Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
Billy has exceeded our expectations.
Great to have the pick up at the airport
Arthur was so helpful he went above and beyond to ensure we had a good holiday. Highly recommend.
incredible service as always. Thank you Dexter
Can not thank you enough for your wonderful service. I have given your number to my friends and family. Highly recommended
I had loads of issues due to flight cancellation but no fault of DialAFlight
It was 5 star all the way
Always recommending you to our friends
Helpful and dependable as always
Everything was great from booking our holiday to arriving back home. Special thanks to Helen Jones for taking care of it all, great job.
As usual, the whole process was made easy and we received excellent service from DialAFlight. Continue to recommend to everyone!
Kennedy is a pleasure to deal with and always gives us the best advice on the UAE products.
Many thanks to Ray Taylor for a very good, quick service
Wonderful holiday, all planned and booked excellently, thank you
Friendly, patient, informative
Ryan was great and did everything to support and enhance our holiday
Well organised and recommended holiday. Thank you Gavin
Hope to return to the hotel next year.
Responsive, friendly and knowledgeable - would recommend every time
Dexter is extremely professional and friendly. He was also extremely prompt with responding to any concerns and issues.
First class, friendly and informative customer service. Thank you. In particular Mia, Darren and Regan. All our expectations were exceeded
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Never disappoint. Incredibly efficient and friendly and able to find great prices on flights.
Everything ran smoothly thank you. Excellent service.
Thank you so much for our wonderful experience. Etihad was A1 with its service. Thanks to Ryan for taking care of our booking. We look forward to travelling with you soon.
Bill Naylor was excellent as always planning my trip.
Excellent as always. Keep you informed and phone to wish you a good holiday a few days before you go. Best customer service I have experienced AND answer the phone immediately!!
Ash was top draw, very knowledgeable and his recommendations were spot on.
Would have been good to have been advised by you that our trip to Oman took place during Ramadan!
Thank you to Cody, he is first class and an asset to your company! Would highly recommend!
What you have to under-stand,' a fellow guest says to me, 'is that Oman is the Scotland of the Middle East.'
We are on the Jabal Akhdar with vultures circling around us. The view below is a vast canyon of steep precipices and gorges mixed in with tiny villages clinging to the cliff side, surrounded by terraces cut into the rock.
With a cloudless sky, the air is desert-dry. We are at nearly 7,000-ft above sea level. The scenery is breathtaking and every bit as dramatic as the Scottish Highlands. For those who want to holiday in a quiet part of the Middle East without being overwhelmed by bling, Oman offers a serene (and safe) option.
In 1986, Charles and Diana flew by helicopter to this spot to spend the day in glorious isolation. Did it remind the royal pair of Balmoral? Thirty years on, there's a luxury hotel here and the view has been accessorised with a palatial spa, fountains and gardens, cocktails and gourmet food.
The Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar hotel is owned by the Oman army's pension fund and featured in the BBC series Best Hotels In The World.
The guests include Western ex-pats from the UAE, as well as Middle Eastern families, in search of temperate temperatures.
High altitude, cool climate
The royal picnic spot has become a terrace with a glass balcony, sofas and a fire-pit, while a cocktail trolley is wheeled out for sunset when the mountains turn a rosy pink.
The hotel has also thoughtfully provided blankets – temperatures can veer towards the Scottish and it's always about 15 degrees lower than in the capital, Muscat, two hours away. A combination of sunglasses and down jackets is the sartorial norm.
The scenery is dramatic but the atmosphere is calm. Oman's citizens - all 4.6million of them - belong to the gentle Ibadi practice of Islam. Oman has oil, but it has always been one of the most understated parts of the Middle East.
The Anantara is very luxurious, with 82 rooms that face the cliff, full of power showers and kingsize beds. Oman is famous for its marble and there's plenty of it on display. There are also 33 spacious villas, some of which have private pools.
An enjoyable blend of glamour and lycra-based activity, this is a hotel with its own via ferrata - an abseiling and zip-lining route that sees adventurous guests popping out by the infinity swimming pool after a couple of hours.
There's also a two-hour walk between a series of deserted villages, involving rock scrambles and balancing along narrow waterways. But it's worth it. We walk in the middle of steep terraces used by farmers to cultivate roses which have an intensity of scent that's famous.
We also see walnut and pomegranate trees, a reed-fringed spring and, as we inch around a rock with a sheer fall below, a tiny waterfall, fed by the short period of rain that usually comes in February or March.
In the 1950s, the children who lived here faced a three-hour climb to get to school. But only a handful of people live in the villages these days. Most have built new homes in the hills above the hotel, but come back to farm the land.
The ancient houses are still there, with mud walls and beams made from juniper wood.
Centuries-old irrigation
Jabal Akhdar translates as Green Mountain, but the terraces are looking a bit parched, despite an ingenious water canal irrigation system called falaj that the farmers use and which has been developed over centuries. A desalination plant is being built to help the farmers.
Back at the hotel, on Diana Point, as it is known, I fall into conversation with Andrew Bickerdike, who lived in Oman in the 1990s when he served with the Sultan's armed forces and was back on Jabal Akhdar for the first time since then. He says: 'Getting up here on the small local tracks took the best part of a day back then.'
On our last morning, there's a misty start to the day and clouds gather. Finally, a few drops of rain turn into a downpour.
Instantly, you can tell who is Omani and who comes from the real Scotland. Out on Diana Point, whole families are huddled under umbrellas, in a state between gratitude and amusement.
'We've never seen rain in Oman before,' say a young Omani couple as they pull the hoods up on their puffer jackets.
First published in the Mail on Sunday - June 2019
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