Thanks for everything
Excellent service as usual
The out of hours service worked extremely well. Shane was very helpful.
Extremely helpful and answered all our queries.
It was disappointing at first because of the flight cancellation/changes but that wasn't your fault. I would like to thank Oliver especially, for his excellent service and patience.
Passed your details on just this morning, only returned Wednesday! Fabulous service as always, thanks Oliver.
The PNR does not carry thru to a the second airline on a 2 flight trip so they always issue their own which we then have to identify.Be great if DAF provided them both at the outset.
Pity the booking was through Air New Zealand who are virtually unobtainable to talk to. Worse than BA. I left a hand bag on the inward flight with hearing aids inside and ANZ found the bag which we collected from Auckland Airport only to find they had lost an earpiece! How?
Shout out to Charlie Miles who always delivers an excellent travel service.
No problems whatsoever, a second successful longhaul package with no hitches. I will certainly sing your praises plus your back up is brilliant.
I have used DialAFlight for many years and have no hesitation recommending them. My latest trip involved 11 flights. All done brilliantly and they were very patient as I changed my plans a few times! Not one problem and all done in a friendly manner.
Shelley Dimes was amazing. It was a pleasure dealing with her. Very easy booking and great communication skills. Holiday was amazing. I will be rebooking very soon.
Thank you Saf as always. Another great flight and car hire to make our trip to New Zealand go smoothly! Love that the personal service we get from DialAFlight continues to look after us and are always at the end of the phone if needed! Truly reliable and trustworthy.
All went well although the plane we flew on with Malaysia Airlines from Auckland to KL was very "tired." Having said that the crew were unfailingly polite and attentive. Thank you for arranging our flights and hotel in KL. The Sama Sama Hotel was beautiful and excellent value. The room was big. It was quiet and the food in the restaurant was very cheap and of excellent quality.
Great service all round - thank you Lucy and the team
Flights all worked out perfectly and customer service by Liam 100%. Only minor annoyance was that my husband had to eat vegetarian meals on every flight (Qatar x 4 and Jetstar) even though I'd thought I'd ordered them just for myself.
Overall my trip was fine. However, I was quite disappointed with the hire car. My agent booked me with Go Rentals. The car was awful, 85,000 miles on the clock, no apple CarPlay and wipers that did not work properly. The car location was offsite from the airport requiring a shuttle for both collection and drop off. Very inconvenient after a 28 hour flight.
All was perfect and Travis was great - did everything we asked for
Very helpful, thank you
Toby did a very good job and he was always on the end of the phone when I needed to ask a question.
Aidan responded promptly and dealt with updates
Thanks Michelle, everything worked perfectly.
Knowledgeable, unfussed service. Really effective and detailed communications. Flights were great and all went smoothly.
All went well, no problems with flights or car hire.
Very helpful , knowledgeable, supportive and friendly staff. Thank you all.
Keep doing what you are doing...very well.
Good service, everything went as planned.
Excellent service giving complete peace of mind. Everything worked like clockwork. Could not fault. Highly recommend.
Excellent service from Helen and her colleague
Will use you guys again
Sir Howard Arriving at our Thames B&B, we're told by the landlady that in the event of an earthquake, we should assemble at the cattle grid.
We're not in England's Thames Valley - this is the historic town of Thames, 90 minutes' drive south-east of Auckland on New Zealand's North Island.
North Island is a top sailing spot
SO MUCH TO SEE & DO
This country's spectacular, exotic beauty was forged by earthquakes and volcanoes over millions of years. The South Island looks and even sounds like the Scottish Highlands. Parts of the North Island resemble Jurassic Park.
It's no surprise that Kiwi filmmaker Peter Jackson used his native country as the backdrop for The Lord Of The Rings. About a third of New Zealand's four-and-a-half million people live in Auckland, with the rest spread over a country slightly bigger than the UK.
Our trip was part normal holiday and partly to follow the British Lions rugby tour.
Arriving in Christchurch, we found it still scarred by the tragic 2011 earthquake - a constant reminder of how this lovely land came into being.
Driving south to Dunedin - so Scottish we had haggis and whisky for breakfast - we spent a glorious day exploring the craggy Otago Peninsula. We saw rare royal albatrosses with wings like wind turbines crash-land on a cliff to feed fluffy chicks too fat to move; we watched baby-blue penguins waddle up the beach at dusk for a cuddle, honking amorously; and we nearly tripped over a snoozing sea lion on windswept Allans Beach.
Sit back and enjoy views of the beautiful geysers in Rotorua
SWEET REMINDERS
New Zealand's endless miles of neat wooden bungalows, with pretty Victorian ornamentation, white picket fences and soporific verandas, filled me with nostalgia for my childhood in a wooden bungalow by the River Thames near Windsor.
There are two sets of initials a visitor to New Zealand should know: the All Blacks rugby team are the ABs - and SBs are sauvignon blanc wines.
VINEYARD TOURS
The New Zealand SB boom is exemplified by the Woolshed Vineyard, which produces Mud House wines in the Marlborough region at the top of the South Island. The Woolshed ranch was once a sheep farm, but the sound of shearing has been replaced by that of SBs being swirled round the palate by brilliant young winemaker Cleighton Cornelius.
Mud House was sporting enough to sponsor the British Lions - another reason to buy its excellent wines, including sauvignon blanc and pinot noir. After sipping several, we took a ferry to the North Island, passing many hidden sandy coves glinting in the moonlight.
Next we headed north to Rotorua, New Zealand's unofficial Maori capital. The Maoris came to New Zealand some 500 years before Captain Cook landed here in 1769, but no one is sure where from. Guesses range from Hawaii to Indonesia.
Maori chiefs handed sover-eignty of New Zealand to Britain in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
Have your own beach bath at Hot Water Beach
A WARM WELCOME
Some say that NZ has made a greater success of integrating two ethnic groups with starkly contrasting cultures than any other country.
A fun way to experience New Zealand's natural underfloor heating is at Hot Water Beach, on the Coromandel Peninsula. Dig a hole in the beach, let the cold waves dilute the boiling sand and you have your own bubble bath. But beware: get the mix wrong and you'll be scalded where it hurts.
Simon wrapped up his trip watching the All Blacks
A FUN FINALE
We ended our tour in Auckland, where we joined thousands of British rugby fans who swapped beer, banter and ballads with the locals in harbourside bars and restaurants.
We stayed in Auckland's Ponsonby district, a kind of mini-Notting Hill with yet more quaint bungalows. They make for a novel skyline, with skyscrapers and the ocean right behind them.
We twice bumped into ex-Irish and Lions rugby pin-up Brian O'Driscoll in Ponsonby as well as AB star Beauden Barrett - though a friend laughed off our celebrity sightings, saying: 'There are so few people in New Zealand, you soon get to meet them all!'
First published in the Mail on Sunday - October 2017
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