Always a great experience when booking with Dennis and the team.
I am looking forward to booking my next holiday with my DialAFlight
Very happy to recommend John - he is very professional and makes booking flights easy.
Fab as usual, thank you Raphael. What would I do without you?
Wayne Bailey as always excelled himself especially when we had a problem with the car rental company Dollar. He immediately responded and helped reach a solution. This is exactly why we always choose DialAFlight and Wayne!!
Excellent attention at all times by Patrick and Liam. Always available and very helpful.
Good customer care provided. Thanks to Graham
The trip was organised really well, no complaints. Apparently we were told over the phone regarding resort fees at our hotel, but nothing was put in writing, so we were surprised that it was taken at the end of our trip.
As I’ve said before YOU CANNOT BEAT EXCELLENCE.
Great holiday
Thanks again DialAFlight for your knowledge and expertise. A great team.
Shame my flight from Chicago was delayed by 3 hours. Found the BA flight A 380 very comfortable .
Mason very helpful as always when booking flights
Fraser was amazing from booking to coming back. The helpline was super useful.
As always Gino came up trumps. Thanks for recommending United Airline. Excellent service.
Thank you to Doug Scrivener for all his help once again.
Everything worked out fine.
I can't find fault with Katie Wallis or any members of her team. Please congratulate them for their diligence, friendliness and professionalism.
Many thanks again to Jordan and team. Excellent as usual
Abbie is always very helpful and sources good flights for us at a reasonable price. I go to her now for all our journeys
Great customer service - all questions answered professionally by Brody Letchfield.
Excellent as usual
Really pleased with the service I always receive from Michael Millward, please pass on my thanks.
The Aer Lingus Lounge in Chicago was unacceptable. There were no windows, no toilets /washrooms and the place stank of aircraft fuel coming through the a/c. It was the only blot on the trip.
Appreciated the call before we went to check everything was OK. Any queries were answered promptly.
Everything went to plan and a big thank you to Connie Lau again who has organised many flights for us to the USA
Exceeded expectations.
Everyone was very helpful right up to a last minute query.
Perfect service from the team expecially Richard Stumph, who went over and above for us two seniors. A big thank you .
Splendid service
Abigail Gullo, the New Yorker who runs the bar at the much-hyped new restaurant Compere Lapin, has a theory about her adoptive city - 'they say you have to be successful to live in New York, beautiful to live in LA, but in New Orleans you can just be yourself.'
A 6in fleur-de-lis tattoo on her arm, the official Louisiana symbol, tells of her Big Easy love affair. 'I cherish bartending in this city because it's all about community. When Hurricane Katrina hit, many of the bars stayed open and staff did what they could to help, offering locals shelter.'
I'm not surprised. Community spirit is different here. Drink in the streets in other U.S. states and you'll be pounced on by the police. In New Orleans, they will stop for some banter or shout 'have a good time!' at revellers clutching their trusty Go Cups – plastic beakers you can grab from every bar and have refilled anywhere.
New Orleans' disdain for the status quo goes back a long way – 90 years ago it was named Prohibition America's wettest city and in 1928, when the Atlanta mayor asked Louisiana Governor Huey Long what he was doing to enforce the Prohibition Act, he reportedly replied: 'Not a damn thing!'
Most places found ways around the ban. To enter Mr O'Brien's Club Tipperary there was a secret password, 'storm's a-brewing', while guests dining at Antoine's restaurant were given teacups for their tipples. Both venues thrive today (with legitimate licences).
Drinking is still a theatrical sport. Sipping a Ramos gin fizz – one of the many local concoctions – at the 21st Amendment bar, we watch the swing-dancing couples cavorting under a deco chandelier. Ladies wear flippy skirts and bobby pins, men sport pork pie hats and shiny shoes.
Maybe it's the alligator-head voodoo sticks on sale at the market (a gift from Haiti immigrants), the celebratory approach to death with giant headstones and festival-style funeral parades, or the feeling you've stepped on to a Spanish film set that makes it so surreal.
Before the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, when the U.S. bought the whole state, ownership of New Orleans was tossed between France and Spain.
Often, it seems more European than American, particularly in the French Quarter, where the grand porches of 18th-century townhouses are covered by cascading plants making their escape from iron balconies.
It's also the location of our hotel. Twinkling fairy-lights hanging in the courtyard of the Maison Dupuy catch the eye of people walking by. With its Toulouse-Lautrec mural in the bistro we could be in France but for the maids gossiping in their Louisiana drawls.
A short walk away is St Louis Square, the heart of the French Quarter, where street performers perform magic for the crowds and brass bands mimic the puffed-out cheeks of Louis Armstrong.
The city's multi-culturalism means it's managed to swerve the rest of America's bind to hamburgers and fries. Instead its staple is Creole cuisine, mixing French cooking and hearty southern comfort food.
Worth trying are the alligator sausage and crayfish cheesecake at Jaquamo's restaurant, blackened fish at Tujague's and the deliciously thick grits at Brennan's.
From the hum of adversity – hurricanes, heatwaves and poverty – has erupted an attitude that life's too short. There's always an excuse for a party, and there is a festival practically every week.
Like a permanent morning-after state of dress, trees in even the most hidden neighbourhoods are abloom with streams of coloured beads flung up over years of Mardi Gras.
People stick together. Strangers greet you with 'how y'all doing?' Smart and reliable like old-fashioned butlers, streetcars are the city's only method of public transport. They create a constant soundtrack as they rattle past the mansions of St Charles Avenue and vintage shops of the Magazine district.
The French theme continues in the trendy industrial area of Bywater, where you will find Bacchanal Fine Wine & Spirits shop.
Enjoy a bottle of plonk and a cheese platter in its beautiful garden, listening to the lunchtime band.
Like alcohol, music is ingrained in the city's rebellious spirit. In the Twenties, jazz was associated with the underworld, with the prostitutes and gangsters who conducted their business at seedy Storyville speakeasies.
Today, world-class bands play across scores of venues every night and tiny Preservation Hall is among the most renowned.
Somehow, the drummer in the five-piece band doesn't break a sweat as he hits the fast-as-lightning syncopated beats of his solo. The city has a big birthday soon, its 300th in 2018. But in the city where age is just a number, it'll forever stay a naughty teenager.
First published in the Daily Mail - February 2017
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