It was nice to know someone was at the end of the phone for advice.
Excellent service. Would definitely use DialAFlight next time. Spencer was excellent
Answered all my questions promptly
Issues we had were BA related not DialAFlight
We had a wonderful time in New York and thanks to Lily for being there for us until the day before our departure. We are now booking cruise with your company
Thanks Roray - great service!
Superb service from start to finish. Detailed booking with lots of moving parts but it ran like clockwork. Any queries I had were dealt with promptly. Would highly recommend and will use again.
Had to book a flight at short notice to Orlando. Spencer took care of it as well as organising a car. Great service and will definitely use again.
Overall great from start to finish - will definitely use DialAFlight again
Greg did a great job. The hotel was spot on.
Brilliant throughout - 2 years in the waiting and I lost no money and ended up with the exact holiday I wanted. Many thanks.
Gordon has time and patience with all my queries. I rely on him totally to guide me through a journey Will highly recommend DialAFlight to all my friends
Everything went to plan. Thank you. Singapore Airlines are also very good.
Always book with Dale, never been disappointed with his service.
DialAFlight (especially Troy) make booking a trip so easy. Instead of several calls and web searches, just one call, which is always swiftly answered, and the trip is booked. Great service!
Wonderful service.
Cody was very helpful and informative when we were booking and also great that he sent a couple of reminders for the trip.
Jarvis was great
Superb as previous trips. Many thanks Russell.
Excellent service. Always available for any query. Would not go anywhere else
We had an amazing holiday. Everything was hassle free once again thanks to Gino and his team.
When flights were cancelled the team jumped into action to find best solutions. Brilliant!
Always very helpful
Stafford was excellent. Friendly, knowledgeable and efficient
I plan to send Tristan a fuller report on the individual elements - for your knowledge base.
You did what I asked and worked hard. The hotel dining arrangements were not what we had hoped but that’s a very small point.
Christian has again been excellent, no issues with anything. It is always a pleasure to deal with DialAFlight
Excellent service. First time using DialAFlight and received an excellent service from Mike. Very responsive and great communication. Spent time going through our options and got us a great deal. Was there for help and advice when our return flight got cancelled. I was so impressed and will definitely be using DialAFlight again and encourage family and friends to also.
Troy was helpful all the way - there were a few stops on our trip and I did wonder if they would all go as planned due to so many bookings but everything was spot on. I couldn’t be happier with the service .
Lucas is excellent
Sitting on San Francisco's famous Pier 39, sauce-stained children slurp huge bowls of clam chowder. In the background, Alcatraz's forbidding, mist-shrouded silhouette rises from the ocean.
The nearby gift shop is doing a roaring trade, churning out striped underpants and replica prison-issue toiletries bearing the tag line, 'don't drop the soap', all to a soundtrack of the pier's famous blubbery, barking sea lions.
WHERE TO FIRST
But the waterfront – with its many fresh crab restaurants – will soon look very different. The green-fingered team behind New York's urban High Line has now turned its attention to the Presidio – a beautiful, sprawling park overlooking the bay.
The tunnels burrowing through it will soon form the base of a spectacular, 14-acre park known as Tunnel Tops. When it opens in 2019, there will be beautiful views of the bay and meadows filled with fragrant wildflowers.
During 1967's Summer of Love, pier workers fought their way through crowds of garland-waving hippies who gathered here to shout about the Vietnam War.
THEN AND NOW
Now, more than 50 years on, hipsters have replaced hippies in Haight-Ashbury. A handful of psychedelic shops filled with tie-dye are squeezed between boutiques and organic cafes.
The closest encounter I have with a possible hippy is when I crouch down to take a picture of an enormous rainbow-themed piece of street art and accidentally disturb a dreadlocked local dozing in a doorway.
At Pork Store Cafe, a 40-year-old Haight Street institution famous for its huge breakfasts, I meet Amanda, a local, who tells me how the area's beautiful, Victorian, pastel-hued houses are being snapped up (and lovingly refurbished) by dotcom billionaires. She complains that prices have rocketed.
As I cycle towards the city centre, a smiling skateboarder shouts his encouragement and speeds past me – uphill. I realise his skateboard is battery-powered. I recall my chat with Amanda and wonder if it's Mark Zuckerberg or someone similar.
MOMENTARY ESCAPISM
On the recommendation of a friend, I stop by Hotel Zetta in downtown San Francisco. Since last spring, it's been home to the world's first hotel-based virtual reality room. It's free to try – those in need of a moment of escapism (without the mind-altering drugs) can simply walk off the street into the padded room and slip on the headset.
I do so and find myself standing atop a shipwreck, one of several colourful worlds to be explored.
VIRTUAL SIGHTSEEING
Neon fish swarm around me and when I turn around, I'm face-to-face with a huge, blinking whale. The next moment, I'm in a mountainous valley (apparently it's modelled on the landscape of Washington State).
Despite being just metres away from the rumbling trams, I can wander to a cliff edge and peer into a valley so deep that my stomach flips.
On my final night, I check out China Live, one of the city's newest restaurants. The walls are lined with hand-painted tiles showing local landmarks, such as the Transamerica Pyramid.
CHINATOWN
I sit at one of the communal tables and try jellyfish for the first time (it's salty, rubbery and delicious) with a potent, dragon fruit tea-infused cocktail.
Chinatown borders North Beach, a bay-side neighbourhood with a huge Italian community. I cycle home past Italian flags painted on lamp posts and delis blaring opera music.
In a nearby park, Chinese women perform perfectly choreographed tai chi routines near students making the most of California's decision to legalise marijuana. Suddenly, that Summer of Love doesn't seem quite so far away.
First published in the Daily Mail - May 2018
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