Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
Very friendly staff
Amazing, thank you Courtney!
Thank you Rebecca Wilkie
All good as promised and helpful Mr Harvey
Ewan understood our requirements clearly and put together an excellent itinerary. We'll be coming back - once we've saved up!
The flight from London to Manchester was rescheduled by BA as not enough time in between flights.
The itinerary worked perfectly.. some delays of course (as ever) but good flights and seats. Virgin Dreamliner excellent
The attention to detail you get from the staff is amazing. Knowing you have 24/7 back up is very reassuring. Many thanks to Amy and the team for everything. They are always there to help.
When our Air Tahiti flight was cancelled you moved us to Air France quickly and helpfully. Many thanks!
So helpful and efficient and your app is great too!
Excellent work
I recommend you all the time
The trip was amazing and all the flights worked perfectly
Awesome. Just excellent
All went very well
Very good service = been using this for my last three trips aboard and will use them again
Nicole and her team were wonderful! She went to such great lengths to find suitable flights and then willingly helped me with so many issues over the formal requirements. I honestly couldn't have made this trip without her. Always a cheerful and calming voice on the other end of the line when I was on the verge of panic. I can't thank her enough!
All in all, my trip went well. Mission accomplished. Thank you and looking forward to book again in the future.
Grant is a great asset to your company and has been helping us holiday since 2012.
Very good service. Thanks to Jessica and Howard and the rest of the team.
Good experience
Brilliant holiday in Bora Bora and Tahiti!
We were delighted with everything DialAFlight did, from the original organisation and booking to changing flights because of the coronavirus outbreak and alerting us to floods in New Zealand that affected our plans. Brilliant from start to finish and special thanks to Marco who went above and beyond to help and advise. I would definitely recommend DialAFlight.
I’m all in favour of security checks but we had to stand in a queue of about 1000 people at LA to get through immigragtion. Of the 44 kiosks available 2 were in use initially which went up to 6 after 1 1/2 hours as they returned from lunch. One airport I will definitely avoid in the future.
Whole trip went well apart from both Air NZ flights being delayed. Thankfully it did not cause any problems.
Toby was very helpful and picked lovely hotels. Made our honeymoon memorable.
Jake was so helpful and he helped us with a payment plan. I would highly recommend your service to our friends.
Jamie was excellent and very responsive to my queries.
Samuel was very helpful, our holiday was great.
Reece was very helpful and professional. I will definitely use DialAFlight again - excellent
Laguna Beach in the late 1960s was overrun with hippies. It was home to Timothy Leary's Brotherhood of Eternal Love movement, on a mission to spread peace, love - and acid - to the world.
The focal point was a gallery and bookshop that supplied locals with its famous Orange Sunshine acid tabs. Surfboards were filled with them, and on one occasion Laguna Beach was showered with acid blotter dropped from a helicopter.
These hippies and surfers became major-league suppliers of LSD, and achieved superstar status among the psychedelic movement. Doug Oyen, our guide during a morning hike through the canyons above Laguna Beach, shows us some of the caves where hippies used to hang out.
We couldn't wish for a better guide. Doug is the first of many people we meet straight out of SoCal central casting: laidback, suntanned, wraparound shades and long blond mane.
The trek is painfully steep at times but worth it for panoramic views of the beaches and towns fringing the Pacific. A late afternoon walk in Laguna Beach confirms its counterculture days are over. Forget the 1960s ethos of 'Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out' - today's buzzwords are 'Tone Up, Tummy In, Work Out'. LSD has been replaced by the yoga mat.
They're everywhere: beside Gucci handbags in restaurants; in shopping baskets next to quinoa and kale; or clutched under the arms of shoppers looking at $200 ripped jeans in boutiques.
On a stroll through Heisler Park we see a timeless SoCal sight: rows of surfers in the ocean, waiting for the big wave that will make them the envy of their friends. A long line of brown pelicans in V-formation flies just above the water.
We dine at Driftwood Kitchen, a fabulous new beachfront restaurant serving classic surf and turf.
We stay the night at The Ranch at Laguna Beach. Transport is by a golf buggy, or else in a cool 15-seat Chevy Stageway. Next day we head up the Pacific Coast Highway to Huntington Beach, where we're greeted by two giant inflatable swans in the new Pasea Hotel's pool, facing the large sandy beach.
In the hotel's Tanner's bar, the centrepiece is a large, twisting tree trunk with a canopy of hanging lights. Hearing our English accents, our waitress reveals she's moving to London to take a drama course. Later, a surferdude taxi-driver blasts out Brahms from the stereo: SoCal folk can be so surprising.
After heading further north to Santa Barbara, we eat delicious ice cream at McConnell's and wander along Stearns Wharf, where children jump off into the sea.
We're treated to a helicopter ride over Santa Barbara, and fly above the huge Clark Estate, home to a former copper magnate and, later, his reclusive heiress. We also spot Michael Douglas's place and Oprah Winfrey's house.
We stay at luxurious El Encanto, in the Santa Barbara hills, where actress Hedy Lamarr once lived. The accommodation is luxurious Spanish-style villas among palms and lemon trees.
Next stop is a little bit of Denmark: Solvang, in the Santa Ynez Valley. In 1911, almost 100 Danish settlers arrived looking for farming land and built what now resembles a Danish village, with windmills, bakeries and their own version of Copenhagen's Little Mermaid statue. We pop into the Solvang Restaurant, famous for aebleskiver, a traditional, spherical Danish dessert served with raspberry jam and sugar.
This is the heart of southern California's wine region - the celebrated Sonoma and Napa valleys are much further north. Downtown Solvang has many bars and wine-tasting rooms, serving wines from local producers. In The Wandering Dog, we're soon swaying on our stools but this is due more to the all-American sounds of Boston, Kansas and Don Henley on the music system than to the chardonnay, syrah and, of course, pinot noir.
Later, we drive up winding roads of Ballard Canyon to a vineyard called Rusack to taste its wines. When veteran American comedian Shelley Berman visited, he launched into an impromptu rendition of Que Syrah Syrah, which was met with delight from surprised guests. The estate's Marti Martin told him: 'You see, you're still getting applause wherever you go.' Who needs LSD when you have a good bottle of syrah?
First published in the Mail on Sunday - July 2017
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