Brilliant as always
Thank you again for another stess free trip. I will definitely be back to you to book my next trip.
Kept us informed. Answered our queries promptly. Delivered as required!
Brilliant service throughout. We’ll definitely be using the service again! I’ve spoken to various people in the team and all have been super helpful, especially our Travel Manager Molly. We loved our holiday/itinerary, all the information shared was detailed. A few hiccups along the way (all down to the airline and not DialAFlight!) which Molly supported us through immediately.
Marshall is excellent and I will continue to use him and recommend him to all my friends. 5 stars!
Great hotel, great service from Chris
4th or 5th time using DialAFlight. As always your call is answered within 5 rings, agents are knowledgeable, courteous and helpful. Will book again
Overloaded plane in Guatemala meant a three hour delay and then a very rushed take off. Customers were standing up as the plane began to move without warning. Five passengers were bribed with $1,000 to get off plane and get a later flight. Those of us with connections to Europe were very stressed. On the plus side you did hold the plane for us in Houston and that flight was perfect.
The travel with American Airlines went smoothly and the hotel that you booked for us was perfect for our requirements..
It was a faultless and wonderful holiday
Wary of using British Airways again as service and food was poor. Terminal 5 awful and bag arrived damaged. But DAF were fab in getting the flight for me
Our case was damaged when placed on a boat on the first part of our trip - you are looking into this.
Flights went well but delayed flight from Mexico City on our return meant just a 30 minute window to catch connecting flight from Toronto to LHR. We made it but our luggage did not. It is being delivered tomorrow (3 days after we landed).
Trip always ends up as planned - excellent.
Sam was a great help in arranging the flights and we were delighted with the service.
Very good service, fast, punctual. Both from initial booking and flight change when in Mexico. Top notch!
When I wanted to plan my journey it seemed an overwhelming task and DialAFlight were very prompt in finding options. The flights and hotel were excellent and the team were very patient with my numerous questions.
After organising our hotel/flights and transfers, I cannot fault DialAFlight. Everything was perfect, very easily contactable and all arrangements were brilliant. I have already recommended to many people. Thank you so much
Libby was great from start to finish. Not stopping after the flights were booked but also checking all was in order with documents needed for the trip. Even helped with check in to get us good seats. Very happy with the whole process.
Very helpful when changing flights.
I’d recommend DialAFlight to everyone. Ian was so helpful and knowledgeable about our flights and never too busy to answer my questions.
Ian Newton was so helpful arranging everything and kept checking in with me via emails and calls … thank you so much for a perfect experience as a solo traveller. I will definitely be in touch for future trips
Dealt with by Michael! Best holiday we have had so far
Amazing service from Michael - will be using your company again
Thanks Mark. Also the follow up call two weeks before travel. Impressed by that
Very impressed with the customer service - thank you Ethan
Jay Thompson knocked it out of the park. Best vacation I have had in years. He made it so easy for me that the most difficult part was remembering to bring my passport.
Thank you Peter for your continued help with my bookings.
Definitely recommend. Fully communicated prior and during our holiday. Excellent customer support
Such a help to have a person to ask questions. Also to have a name, thank you Thomas. Also a pleasant surprise as United Airlines checked our cases through straight to San Jose from London. We did not have to pick up case and recheck. The flights were good.
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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