Perfect, thank you.
Keep up the good work
Thanks again - it was a beautiful hotel with stunning views from our balcony.
Perfect service by Stan - friendly and helpful
Always excellent service from Kelly
One of the best companies around - staff can't do enough for you
We had a very enjoyable holiday.
We have used DialAFlight for 18 years and enjoyed multiple trips per year. Never an issue, always a hassle free enjoyable time. I know we are safe and all of our bookings are handled expertly. Happy to recommend to anyone.
Excellent flight with very attentive and professional staff along with flavoursome and good food. Would have no hesitation in recommending Emirates business class.
Adam is superb getting us fantastic deals to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. We have recommended him to other friends and they have been equally as impressed by his service
Very good service, would definitely use again.
Matt Power gave us excellent service again. Everything was perfect at Caesar's Palace Resort.
Lucas Moore handles all my business flights and any additional concerns that I may have. Exceptional.
Keep up the good work
Lilly Reeves is incredibly accommodating and I'm so happy with the service.
Good service as always, thanks again
Update and communication from date of booking until 24 hours before departure excellent
Special mention to Cody Phillips who went the extra mile to help us fine tune the holiday especially with accessibility for our autistic son and priority boarding. We really had an amazing time and he helped take so much stress from planning and was able to work out quickly the best options for us as a family
Actually it is one of the best agencies. Special thanks to Finn for his great support and prompt action.
Dale was excellent from booking to keeping in touch throughout. An issue with transfer was sorted swiftly. Would book again with with no hesitation.
A huge thank you to Barney - once again he gave excellent advice and booked an amazing hotel and trip to Dubai. It exceeded expectations and the personal service Barney provides every time is amazing. He is a pleasure to deal with and so patient - a credit to your company
Amy was excellent, she couldn’t have done more to make our holiday one to remember.
Thanks Declan and the entire team for all your efforts and support
Excellent service from Dennis
We can thoroughly recommend DialAFlight. Thinking about a holiday in Dubai we contacted Elliott who efficiently and cheerfully offered us several options and then made the booking for us. We found the DialAFlight website very informative and useful. It gave us all the information we needed regarding what is required when travelling abroad.
Mickey sorted out the holiday of a lifetime for us. The whole experience of DialAFlight was phenomenal. We have already recommended you to other friends and will use you again for our next break.
You just can’t get a better service! It makes your holiday so much easier
Thanks Karl. All good but will not stay at Zabeel Saray again.
Thanks again to Toby for sorting out our flights
Everything worked out great! Thank you. Hotel was amazing .
If we build it they will come' could be the mantra of the overarchingly ambitious project that is Dubai.
My first visit in 2002 was a stopover from Afghanistan where I'd been reporting for ITN. We were awed by the scale and luxury. We drank lurid cocktails at a swim-up bar and watched dredgers spraying arcs of sand into the sea. Someone said they were creating a huge island, the shape of a date palm. The idea seemed so fantastical as to be unbelievable.
Through audacity, far-sighted-ness and an ability to hold its nerve through the financial crash, Dubai has created a futuristic mega-city that's now the fourth largest tourist draw on Earth.
If visitors ask to see the 'real' Dubai, they're pointed towards The Creek, where wooden boats once fished the saltwater inlet and traders from India and East Africa supplied souks on the water's edge. There, visitors are assured, they can still find authentic heritage. But the Creek is being transformed. Tourist boats still chug down the waterway but today they're spotting super-yachts and giddying construction projects.
And its centrepiece, sitting long and low on the waterfront, is one of the most ambitious and high-end hotels to date - the Palazzo Versace. Imagine fusing the most flamboyant Italian fashion house with the pulsating emporium of wealth and ambition which is Dubai. You might picture the result as a fest of gaudy excess.
ITALIAN MASTERPIECE
Yet the Palazzo Versace, a vast neoclassical construction that resembles a 16th Century Italian palace is, dare I say, subtle and tasteful amid gold and glass skyscrapers that pierce the clouds all over town. It may be restrained in Dubai terms, but it's not low-key. The entrance has striking high ceilings, and a huge glass frontage overlooking the water.
There's the vast mosaic on the floor, made up of more than a million pieces and the size of an Olympic swimming pool, beyond which there is, well, an Olympic-size swimming pool.
And marble everywhere. Then there are the furnishings. Every single piece of furniture and fabric in the hotel's 215 rooms and suites is designed and tailor-made by the House of Versace.
At this point I may have been reviewing the wisdom of bringing my three pre-teenage boys along. I wouldn't let them walk past a Versace store at home for fear they'd cause costly damage; now they were effectively living in one.
Yet, from the off they rose to the challenge. They might have spent the whole first day in their vast room playing with a console that created mood lighting and operated the curtains had our butler (yes, really) not offered them a hotel tour.
They discovered the central infinity pool is for adults only but as there are two other huge pools, it wasn't exactly a hardship.
They were quickly on first name terms with most of the staff. They struck up a friendship with a Malaysian chef who sent over duck pancakes each time we ate at the fantastic buffet.
A DESERT ADVENTURE
We swerved the famed shopping malls (some the size of 50 football pitches), instead heading to the desert in search of adventure. Our guide, Saleh, looked incongruous in the marble foyer in a huge pair of desert boots, as did his 4x4 among the Ferraris and Bentleys outside.
But half an hour later the skyscrapers had given way to sand dunes and we were spotting oryx resting in the evening sun.
That was the calm before the sand storm as the dune bashing began: this is a sort of do-it-yourself rollercoaster where your vehicle climbs to the top of a dune, then lurches perilously down the other side.
Another day trip was to a water park where my children sought out the scariest rides. As a gift to myself, for surviving, we had dinner in the Palazzo Versace's Enigma restaurant. The restaurant showcases top chefs from around the world. Each comes for a three or four-month stay. We were fed by Quique Dacosta, who has a three-star Michelin restaurant near Alicante. It was an incredible sensory experience.
This hotel is the centrepiece of what Dubai calls its 'Culture Village'. If you think culture and Dubai don't belong in the same sentence, that's to underestimate its incredible vision. In a few years Dubai will have an opera house to rival Sydney's.
So could this centre of conspicuous consumption become a destination for art and culture tourism? You wouldn't bet against it. After all it's not as farfetched as building a giant island shaped like a palm tree in the Arabian Gulf.
First published in the Daily Mail - March 2017
More articles below...
Not quite what you're looking for?
We can easily customise an offer to suit your exact requirements