Yet another well organised holiday. Over 15 trips with DialAFlight and they never fail to deliver .
Troy Morris always does an excellent Job
Stacey arranged an amazing holiday for us!
Our best ever holiday! We can’t thank Lucas and Harriet enough for making this our trip of a lifetime. We will be back for more
Another wonderful trip organised for us by Eric. Can’t wait to rebook again soon!
Huge thanks to Sadie and her team - excellent service and organisation.
Outstanding service from the outset. We had some difficulties due to personal reasons meaning our holiday had to change twice. Harvey was nothing put patient, courteous and professional. Out holiday was fantastic and went smoothly. I will definitely use again and would recommend to others.
John Huff arranged another perfect holiday for us. From start to finish he thought of everything. It’s so nice to travel stress free. The resort he chose was absolutely perfect. Big thank you's!
Over the moon with the experience from start to finish. We will definitely use you guys again.
100% perfect! Well done
Check in reminder for return flight would have been helpful but other than that DialAFlight delivered the goods yet again. Have been using them for over 10 years and their calm, professional and efficient service is always so much appreciated. A special thanks to Gino on this trip. It went like a dream in spite of some irritating last minute changes made by me.
All arrangements went like clockwork. Very good flight, transfers and hotel was excellent
Ethan Fell was first class. Everything went smoothly
Advance advice on Maldives entry requirements and forms would have been helpful.
Kennedy Thrower goes beyond the call of duty to make sure everything is understood.
We have dealt with Chris Coulter for more than 20 years and he always strives to provide the best possible service and advice.
Very helpful and professional. We had a great holiday and thanks to Michael we did much more than we intended
We are very pleased with the way Theo handled all our issues and questions. My mum is especially grateful for her January journey and she got back to England a happy bunny. I am recommending more friends and family to DialAFlight.
Top marks to Neil and his team again, wonderful trip.
My husband and I have just returned from a magical holiday in Mauritius. Towards the end of our stay our flights had to be changed. Conrad immediately contacted us to discuss options. He confirmed our new flight and transfers emailing the details that we needed. Without his professionalism it would have been a very stressful end to our holiday. I highly recommend DialAFlight.
Amazing hotel, amazing service - definitely would recommend and go back!
Taylor was fantastic. He listened to what we wanted from our honeymoon and went above and beyond to deliver. Absolutely top quality service
Awesome, thanks again Guy for your recommendation for the trip!
Once again, a fabulous holiday made effortless by DialAFlight
Really helpful and knowledgeable team
Thank you to Karl for choosing our honeymoon destination - it was the best experience and he was very patient
Another successful holiday booked by Ryan, many thanks.
Ryan was absolutely excellent and we had a trip of a lifetime!
Always provide a fantastic service. We have booked with Kylie for years, she s a real credit to the company!
We had an amazing holiday and everything was organised perfectly. The only minor thing was we weren't advised if we were booked as standard all inclusive or premium all inclusive at our first hotel and thought a sunset cruise was included but it wasn't.
We drifted with the current. Beneath us bannerfish, butterflyfish, snappers, spangled emperors and unicornfish flitted about. Turtles and manta rays were miraculously unafraid.
We glimpsed the occasional reef shark; a brilliantly-maned lionfish. Who could resist another little passer-by named the seal-faced puffer? My wife Penny and I are passionate snorkellers, and the Maldives are among the great playgrounds for our kind.
Every hotel amid the thousand islands scattered across the Indian Ocean south-west of Sri Lanka offers boats for watersports and fish-watching.
Through the glass floor of our villa set on stilts above the sea at the Lux resort on South Ari Atoll, we watched the octopus that lived in a heap of rocks ten feet below. Remind me not to be reincarnated as an octopus: you spend half your life waiting for lunch to swim within tentacle-reach; the other half hiding, to avoid becoming somebody else's entree.
Guests reach the Lux resort via a half-hour flight, itself a pleasing little adventure, on one of the fleet of floatplanes that services the islands.
South Ari is less than a mile-and-a-half long, and one of its joys is the absence of motor vehicles: everybody walks, rides an electric buggy, or bikes. As the place is dead flat, even pedallers of our age are unlikely to suffer coronaries, and we went everywhere on two wheels.
The four restaurants serve every kind of Western and Asian food. We rotated between them, especially savouring the Italian place's pasta arrabbiata.
The Lux's 400-odd guests are a three-way spread of British, European and Asian. Each evening we walked the length of the island's pristine beach, watching tables set for the honeymooners who opted for candlelit dinners on the sand.
We fell in love with Goni, the warm, tough, laconic boatman who took us out to the reefs. I had special reason to appreciate him, because I would never have made it back into the pitching speedboat without being heaved onboard by his brute strength.
Uninhabited escape
On our most spectacular day, we peeled away from our usual group to take a private 20-mile trip to an uninhabited atoll.
On the passage we trailed long fishing lines, and I took up a rod to bring in a 20lb wahoo. Then for an hour we snorkelled blissfully, without another soul or boat in sight. Once ashore, Goni and his boys barbecued the wahoo and a couple of snappers. Penny and I lay idling, revelling in the dazzling white sand and azure sea.
Lunch was a gastronomic triumph, though if I am honest, the heavily-spiced snapper tasted better than my own catch. In the afternoon we snorkelled again, then Goni bounced us home across the sea at 40 knots.
Penny and I agreed that the remoteness, amid so much beauty, placed that day among the best of any holiday we remember.
Paradise must be preserved
As wonderful as it is, or simply because of its beauty, there is reason to be anxious about this paradise. On our barbecue atoll, it was of great concern to see it hasn't escaped the global plague of plastic waste, with many plastic bottles beached above the tideline.
And much of the coral in the Maldives is in a bad way - a stark reminder of what we have allowed to happen to the planet on our watch. It again highlights that unless concerted and decisive, committed action is taken, our grandchildren are unlikely to experience a fraction of the natural wonders we have seen, either at sea or ashore.
The damage to the reefs will of course also affect the fish populations - sealife won't thrive if the reefs continue to become sterile.
On a couple of our boat outings, in search of the hugely popular, brilliantly spotted whale sharks, we decided to leave the area because we thought rather too many snorkellers and divers were entering the sea each time a whale shark briefly appeared and we didn't want to add to the number.
We adored our Maldives fortnight, and would recommend the Lux to anybody active enough to swim, bike, eat and drink: Penny had to be dragged away from the infinity pool overlooking the ocean outside our villa.
Those who love such things should head for the reefs quick… while some remain. And we should redouble efforts to make sure future generations can also enjoy such wonders.
First published in the Daily Mail - March 2019
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