Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
I was surprised that we made a stop in the DRC en route from Nairobi to Ndola. I would want to avoid that on a future trip but it wasn’t a problem on this occasion. Loved the App for doing check in and being able to see all flights in one place. Many thanks for all of your help. Will definitely use DialAFlight again.
Everything went well. With your company I always travel with peace of mind that if things do not go well I have you to help - as has happened before. Thank you, you will always be my travel partner.
BA's holding area for passengers needing assistance must be upgraded and must be made rodent free. it was quite disturbing seeing rodents running around on the floor and under the furnishing. No bottled water was provided while passengers waited in the holding area, when the flight was delayed.
Huge thanks to Zoe Lane who went above and beyond yet again. I’m so pleased I deal with DialAFlight as her service is of the highest quality.
Wonderful trouble-free holiday arranged by Sarah. We have used your company many times and will continue to use you.
Thank you Glen - everything ran smoothly
All went well. We were kept informed and there were no problems
Only suggestion is to have a WhatsApp or chat to communicate with DialAFlight especially during out of office hours in case client has no roaming access.
Not sure we would opt to fly with Qatar again - not what it used to be. It just didn’t have that professional / customer service edge over other airlines that it used to. DialAFlight 10/10 as always!
Really good communication from arranging the trip to completion
Great service from Donovan as per usual
Theo was a star. It was really reassuring that he was in the background on what was anything but a straightforward trip.
Thank you for a great service - always on the end of the phone when we had a query and able to help.
Lucy McNab was excellent!
Staff in the lounge and onboard were friendly and helpful
Helpful and efficient as always! Many thanks.
Really appreciated the call the day before we left to ensure we had all docs and reminding us to check-in. Thank you!
Stacey Rayner is a Rock Star !
We trust DialAFlight always - and staff so friendly polite and efficient - well done
Amazing holiday to South Africa and the service from DialAFlight was first class. Flights and hotel were perfect.
It would have been very helpful to have had the literature given at the "meet & greet" on arrival in Windhoek a month before departure to familiarise with routes between accommodation.
Thank you for your help with this booking
Excellent service as always
Always select a great hotel and good flight options. Fantastic service!
Always use DAF - have done for 20 years - that says how pleased we are.
Alfie was an amazing holiday organiser. Very helpful and found me the best venues. I really enjoyed my holiday.
I was very happy with the service provided by DialAFlight and would recommend them to family and friends
Kieran and team are amazing
Everything went smoothly and to plan. Another excellent trip thanks to DialAFlight
Good to include baggage allowance in the DialAFlight app rather than a link to the airline site…particularly for smaller airlines where this info isn’t easy to access nor correlate with the flight booked
Italy's second city is not best known for understatement. As the country's economic hub and the world's fashion capital, it has much to brag about, and isn't shy about doing so. On one subject, however, it's strangely reticent. The city possesses art treasures as magnificent as any in Rome or Florence, many unsurpassed in their power to take the breath away.
It's also the place where one comes closest to the greatest genius of the Renaissance or any other age - Leonardo da Vinci. Milan is where you crack the real da Vinci code. Yet tourism plays only a minor role in Milan's economy, which is what makes it so very relaxing to visit as a tourist.
After queueing at the Vatican or the Uffizi in Florence, Milan's underused galleries and museums feel like a rest cure. It's not unusual to be alone in a roomful of stunning paintings and feel Raphael, Bellini and Caravaggio all competing for your attention.
Originally the Roman Empire's western capital, Milan was subsumed into the Holy Roman Empire, then invaded and occupied in turn by Spain, Austria and France. Napoleon crowned himself king of Italy here in 1805.
For centuries, Milan was a hugely prosperous inland port, standing on a network of canals that linked it with the Adriatic and Lake Maggiore. They were only filled in when the populace decided they'd prefer an urban tram system.
It is a city of palaces, like Venice, and colonnades, like Bologna. However, these days the ground floors of these palaces are often designer boutiques. And the colonnades exemplify the general plainness of Milanese architecture with their undecorated ceilings and pillars.
The one exception is the city's cathedral, the Duomo, a Gothic-baroque fantasy of Candoglia marble. It took over 500 years to build and is adorned by 135 spires and more than 2,000 statues.
I'm here in the care of Art Tours, founded by former guide James McDonaugh, which specialises in private, out-of-hours visits to galleries. James, 34, is leading our group personally and gets us access to Castello Sforzesco, a former stronghold of Francesco Sforza, the 15th Century Duke of Milan who was da Vinci's employer years before he painted the Mona Lisa.
On the way, Anthony tells us about the CV which that ultimate Renaissance Man sent to the Duke in hopes of getting the gig; da Vinci doesn't even mention he's a painter, focusing instead on his engineering skills.
Thanks to our pass, we're allowed to roam the Castello after closing time, peering at the Rondanini Pieta, Michelangelo's final sculpture. We're then taken to the Sala delle Asse, a room painted by Leonardo in 1498. His unfinished design of trompe l'oeil mulberry trees, later covered by 13 layers of ordinary household paint, has been under restoration for many years and will be for many more to come.
I later head out on my own to the nearby fashion district, the Quadrilatero d'Oro or Golden Quadrilateral around Via della Spiga and Via Monte Napoleon. The menswear stores leave me utterly confused as to what constitutes cutting-edge fashion. In one window, there's a jewelled leather codpiece. In the next, a grey woollen jumper identical to those I used to wear to school in the 1950s.
Between the opera house La Scala and the Duomo stretches the vast Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping mall, known locally as Il Salotto di Milano, or Milan's drawing room.
It's a magnet for the city's beautiful people and in its central rotunda is the modest facade of the first-ever Prada store, established in 1913. Back then, the ultimate celebrity label was more mundanely called Fratellli Prada (Prada Brothers) and dealt only in 'valigeria' - luggage.
Our final evening is devoted to perhaps the greatest, certainly the most troubled, of all Leonardo's masterpieces. At the former convent of Santa Maria Delle Grazie, we're given a private viewing of The Last Supper.
From the moment it was completed in 1498, the paint Leonardo had used began to lose its colour.The room served as a refectory for the convent's Dominican nuns and in the 17th Century, a rectangle was cut in the bottom of the painting to make a door through to the kitchen.
Two hundred years later, Napoleon's men amused themselves by throwing stones at the painting or else gouging out the eyes of the apostles with their sabres.
Dan Brown's novel the Da Vinci Code starts from the premise that Jesus secretly fathered a child with Mary Magdalene. Brown's readers are always asking my guide whether Mary is 'the blonde' in The Last Supper.
After the five centuries of vandalism and neglect Leonardo's sublime vision has suffered, that somehow seems the worst insult of all.
First published in the Mail on Sunday - May 2016
More articles below...