Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
Ryan is the most helpful travel agent I know.
As usual no issues
Been using DialAFlight for years. They always come up tops. Great agents - Ross and Kirsty - and first class service.
Tammy was exceptional. Everything exceeded my expectations - I was a little anxious about travelling alone with my daughter, but honestly, everything was so seamless, I am still on a high.
Very supportive and timely information given. Reassurance when needed.
Geat service all round - thanks
This is my second holiday booked with DialAFlight. Not disappointed.
The trip was amazing and stress free, everything was on time with no delays. Itinerary was as stated and the private guide was amazing. Couldn't have asked for more. We had an amazing holiday
Ryan was helpful from the start to the finish.
Oscar was amazing to deal with - any information I needed he was always there
Everything was great. Would have been helpful to have been asked about meal preferences when booking
Very good trip and hotel was fabulous. They started renovating the hotel late last week but due to their expertise there was zero impact on us but you may bear this in mind for your future customers
Fantastic trip
Thanks Bradley for your excellent service. Not sure if you had anything to do with the complimentary room upgrades at the hotels. Had a great time!
Rupert and the team organisee our annual holidays which always live up to our expectations. Even though we have looked around DAF are always right on price but the best on service. We recommend friends to check DAF out and they report the same fantastic service. Keep up the great work.
Thanks to Robert and his team. I'm grateful for his continued support.
We had a great time and Isaac was so very helpful during the whole process
Cody Philips was fab, really responsive and helpful. The only thing I would say is that the Elevate car that came to pick us up was too small, it couldn’t fit 3 suitcases in the boot and so one had to go on the front seat and all 3 of us had to cram in the back all the way back to Abu Dhabi.
Great holiday. Everything went like clockwork. Really impressed with hotel, facilities, food and flights. Also reassuring to have the back up of a person to call, just in case.
Great job from Donovan yet again.
Grant never fails to recommend and organise our trips to be the best possible. We had a wonderful trip for my husband's 60th birthday with our daughters and partners. The hotel was amazing.
Edward was absolutely brilliant. He contacted me before the holiday to check everything was OK and quickly returned any calls. It's the second time I have travelled with DialAFlight and the service has been excellent.
Excellent service from a very professional and knowledgeable company - well done Stan
The hotel suggestion was 1st class. The holiday was amazing. Have used DialAFlight for 4 years now and will continue to do so.
All the plans worked perfectly and both Adrian and Harry were ready and available if we experienced problems
Very happy with all the advice and help provided by Dale. He found us the perfect holiday and checked in regularly to make sure we didn’t have outstanding queries. I would highly recommend DialAFlight to friends and relatives.
Andrew was extremely helpful and he checked about flight issues with British Airways and kept us fully informed
I have booked with DialAFlight so many times and recommend them to family and friends. Kennedy always books exactly what I need and her attention to detail is amazing
Needed to come home a day early. And Kelly managed to sort flights out straight away. Very helpful - it took all the stress away for us. Many thanks for all your help.
Only booked a flight but everything was good
It could well be the emirate of which you've never heard. It's not far down the coast from Dubai - but in many other ways it's a world away.
Ajman is the smallest emirate (it's about two-thirds the size of the Isle of Wight) but has some wonderful attractions - lovely natural beaches among them. A handful of five-star hotels are dotted along its ten-mile coastline - and an increasing number of Brits are attracted here for a sunshine holiday that is both quieter and cheaper than the glitzier side of the Emirates. And believe it or not, its most popular attraction is a dusty museum.
I checked in at the five-star Ajman Saray, a Marriott hotel, which is right on the beach and boasts a spa, two pools, four excellent restaurants and rooms staring out to sea.
Dubai's glitz is on the doorstep
The top hotels here have free shuttles throughout the day to and from central Dubai 30 minutes down the coast, so all aspects of the Gulf are available - but at a very attractive price as far as luxury accommodation is concerned.
Ajman's beaches are white sand and shelve into warm water all-year round. The weather is bankably balmy – even December temperatures are about 20C.
Its malls aren't a match for the Gulf's glitziest, and its souks are not olde worlde, but it's friendly and laid-back.
When I go for a jog along the corniche, a one-mile seafront promenade buzzing with juice bars and falafel joints, a group of locals draw me into their game of beach football, then invite me for a juice afterwards. At the entrance to the creek, I haggle for a shimmering mackerel at the fish market and have it grilled over a barbecue on the quay.
I get chatting to my Yemeni mackerel-griller, Mubarak, and his mates, who ply me with enamel-dissolving coffee and photos of their kids. 'Why did you move to Ajman?'I ask him. He gestures to the sea and the sinking sun, and shakes his head in the international language for 'Why do you think?'
'It is a relaxed place, friendly,' he tells me. 'Not crazy modern,' his friend says.
Modernisation is inevitable
Not crazy modern, perhaps, but it's getting there – at least if Al Zorah is anything to go by. Wedged between mangrove and beach, it's a 1,300-acre villa, hotel and leisure development in high-end isolation across the creek from downtown Ajman.
Much of it is still under construction, but there's a wakeboarding park, a golf course designed by the Nicklaus group and a sleek new Oberoi hotel (with a 280ft infinity pool) that combines concrete and glass design with Italian textiles and Arabian antiques.
The beach here is long, white and empty, with a wild feel.
Wildlife in abundance
Better still, Al Zorah borders a 250-acre mangrove reserve, where I recommend doing the two-hour kayak tour in search of the 60 or so bird species that shelter here. At one point, a flock of flamingos blaze past in a fiery crimson flyby; later, as we paddle below twisting branches, a rare collared kingfisher zips past in the late-afternoon sun.
That evening, on a sunset dhow cruise on the same creek, my guide recounts Ajman's pearl-diving past, then opens an oyster and finds one inside. 'Keep it,' he tells me. 'Ajman welcomes you.'
In the end, I even fall for that dusty museum. For one thing, it's housed in an 18th-century fort, the oldest building in Ajman and home until 1970 to the emirate's royal family; for another, it has some fascinating exhibits, including an ancient Koran and Ajman's first car (a 1940s Land Rover owned by the current sheikh's father). But it's my guide, Tariq, who really swings it, clucking at the exhibits as if they were his grandchildren.
'I really love it,' he says, leading me through ancient teak doors into the oldest working barjeel, or wind tower, in the UAE. We linger, fanned by the cool air from the vents above. It is a moment of ancient, mesmerising peace. 'Wonderful,' Tariq whispers. 'Wonderful.'
First published in the Sunday Times - July 2019
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