainous north west. It's more than 5,000ft above sea level and wreathed in misty cloud. And when we arrived, it was raining biblically. It's a town for backpackers and adventurers, strung with telegraph wires and lit by the fog lamps of Isuzu trucks.
I found the thin, humid air hard to breathe, and though our hotel, El Establo, was smart and pleasant, I was relieved to get into the cooler cloud forest the next day, where Selvatura Park offers ziplining through the trees (I feebly declined), a beautiful butterfly house, a hummingbird garden, and a walk along eight astonishing hanging bridges (I said yes to all three).
In the hummingbird garden, the tiny birds whirred frantically around feeders filled with sugar water. Flashing emerald, royal purple and scarlet, and so tame they'll perch on your finger, it was like holding a tiny portable fan, and one of the best experiences of the trip - particularly when a coatimundi emerged and snuffled through the flowers.
The hanging bridges are where parts of the Paddington movie were filmed. There was no sign of Aunt Lucy, but we did hear howler monkeys barking in the trees like a pack of junkyard dogs, and trip over a millipede the size of an inner tube.
After that, riding a horse through the Santa Rosa National Park amid clouds of yellow butterflies, and visiting the Monteverde coffee plantation belonging to flirtatious 78-year-old Don Juan ('He has a much younger wife,' said our guide) were added bonuses.
We finished the trip at Dreams Las Mareas, above Salinas Bay and close to Nicaragua. Newly built, with swim-up terraces by the rooms, and a series of high-end restaurants, this is luxury the American way with every whim catered for.
I'll admit I preferred the wild side, where vultures hover over houses the colour of Skittles sweets, monkeys hurl themselves through the vines, and a kaleidoscope of tropical birds whirls among the soursop trees of the rainforest, high above the clouds.
First published in the Mail on Sunday - June 2016
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