Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
Great helpful staff
I felt you really cared about my trip. Will always book with you.
Wonderful service from Olivia; could not be more helpful, efficient and friendly. Truly fabulous!
We are extremely delighted with DialAFlight. Tristan has always been very courteous and helpful and has provided us with the best support, advice and prices, which is why we will continue to use DialAFlight for many years to come.
Great recommended itinerary and outstanding hotel selection.
I would always use DialAFlight
Very attentive staff especially Darryll Hansford
Extremely helpful staff.
As always great service from Troy and his team
Thank you Peter Smith for arranging another perfect holiday
Would it not be possible to have family areas for seating? Anyone with children one end of cabin childless the other? Both ways we had screaming, kicking children behind us making the trip very uncomfortable.
Parador double beds are always two single beds, pushed together, it would seem. The hotels were all special and were a delight! Flights, car hire, breakfasts at the hotels were all excellent. Thank you very much for arranging everything for us, Harry!
Tremendous help from your excellent team of travel managers, particularly George Burke and his team
Room was very small - don't recommend Ibis. Otherwise fantastic as always.
Riley is a star and always a credit to DialAFlight.
We had a wonderful holiday thanks to Simon Pitman who once again gave us valuable advice & assistance. We have already booked another holiday with Simon next month.
Annabelle on your team is always excellent - we would always use her
Leah was super helpful as always!
Another fantastic trip from Austin
We were very impressed with the eficiency of Vueling Airlines. They were very courteous, prompt, & despite being 20 minutes late in taking off from Malaga, got us back to Gatwick right on the dot of the expected time !
Disappointed with car hire from Centauro
You have a 5 star communication service. Unique globally. Thankyou
Flawless as always - thank you Michelle.
Great customer service throughout.
Once again, Tony and the team provided an excellent service.
Amanda & Harry delivered on all fronts
Professional, efficient and always at end of telephone if a query or problem to be resolved. Would not hesitate to recommend to others Zoe and team
Always good service.
We were charged extra by Easyjet for things that we didn't need, but that wasn't your fault. Your service was brilliant.
Amazing holiday, ticked all the right boxes. My mom hasn’t been abroad for a few years and she absolutely loved it. Sean you’ve done us proud again. Unforgettable memories. Beautiful resort with fabulous staff and food. Highly recommend it
Some of this flight might be intense, but trust your guide and be brave.' The words of warning came from Dr Jackie Ogden as our group gathered in the Link Chamber of the Pandora Conservation Initiative. We had already been through the Genetic Matching Room and been decontaminated for micro-parasites, and were being given the final sequence of instructions before being let loose on the alien planet.
THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
With the final motivational message of 'Rise to the challenge!' we were swooping off across the otherworldly terrain and lush foliage of Pandora on the back of a Mountain Banshee, the gigantic dragon-like beast from Alpha Centauri that eats people for breakfast.
Fortunately - or unfortunately, depending on your level of bravery - all this excitement was purely man-made. Or, we should say more accurately, Disneymade. Because we were in the Animal Kingdom theme park in the heart of Walt Disney World, Orlando.
A WHOLE NEW WORLD
Pandora: The World Of Avatar is the latest attraction built by the House of Mouse - with the help of film-maker James Cameron - in its vast Florida resort. It has taken seven years to complete.
While some Disney die-hards doubted the wisdom of such an obvious film franchise being successfully shoe-horned into this most naturalistic of parks, the end result is a 12-acre immersive environment that is so packed with features and special effects it would take a small book rather than one article to list them all.
It starts with the Floating Mountains that seemingly hover over the area - gigantic, 156ft-tall rockworks that are complete creatures and waterfalls – and continues through a junglelike panorama of immense complexity, studded with the bioluminescent plants from the 2009 movie that are all recreated in amazingly painstaking detail. They include some examples that react to touch and movement using specially developed sensors.
Cleverly hidden among the alien terrain - which mixes artificial plants with real ones from Hawaii and Africa - are two contrasting rides that take the story of Avatar into the future, 100 years after the war between Earth's Resource Development Administration and the indigenous Na'vi people.
RIDE OF YOUR LIFE
The Na'vi River Journey is a meandering boat ride through the Pandoran jungle, usingwith vegetation, a mix of animatronics and screen projections to create a stunningly realistic series of encounters with the flora, fauna and people. It takes an ecofriendly approach, highlighting conservation principles and real-world issues such as habitat destruction.
After this the action intensifies - Avatar Flight Of Passage kicks things up several notches with the aforementioned simulator ride in the company of Dr Ogden. Sitting astride a kind of stationary bike (and equipped with 3-D glasses), riders seemingly dive, twist and turn in through a long whirl over Pandora, taking in the sights and sounds that made the film such a visual extravaganza.
There also ought to be a special award for the Blueberry Cream Cheese Mousse with its neon blue a there is such a thing as alien looking food, this is it.
Even James Cameron was apparently initially surprised at the huge scale of Disney's plans when they approached him with the idea of Avatar Lane. He said: 'I thought we were going to be talking about creating an attraction. Disney’s vision when they came to me was to create a land.'
ART & ENGINEERING
It has been reported that the area cost up to 500-million dollars to complete. It features music composed by the late James Horner and Simon Franglen, based on the original score from Avatar.
The final word, though, deserves to come from Disney's Zsolt Hormay: 'We had to use a lot of experts to help us with the technology. It needed a lot of different skills. It melds art and engineering. It is like finishing a painting, only in three dimensions - and with a lot of engineering.'
First published in the Mail on Sunday - January 2018
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