We know travel experiences can be 'luck of the drawer' but our experience with your company has been great.
Great trip.
Sally as always delivered our holiday plans perfectly. Can’t imagine doing what we did and booking with anyone else!
Very flexible in helping us make last minute changes - and always available to speak to.
I have used DialAFlight for many stateside visits. Stuart was fantastic at organising my bespoke itinerary
Will always use your service
Had a few issues with car hire firm which caused some inconvenience. We fed this back to car hire firm.
Once again Nathan Sparks and his team sorted out our flights and car hire to the USA. I’ve been using them for a number of years and they never let me down. They are very professional and nothing is a problem for them.
Excellent service as usual - as we have learned from the many years we have been booking with you.
Amy as always is a delight! Wouldn’t book our flights with anyone else.
Our original flight was cancelled after a 4 hour delay sitting on a hot plane. Calvin Ali was on the phone directly to me to make sure that alternative flights and hotel had been arranged for us. As usual, flawless service. And yes, I’ve made 2 further referrals to friends following our recent trip.
Requested a last minute flight change which was accommodated by your helpful colleagues. Many thanks to Mason and his team. 10 out of 10
Excellent advice and service - Tristan in particular was brilliant
Fantastic trip, excellent price. I’ve passed on your details to friends and family and would highly recommend
We have used DialAFlight for many years and have always had great service.
Fantastic service from Niall and his team, yet again. Would recommend them for flights. Best prices, no hidden fees and excellent customer service and attention to detail.
Have been using Sadie for 10 years - would never use anyone else.
The only major issue was the hotel in New York - The Manhattan at Time Square. The hotel was extremely poor and if we had been staying longer we would have asked you to change our hotel. Staff were extremely unhelpful and a promise of a refund of local taxes did not materialise.
Our holiday was lovely - we got married in West Virginia and honeymooned in Nashville. Just a small hiccup in the airport coming home but a good holiday, thank you
Very helpful when I contacted them and nothing a bother
Amazing holiday in great part due to the help and guidance given by your excellent Travel Manager, Gary Patel. We would not hesitate to use your services again - especially if Gary is there to help out! We will happily recommend you to friends and family.
We would strongly recommend using DialAFlight. Our itinerary to Canada and USA was complicated by our choice. But it was handled professionally and with attention to detail. Nothing we asked of Ethan and Conrad was too much trouble. Out of 5 stars l would give six
Special thanks to Hayley Hawtin who did the bookings for me. It was the third trip I’ve booked with her and she is the reason why I’ll come back to DialAFlight next time.
Great communication and support during our holiday.
Trevor Henderson came up trumps. Sofitel New York was superb - great room, excellent food, helpful staff and so very conveniently located. Our flights went like clockwork. All through the booking process and right before we left Trevor was in contact to make sure we had what we needed. DialAFlight don't just sell you a holiday, they usher you through an experience.
Sebastian is very helpful, my flights and stops were great and I’ve recommended him to family who also found him very helpful.
Thanks again to Jordan and Claire for a problem free holiday.
Superb service. Definitely would and have used again - take a few minutes to ring them you won’t be disappointed
Lucy was amazing organising our holiday. I will certainly use DialAFlight again
Very helpful when I needed to check stuff
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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