{"id":600,"date":"2014-07-29T15:06:23","date_gmt":"2014-07-29T14:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/?p=600"},"modified":"2014-07-29T15:07:27","modified_gmt":"2014-07-29T14:07:27","slug":"rachel-whiteley-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/2014\/07\/rachel-whiteley-williams\/","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Whiteley-Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Travel expert Rachel Whiteley-Williams<\/p><\/div>\n

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Our guest today is my old friend and travel expert Rachel Whitely-Williams. \u00a0I can’t recommend her enough; she’s just booked the most amazing trip through Thailand for the Daughter and her friend with a real eye to detail and cost.<\/p>\n

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ES: \u00a0So, to start off, Rachel, tell us a bit about you, please.<\/p>\n

RWW: \u00a0Travel is my passion and with 15 years of experience on the High Street and a nominee in \u201cThe National Customer Service Awards\u201d, means I have a great knowledge of a variety of destinations from Bognor to Bermuda, Halifax to Havana!! If I haven\u2019t been there you can bet I know someone that has and I also have the resources to find your perfect holiday. \u00a0As an independent travel advisor I work from home. This allows me to work around my young family. I don\u2019t have any sales targets, so all of my time is dedicated to tailor-making holidays to suit individual needs. Everything I book for you comes with the extra assurance of being fully protected too. \u00a0My focus is ensuring that I deliver exceptional customer service. I am a real person and my customers have the confidence of knowing that when they book with me, it will be me they speak to every time. Fully flexible hours means I am even available evenings and weekends, and am always more than happy to visit people at home. \u00a0Being married to an Antiguan (ES: \u00a0I WAS AT THE WEDDING!!) \u00a0and having lived in Antigua for a number of years, means I have a good knowledge of the Caribbean. I have also lived in Greece and know a great deal about cruising, not to mention family holidays.<\/p>\n

ES: \u00a0Tell us something else to convince us to book through you.<\/p>\n

RWW: My customers love the fact that I provide them with complete documentation, a guide book on their chosen destination, I check them in online and even fill out their baggage labels for them. If they\u2019re close by I even deliver their tickets, so all they need to worry about is getting themselves to the airport on time!! \u00a0I\u00a0recently had a customer who didn\u2019t receive their passports back, it was touch and go if they\u2019d even make their holiday, I intervened and got the Minister of Immigration and local MP involved and thankfully they got their passports back a couple of days before departure!!<\/p>\n

ES: \u00a0Well that’s great customer service, but I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you. \u00a0So, to my Hot Holidays! questions… \u00a0Where did you spend your most recent holiday and why did you chose to go there?<\/p>\n

RWW: Calo Mondrago, Majorca. We went because it’s only a \u00a0two-hour flight; there’s a kids’ club; it’s family friendly, and I wanted a safer option after my baby was hospitalised in the Caribbean!!<\/p>\n

ES: What’s your favourite type of holiday?<\/p>\n

RWW: \u00a0For me nothing beats beautiful, tropical beach holidays.<\/p>\n

ES: \u00a0And your least favourite?<\/p>\n

RWW: \u00a0I would detest something like Eastern European City breaks; they hold no appeal for me at all. \u00a0Neither do Russian\/Bulgarian Beach holidays.<\/p>\n

ES: Where did you spend your best-ever holiday and what made it so memorable?<\/p>\n

RWW: \u00a0Without a doubt it was in Kerala, India. I travelled through Southern India, and was blown away by the spectacular scenery, the fantastic people and the fact that it was such great value for money. \u00a0Not forgetting, of course, the yummy curries!!<\/p>\n

ES: Have you had any holiday or travel disasters?<\/p>\n

RWW: \u00a0Yes! Being stranded on the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal after our boat back to Chennai was apparently double booked. \u00a0I felt so helpless.<\/p>\n

ES: \u00a0Tell us a place you long to visit and why.<\/p>\n

RWW: \u00a0The Maldives and Bora Bora. \u00a0I always wanted my honeymoon in either of these places. In the Maldives the norm is to have a trap door in your water bungalow which means you can jump directly from your room into the turquoise sea. \u00a0And I’ve always fancied Bora Bora, because it would mean having my breakfast delivered by local canoe!!<\/p>\n

ES: \u00a0Who is your favourite travelling companion?<\/p>\n

RWW: \u00a0My old manageress at Thomas Cook, we had some great holidays together.<\/p>\n

ES: \u00a0Have you ever had a holiday romance? \u00a0And if you have – details, please!<\/p>\n

RWW: \u00a0I had a couple of romances; I went to Malia, Crete on a girly holiday when I was 20, and, well, the usual story! \u00a0I fell for a Greek guy and I ended up moving out there the following year and we were together for 4 years. And as you know, Elaine, I also went to Antigua to work for just a year, but met Deon at Jolly Beach Resort, stayed for 4 years, married him and have 2 beautiful boys Deion and Dexter.<\/p>\n

ES: Excellent! \u00a0I remember what great times we had at JBR together. \u00a0How would you spend your dream 24 hours if you could travel to multiple, world-wide destinations with no travel or time restrictions?<\/p>\n

RWW: \u00a0My itinerary would be as follows: London-Dubai-Maldives-Thailand-Australia-New Zealand-Bora Bora-Hawaii-Canadian Rockies-Mustique-Necker Island-Home<\/p>\n

ES: And finally, what tips and\/or advice would you give to holiday-makers and travellers?<\/p>\n

RWW: \u00a0Always travel with hand sanitiser, antiseptic wipes, imodium and drink bottled water, no matter how safe they tell you the water is!! Never eat a curry with cockroach feelers poking out of the top!!<\/p>\n

ES: Ha! Ha! Ha! \u00a0Thank you, Rachel. \u00a0So, Dear Reader, what are you waiting for? Bespoke holidays, exceptional customer service and competitive prices. Let Rachel make your holiday dreams come true!!<\/p>\n

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    Our guest today is my old friend and travel expert Rachel Whitely-Williams. \u00a0I can’t recommend her enough; she’s just booked the most amazing trip through Thailand for the Daughter and her friend with a real eye to detail … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[339],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hot-holidays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":603,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions\/603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elainespires.co.uk\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}