Excellent trip to New Zealand. Our first experience of using DialAFlight. Although we were a little hesitant it delivered on all its promises. The team were very accessible, helpful and personable.
Will use DialAFlight for our next trip
Thank you for another great trip
Harvey always provides excellent service.
Amazing service from Barney and team! I have now had 4 flights with United in economy and they have been amazing. My only complaint would be too much food offered on board
I’ll be honest I had never heard of DAF before this holiday but stumbled on them on Google and never been happier. Constant contact from booking to departure and even though I didn’t need any help while on holiday I’m sure and confident that they would have provided help if needed.
Well organised and had a fabulous time
Mason Edwards was excellent. He worked hard to make sure our holiday was up to scratch and it certainly was. Couldn't ask for a better holiday.
Love using DialAFlight
The only negative feedback would be the area that Stay Pineapple Hotel in San Francisco is located. It is just on the edge of a very dodgy part of town with a lot of homeless people there now. The hotel doesn't offer much in the way of breakfast and the bar is now closed. Everything else was great and we had a fantastic holiday - thank you
I cannot recommend DialAFlight enough - in particular Ivor Savage. He has been incredible. Amazing communication, easily contactable and he helped me out significantly when I encountered an issue on holiday. I’m so thankful to have experienced this company!
Everything went very smoothly - thanks to Ed and his team.
Excellent as always
I have used your services many times before and the service this time was excellent as usual.
Dylan and Dialaflight, were really easy to work with. Dylan especially, was approachable, professional and worked hard to understand my requirements and get me a great package. Brilliant.
Sadie is a star! We had a great trip and would like to thank her for being so helpful and efficient
Connie gave me a first class customer service, thank you
Air France fantastic. Only gripes revolved around Delta charging us extra for an internal flight and the very different landscape revolving around Uber. Chances of securing a car when you need it not as secure as it once was. Many thanks again to Niall who always retains his sense of humour and goes that extra mile. Will be back in touch soon
Everything went as planned, lots to be said for that
I found it confusing that United Airlines seemed to be implying it was obligatory to upload documents onto their Travel Center, whereas in fact there’s no need to (at least, not all of them) and they can be quickly shown at the airport . Conversely, even though my address in the USA had already been entered, I had to do it again at a machine in the airport. It would be helpful if you could make it clearer what one absolutely has to do. This isn’t your fault - it’s to correct the unclarity of at least the UA site).
Bill Naylor is always open, patient, and very helpful with my requests and concerns.
Smooth sailing! The car hire you arranged was excellent - no pressure sales to upgrade the package. Flights were all fine.
I thought Rupert was fantastic and dealt well with all my questions.
Approachable, helpful and knowledgeable. The team and especially Stuart really helped our booking and provided assistance real time during our holiday.
Billy is a real star
DialAFlight staff are always very helpful and take the stress out of travelling!
All went well, happy with hotels. Will use again for future trips
You booked a car hire for me at Avis San Francisco. They were terrible and dishonest. I recommend that you never use them again.
As always, great service all round. Thank you Bill and Fiona
Make sure we get calls in advance to confirm rather than us chasing.
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
More articles below...
Not quite what you're looking for?
We can easily customise an offer to suit your exact requirements