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I was recommended to you and was really pleased with the aircraft, the cost, the spacious seats and staff. I will be booking again real soon.
Only hotel that did not meet expectations was Si No Como
Billy is so helpful - have recommended to many people. Always happy with our trips
Booked party of 10 to Mexico. Great work by Elliott. Got us a great price, prebooked all the seats and great communication. Highly recommended
My transit in Miami on the way back was a little tight. I ended up sprinting the length of Miami airport whilst last calls were being issued. Pleased to say I made it though. Other than that all flights were exactly as promised although there was a noticeable drop in standard on American Airlines compared to BA.
Fantastic service once again
Darren was excellent
Jane was able to transfer our flights so we could fit in my friend's wedding in Phoenix en route to Mexico. She also booked our seats on all 3 flights which made the whole journey so much better. She is a star!
Great service as always
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All went exceptionally smoothly and brilliant value for money
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I was kept up to date with everything I needed to know in good time
Bradley, as always, was brilliant.
Alfie at DialAFlight is great. Loved every holiday I have booked and they have all gone so smoothly.
Jack always looks after us well
Tony Judge was always on hand to support and answer questions. He made the booking of our honeymoon and the trip itself go super smoothly
An amazing holiday and Jake again delivered on every request. Would recommend to everyone
Great flights, great airlines and good value
Used you before, always been hassle free!
Kieran was excellent at arranging our trip
Timely updates from my appointed agent meant that I was kept aware of any changes to the bookings I had made. A courtesy call just prior to travelling was a nice touch. All in all 100% satisfied with the service.
Once again excellent, trouble free travel. There is little point in checking every website - one phone call to Eric and the job is done. Thanks again
Always excellent and thorough service.
As always, excellent service from Dominic and our holiday was superb.
It's very reassuring to know that if something goes wrong with my trip there's someone I can call to help sort it out.
A well planned touring holiday, all the connections worked well resulting in a very enjoyable holiday. Thanks to Michelle Dooler for putting it together
When return flight was cancelled I couldn’t fault Roger for sorting a flight asap.
The business class flight service with BA on the return was an embarrassment to our national airline. If I have a choice in the future I will not fly with them.
You are great for flights and hire cars, just start doing hotel bookings and we would use you for them.
Some might remember a TV show of seven years ago called The Young Ones (not to be confused with the comedy series of the Eighties), in which six celebrities in their 70s and 80s attempt to overcome some of the problems of ageing by harking back to the 1970s.
They spent their time in a country house decked out as a 1970s time capsule. The idea was to transport them back to their heyday - they walked on shag pile carpet and watched Crossroads, sipping Dandelion & Burdock, to see if it improved their ailing health and failing memories.
The six were cricket umpire Dickie Bird, dancer Lionel Blair, newsreader Kenneth Kendall, radio presenter Derek Jameson and actresses Sylvia Syms and Liz Smith - and it seems that taking them back to a world where everything was strictly 1975 had a miraculous effect. The experiment, particularly the part involving shag pile carpets, was very successful and they did feel younger.
I mention this because I met a very clever man called Bengt in Bequia, a tiny island just a speedboat dash from Mustique, who is conducting a similar experiment. Bengt is the proud owner of the Bequia Beach Hotel, which is full of couples of a certain age congratulating other couples for being so much younger than all the other couples of almost certainly the same age.
Trapped in time
For Bengt, you see, has created a perfect time capsule. By the time you've checked into one of the 1930s colonial-style rooms with 1950s-style posters, and followed 1960s-style wooden signs to the bar and ordered your first Dark 'n' Stormy, you're already feeling 20 years younger.
It's not just the decor, agreeable though it is. Everything here exudes old-style charisma, a Pathé newsreel picture of how the Caribbean used to be before the big bucks and giant cruise liners steamed in.
There's nothing fusty about the Bequia Beach Club, but everything is as it should be. Charming open-air restaurant on the beach: check. Delicious fresh seafood: check. Friendly but unpushy staff: check. Secluded stretch of sand fringing a gently swelling ocean: check. Cool pool with mysterious rejuvenating powers: check. Friendly faces at the bar swapping rum-punchy gossip about how Carole Middleton put people's noses out of joint in Mustique: check.
The island, which hasn't changed much since Harold Macmillan stayed here (someone told me they'd read he came up with 'You've never had it so good' on the island) is proud of its Royal connections.
Princess Margaret once dropped anchor off Bequia. As a result there's a rather fetching beach named after her. A 30-minute stroll away is the capital, Port Elizabeth, a scruffily teeming one-street town packed with shops, markets and harbourside bars.
Forty minutes away by twin-prop plane is the five-star Coral Reef Club in Barbados, where we stayed for our second week. It, too, exudes old-school cool, although this time for very A-list guests.
Had they wished, the owners of this hotel could have adopted the Bequia naming policy and christened its beach after visiting royalty. Or you could now be staying in a Harold Pinter, Agatha Christie or Prince Harry suite. All have enjoyed the hospitality of the O'Hara family, who have owned the hotel since the 1950s.
But this is the kind of hotel where the rich, famous and we lesser mortals can drift in and out incognito.
No wonder Agatha Christie was inspired to write A Caribbean Mystery here.
There's still an air of exotic mystery about the place, as if a man in tennis whites might appear at any moment among the palms and confess to Miss Marple that yes, it was he who committed the heinous murder in the bougainvillea and he doesn't care who knows it.
Every room is high-spec and the restaurant is high-end. But Coral Reef hasn't lost sight of the good old days. You can bet every dry martini here is shaken, not stirred.
If you hanker after a nightclub, well, that's just a short car ride away - this is hip and happening Barbados after all. But at the Coral Reef it's more cocktails and cool crooners.
Family values
The Coral Reef Club is built on good old-fashioned family values. And that's down to the O'Haras. They may look as if they've stepped out of a Ralph Lauren catalogue, with their brilliant white shirts and glossy good looks, but they are a very real sleeves-rolled-up presence in the hotel.
Matriarch Cynthia glides around the reception rooms and hosts an elegant cocktail party once a week, and sons Mark and Patrick patrol the restaurant.
This is not just their livelihood, it's their home, and you are made to feel like their guests, not just hotel guests.
First published in the Mail Online - February 2017
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