Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
Everything was planned to precision and went smoothly. An exceptional holiday and service provided
I have been using your company for over 10 yrs and have no regret. Nice staff and good approach with listening skills.
Michael very helpful
Once again Darryll at DialAflight and his team delivered what they promised. The flight, hotel and all other information were spot on.
I had a wonderful time. Brought back so many memories. Thank you
Advise any clients leaving from BHX that they need plenty of time to get up to departure gates and through security. It was a shambles there on the day that I flew out.
Hassle free, thank you.
Always satisfied with service. Daniel knows exactly what is right for me and I appreciate the time he takes to help me through all the decisions. Wouldn't go anywhere else
Yet again Edward kept us informed up until the day we left, phoning several times to enquire and confirm things. Well done
You are so much better to book with. We appreciated the personal attention, the care, the way we could phone with queries as they arose. We will certainly recommend and use your services again. It is a joy to speak to your staff at the end of the line!
As usual. Fantastic holiday. Thank you Des for all your help and support arranging supporting and recommending this fabulous hotel.
As always I have nothing but praise for your service. I will be back and am also spreading the word!
Nicky made the whole process a breeze. Top class customer service.
Poor service from Etihad airlines on 2 of 4 flights tarnished this trip. Still awaiting a response from Etihad
Excellent customer service
Have been using DialAFlight for 20+ years. Always excellent service. Travis in particular is always so helpful and makes you feel you're his only client.
Thanks for the advice and guidance!
Billy has exceeded our expectations.
Great to have the pick up at the airport
Arthur was so helpful he went above and beyond to ensure we had a good holiday. Highly recommend.
incredible service as always. Thank you Dexter
Can not thank you enough for your wonderful service. I have given your number to my friends and family. Highly recommended
I had loads of issues due to flight cancellation but no fault of DialAFlight
It was 5 star all the way
Always recommending you to our friends
Helpful and dependable as always
Everything was great from booking our holiday to arriving back home. Special thanks to Helen Jones for taking care of it all, great job.
As usual, the whole process was made easy and we received excellent service from DialAFlight. Continue to recommend to everyone!
Kennedy is a pleasure to deal with and always gives us the best advice on the UAE products.
Many thanks to Ray Taylor for a very good, quick service
A Sikh in starched white uniform suddenly appears and scrunches across the gravel drive to greet me, his white beard almost merging with his turban. I hadn't seen him emerge from the building but he somehow seemed to materialise from nowhere.
This could only be Raffles, one of the most famous hotel names in the world.
I am whisked into the cool embrace of the lobby, where a glass of chilled mineral water arrives almost before I've had a chance to park myself on a leather sofa.
The brand-new atrium is not that different from the old one. It has cleaner, sharper lines, but retains the same bold sweep that suggests an impressive and desirable combination of elegance and sophistication.
It was here that, according to some reports, 300 Japanese officers and men fell on their swords after the surrender of Singapore to the Allies in 1945.
But such grisly ghosts hardly hit the right note following a multi-million-pound refurbishment that has taken two-and-a-half years to complete. It officially reopened in the summer of 2019.
The hotel says the restoration was designed to ensure that everything that is so special about Raffles was carefully preserved – the ambience, the service, the charm and the heritage of the hotel. They have certainly succeeded in that.
There are still the graceful courtyards to relax in, while new bars, restaurants and shops have been added.
The changes have simply enhanced the comfort and splendour.
Raffles Singapore was born in 1887, the year the Armenian Sarkies brothers took over an unprepossessing ten-bedroom bungalow and set about pulling in the great and the good.
From such humble beginnings, the hotel was quickly expanded and word of mouth brought in royalty, as well as celebrities.
It was named after Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, who colonised Singapore 200 years ago for the British East India Company and became Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies. It was a bold move to summon up this heroic, swashbuckling frontiersman – but, my goodness, it has paid off.
Noel Coward first stayed for a month in 1931, after completing Private Lives. He recalled in his memoirs drinking his first Singapore Sling and he remained a loyal guest until his final visit in 1968.
The literary roll call is impressive – Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham, French novelist, art historian and statesman Andre Malraux, German-born poet, novelist and painter Hermann Hesse and Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda for starters.
Then there are the glamorous fans: Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor and, more recently, Johnny Depp and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
There are 115 guest-rooms, all suites. I am shown into a State Room Suite overlooking the quad, with a huge marble bathroom and a bath the size of a small cargo vessel.
The double sink seems excessive for one man and his toothbrush. Ditto the opulent bed. But I'm not complaining.
The flat-screen TV has been discreetly inlaid into the wall so that it looks like a decorative obsidian plaque. 'I think we should pop down to the Long Bar and take a refreshment,' says my charming hotel guide.
Good idea. First, I pop into the Writers Bar, taking in the cool granite and mahogany, contrasting with marble and alabaster walls. It's as 'airy as a birdcage', as Conrad put it in his novella The End Of The Tether.
I wander down the colonnaded corridors and around the green quadrangle before settling at a table in the Long Bar.
A cast-iron hand-cranked contraption on the bar, designed for shaking multiple cocktails, gets to work producing the hotel's signature drink, the Singapore Sling. It is a powerful concoction made from Cointreau, pineapple and lime juice, gin, grenadine, cherry liqueur, Benedictine and Angostura bitters. That's all.
Order this in my local back home and the barman would think I was taking the mickey. Here, it's the most natural thing in the world.
First published in the Daily Mail - March 2020
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