Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
A huge thank you to Amy Hibbert for rearranging our return flight as we had to get home for personal family reasons. She made the process easy and always goes out of her way to help. That is why I have been booking with DialAFlight for many years.
Always very helpful and accommodating!
I am so glad I found Kylie at DialAFlight!
Thanks and keep up the excellent service
You found me great fights at a good price, and I loved the reassurance that you were always at the end of a phone for me if there was any problem. Thanks - I’ll certainly use you again!
Both flights prompt. Great find, Finn, of Upper Class in the sale! Excellent service with Alamo. Happy to use again and recommend to friends and family
Flights and car rental worked out fine and clearing customs in Dublin enabled me to be on the road in a hire car within an hour of arriving in USA.
Everything worked out perfectly.
Another great trip
First class service all round. I’ll definitely be using you again
Personal touch, appreciate the calls and updates. Takes the anxiety out of travelling
Thank you Kirsty you were brilliant
Always the best prices, and super helpful
I felt that if anything did go wrong, you would help.That is a comforting thought.
Amazing booking service along with stunning hotel and great prices - thank you
Keep doing what you do best. Making customers happy
Totally impressed by suggested flight arrangements, car hire and the outstanding hotels in Boston and Nassau. Also delighted by Tony, and DialAFlight's response to our requested changes of itinerary during the holiday. It was no problem and handled so professionally.
Dennis Hollands is amazing and always helpful
As usual great service from Adam. Can’t say the same about Virgin/Delta
Tristan did an excellent job for us as always
Gordon is more than helpful.
Info always correct and quick. William is very good. Always there if needed. Top agent
At Heathrow I was given assistance, and told I would be collected but my flight was missed. Horrible experience but not your fault
Michelle Dooler and her team excelled. All went seamlessly, thank you.
Efficient, friendly, helpful and competitive. Ticks all the boxes! Goes the extra mile.
I found Nicky Degun very helpful. I was kept updated on my flights and travel arrangements and felt confident that any queries would be addressed promptly.
Friendly and super helpful as always. Thanks Connie
All good thanks to Owen.
Perfect as always. Jerry is a star
We were concerned about the transit time when returning from Kona Hawaii via Seattle. Jack Sulliman responded quickly to our email and reassured that all would be well. It was! It is good to have a helping hand from time to time when faced with confusing airport facilities
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.
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.
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 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.
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
More articles below...
Not quite what you're looking for?
We can easily customise an offer to suit your exact requirements