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
Frankly, I was at the bottom of the learning curve when it came to Tampa. I had heard of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the local football team, but that was about it. Most British visitors to Florida make a bee-line for Orlando and Miami.
But the old pecking order is changing fast. That's probably why Virgin Atlantic, scenting a winner, is now offering direct flights to Tampa. Parts of the city are run down; public transport is pretty basic. Tampa has been up, down, up again, down again, like one of the rollercoasters in Busch Gardens, the family theme park to the north of the city centre.
But its overall trajectory is emphatically up. I stayed for three nights at the spanking new JW Marriott hotel, in the heart of Tampa, and had a blast.
The city combines the dynamism of 21st-century America with just a hint of old-fashioned Southern charm. It is quite a cocktail - and Floridians love their cocktails.
All around the sunlit bay, I unearthed parks and museums, terrific bars and restaurants, quirky neighbourhoods and, best of all, a wealth of history.
In its heyday, Tampa was known as Cigar City, thanks to Vicente Ybor, a Spanish born entrepreneur who moved here in the 19th century, bought up swampland, then lured thousands of Cuban migrant workers to join him. Soon Ybor City, as the area became known, was turning out more cigars than anywhere else on the planet. No longer, alas.
But I would not have missed Ybor City for anything. Like Little Italy in New York, or the French Quarter in New Orleans, it encapsulates the American Dream - beautiful but fragile - in perfect miniature.
After disembarking from a rickety old streetcar, I soon found myself in a rabbit warren of scruffy streets, some overrun with chickens, some featuring bars and businesses, both weird and wonderful. 'Save a horse, ride a cowboy,' read one sign. 'The only shop in Tampa where death and dysfunction dance a graceful ballet,' boasted another, with dusty skeletons in the window.
Should I risk it? Or play safe and visit the more sedate-looking J. C. Newman Cigar Factory and Museum? I played safe. I am scared of skeletons.
Newman is not just a world renowned company, but the last operational cigar manufacturer in Tampa. Watching highly skilled workers cut tobacco and hand-roll cigars with such loving care was a revelation.
Vicente Ybor wanted to build a community, not just churn out cigars. The 19th-century migrant workers were well housed, got a good education and, after work, met at a Cuban club, of which a local guide gave me a tour. It was built on a palatial scale, with a ballroom fit for a king.
Lunch beckoned - and what a lunch. The family-run Columbia restaurant has been a fixture in Ybor City since 1905. I have never had Spanish food of this calibre outside of Spain. Unable to decide between the grilled snapper and the shrimp and crabmeat casserole, I had both and was soon whinnying for more. Olé!
If Ybor City evokes Tampa past, Hyde Park Village, across the bay, embodies its future.
It's a substantial urban development, less than ten years old, beside a much older residential area - the sleepy pre-war Tampa of shady streets, rocking chairs on porches and tattered Stars and Stripes fluttering overhead.
There are no rocking chairs in Hyde Park Village because everyone is on the move: joggers, dog walkers, teenagers on electric scooters, friends snatching a coffee before repairing to their laptops. The village has already become a magnet for young people working in the creative industries. They hang out in shared work spaces and, after hours, meet at the sort of bars where everyone knows everyone else and the cocktails flow like water.
Want to watch an arthouse movie in a funky bistro? Here's your chance. Or eat excellent Italian food in stylish surroundings? Look no further than Timpano, another humdinger of a restaurant.
For lovers of museums and galleries, the new Tampa Riverwalk is another must, linking a string of visitor attractions, from the vibrant Tampa Museum of Art to the Henry B. Plant Museum, an oasis of tranquillity.
I had brunch at the nearby Oxford Exchange, a much-loved Tampa institution. Part cafe, part shop, the Exchange is a lovingly crafted shrine to books. They even present your bill discreetly folded into a dusty old novel. Class.
.
On my last morning, I had breakfast in Goody Goody, a retro American diner, then took a mini powerboat out into the bay.
The views were so thrilling that I nearly disturbed a nesting pelican just 50 yards from the general hospital.
My final port of call was Sparkman Wharf. Millennials in shorts and T-shirts sipped craft beer in refurbished shipyard crates, soaked up the sun and yakked about baseball, love and life without a care in the world.
It was hard to drag myself away to catch my plane home.
But isn't that true of all great cities? They leave you wanting more.
First published in the Daily Mail - November 2022
More articles below...
Not quite what you're looking for?
We can easily customise an offer to suit your exact requirements