Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
Excellent service, as always. Lloyd was extremely helpful both when making the booking and with a few subsequent queries. Very pleased indeed.
All travel went smoothly and pleasantly. Many thanks
Wayne is an excellent person to deal with. Very polite, helpful, knowledgeable and always gives very good advice and recommendations on hotels and what to see
Always a first class service from your excellent organisation and staff
Everything from DialAflight first class, however Air Canada lost our suitcases and still trying to get them back
Michelle and the team were very helpful and we will use DialAFlight again
Very prompt and professional service.
Everything went smoothly from first telephone call with Jane to the actual flight back home. Everything was as promised including assistance at each airport for every flight.
Everything you arranged was top-notch. Your communication was first class and kept us informed. Would have no hesitation in using your company again
Very easy to use, friendly, professional
Reggie was exceptionally good explaining and answering my questions. Very helpful with flight details. Would come back to you should I fly again.
Excellent service
Don’t book clients onto Aerolineas Argentinas. Everything about that airline (aside from the actual flight itself) was awful.
Our flight was cancelled unexpectedly. Airline did not keep us up to date. Contacted DialAFlight emergency out of hours and they were amazing. Sorted it all out for us, which removed all the stress and anxiety in a difficult situation! Thank you, will definitely recommend to family and friends.
Perfect trip. 5 stars
Very good responsive service, all emails were replied to, quickly and clearly. Thanks DialAFlight team!
Rebecca always does an amazing job with every trip I ask her for help with. A true asset to DialAFlight and wouldn’t go to anyone else.
Always helpful and patient. No query is too insignificant. A great company.
Excellent service. George was first class and gave us great confidence all would be good. He arranged assistance for my wife which was slick and invaluable. I recommend DialAFlight to everyone
Jane was brilliant and helpful and always quick to respond. Nothing was too much trouble
Fantastic help, communication and support as always. Many thanks especially to Philippa Wales.
Really appreciated updates.
Thank you for all your help
All great thanks.
As usual Stuart gave an excellent service. Our journey was seamless and worry free. Having the app to refer to was great. Thanks again - and we’ll be in touch soon to organise our next trip.
Excellent, the best travel agent!!
Excellent service - highly recommended
It's been a friendly and straightforward process.
Robbie Kharbhari excellent as always - reliable and sorted flights. Pleasure to talk to and got the job done!
Great service, thank you
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