What 15599 DialAFlight clients thought of USA

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

Funk & Jazz

The world's funkiest city: New Orleans

Music by the mile, daiquiris by the gallon and non-stop partying - New Orleans is a one-off says Giles Milton

The evening slams into action with a long blast of brass. Ronell Johnson has swung to his feet and is squeezing every last bit of jazz out of his trombone.

Rickie Monie, meanwhile, is tinkling the ivories at frantic speed. I'd been told the Preservation Hall in New Orleans was the place to see live jazz, but never realised it would be as moody-blues as this.

All the local jazz legends have blown their trumpets here, from Punch Miller and George Lewis to Sweet Emma Barrett and The Humphrey Brothers. The Preservation Hall continues to attract the best acts.

The Avenue Pub in New Orleans- a buzzing old-world pub with fireplaces and tin ceilings

FINDING THE MUSIC

Jazz is everywhere in New Orleans - in the bars, in the streets and in the psyche. This, after all, is the city of Louis Armstrong, who played his way to fame on the paddle-steamers that plied the Mississippi river.

This, too, is where the early jazz legends Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton once jammed through the night. Their local haunt, the Little Gem Saloon, has recently reopened and serves cocktails and food along with the music. Even those paddle-steamer river excursions still serve up jazz with their Creole cuisine.

The Preservation Hall is an iconic place to watch jazz

PRESERVATION HALL

'Welcome to New Orleans,' whoops the compere at the Preservation Hall in a pause between acts. Welcome indeed. New Orleans has to be the funkiest city on earth, where the

streets are filled with buskers and the back-alleys packed with cocktail bars. They even have drive-thru daiquiri bars where - I kid you not - the daiquiris are sold by the gallon. A visit to Louisiana's most beguiling city ought to begin with a government health warning: this is a place that takes partying very seriously.

The French Colonial style hotel Maison Dupuy

The wildest district is Bourbon Street, the setting for some of America's most outlandish clubs, strip-joints and cocktail bars. It's about as raw as it gets.

Women dressed in knickers and nipple-tassels parade the street touting for photos ($1 a snap) while men hang out in doorways drinking 'hand grenades', a Bourbon Street speciality that will blow your socks off. It comes in a yard-long vessel that's tinted green and shaped like a grenade at the bottom. The recipe is a guarded secret.

FINDING THE CALM

Apart from Bourbon Street's excesses, the rest of the city winds down to a gentler pace at around midnight. Then it's back to the hotel - in my case, the historic Maison DuPuy - where the party continues in the inner courtyard at a more subdued pace.

In 2005 Hurricane Katrina caused catastrophic devastation. More than 1,200 people died and 400,000 left homeless. An excellent (if sobering) exhibition in the city's Presbytère - a branch of Louisiana State Museum - recounts the horror as the levees collapsed and a tidal wave hit the residential quarters.

Visit Jackson Square in the French Quarter

THE FRENCH QUARTER

The only part scarcely touched was the historic French Quarter, home to many of the oldest buildings, jazz clubs and museums. 'New Orleans is not an American city,' explained John, my guide. 'It's half European, half African. It's unique.'

Founded by the French, ceded to the Spanish, sold to the Americans and besieged by the British, it was populated for much of its history by slaves from Africa. Allowed one day off work each week, they would congregate in local parks and improvise the musical riffs of their African forbears. This was how jazz was born.

Jackson Square is home to fine museums: the 1850 Museum, the Cabildo - the old town hall - the Presbytère and nearby Gallier House, with a preserved mid-19th century interior.

In the French Quarter, head to the Gumbo Shop restaurant to sample typical New Orleans fare: shrimp Creole, seafood gumbo (a thick Creole soup) and deep-fried alligator (straight from the swamps surrounding the city).

COCKTAIL HOUR

But I'm in need of a cocktail and take myself back to Bar Tonique, which serves the best sazerac in town (New Orleans's signature cocktail: cognac, absinthe and a shot of local Peychaud's bitters.) As the sun oozes itself into the Mississippi, I down a couple before taking myself back to Preservation Hall.

There's no Ronell Johnson on tonight's programme. But local star Clint Maedgen is on the sax, and that'll do for me.

First published in the Mail Online - April 2018

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