A family has praised a travel agency for going “above and beyond” to help them flee Dubai after conflict in the Middle East broke out shortly after they arrived on holiday.
Victoria Seaton, her husband James and their three sons Mason, 15, Stanley, 13, and Hamer, 9, had only just landed in Dubai when the situation escalated.
The family, who are farmers from Market Drayton, had travelled overnight from Manchester Airport on February 27 and arrived early the following morning, excited to begin their break.
However, within hours of arriving at their hotel, the atmosphere quickly changed.
“We literally landed there Saturday morning as it all kicked off,” Victoria said.
“We took our bags up to the room and the boys went down to the pool. I’d been on the sun lounger for about an hour when four missiles went over our heads.
“We didn’t know what it was at first. Everyone looked alarmed but nobody really understood what was going on.”
It was only later, when the family returned to their room and turned on the television, that they began to realise the seriousness of the situation.
“I started to panic,” Victoria explained. “My husband said we were next door to Iran and that those weren’t fireworks we’d heard, they were missiles.”
The family soon experienced a terrifying night as alarms sounded and guests were instructed to take shelter.
“At one o’clock in the morning an alarm went off on our phones and people were banging on our doors telling us to get underground,” she said.
“We had to run down into the car park under the hotel. People were having panic attacks. It was awful. The bangs were going off constantly. It was terrifying.”
With their children increasingly frightened, Victoria contacted Delmar World, the family-run travel agency in Gresford that had organised their trip.
She spoke to staff member Anne Anglesea, who reassured the family and began working to get them home as quickly as possible.
“I rang them and said, ‘You’ve got to get us out because my sons are starting to have panic attacks,’” Victoria said.
“Anne picked up the phone straight away, even at half two in the morning. Nobody else in the hotel could get hold of their tour operators.
“People who had booked online had nobody they could call.”
Despite widespread disruption and airspace closures, Delmar World managed to secure the family seats on one of the final flights leaving Dubai just days after they arrived.
“We landed Saturday morning and we were on a flight home Tuesday night, that’s how good she was,” Victoria said.
“She got us on the last remaining flight at half two in the morning.
“Without them we would still have been stuck there.”
Even boarding the plane was nerve-racking, as the family could still hear explosions outside the airport.
“When we boarded the plane you could hear the bangs outside,” Victoria said.
“They told us it might be a rough ride and we went almost straight up vertically. There were jets on each wing escorting us.
“When we finally landed in Manchester the whole plane just broke down in tears.”
Victoria said the experience had left the family shaken, but they were incredibly grateful to the travel agency that helped bring them home safely.
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“I was on the phone to Anne in tears because I was absolutely terrified for my children,” she said.
“She picked up every single time, reassured us and sorted everything, passports, flights, everything. I just want to give them the credit they deserve because they were incredible.”
The family have used Delmar World for holidays for many years and say they will continue to do so in the future.
“It’s a family-run business and they’ve always been fantastic. After this experience I will never use anyone else," Victoria added.
“It just shows how important it is to have a travel agent you can actually call when something goes wrong.”
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