Hello, my name is Hayley. I am the Company Director of Holiday Hamster and work as a Travel Consultant in the Ripponden Shop.

A Yorkshire girl born and bred, I live with my husband, our son and the two family dogs: Bobby and Woody. We all love spending time together as a family and often visit Disneyland Paris or sail on Disney Cruises.

This is where my love for Disney has flourished and significantly improved my knowledge of their theme parks and surrounding hotels. In addition, the Disney Cruises have expanded my understanding of this element of Disney Holidays. I love sharing my experiences with customers whilst providing them tips and advice – but I avoid giving too much away as I want their experience to be just as magical as my own.

Alongside working at Holiday Hamster, I previously volunteered for a charity called Caudwell Children, which formerly ran a “Destination Dreams” programme. This involved taking 25 children with life-limiting illnesses and their families on the trip of a lifetime to visit the theme parks of Orlando. As a volunteer, we aided the families by guiding them around the theme parks; helping the families out by pushing prams and wheelchairs so that the adults could walk hand in hand with the children and enjoy the experience together; or just simply being there as an outsider to listen to the parents whilst they talked.

This trip changed my outlook on life, and I have some truly amazing friends and wonderful memories, which I will surely cherish forever.

As you probably gathered, I love everything Disney, especially Frozen! Music is also a huge passion, and although I don’t play instruments or sing anymore, I still love to listen to a wide variety of music.

Recently, having been diagnosed with a disability, I now like to personally visit destinations wherever possible and see how accessible they are. Not only does this help when planning my own family holidays, but it also means that I can share tips with customers who also have additional needs.

I am family-oriented and love spending time with my friends, who are very important to me.  So, where possible, I always try to visit family and friends and, of course, spend quality time with my little family.

From a young age, I was lucky enough to go on numerous family holidays. I enjoyed visiting new places and learning about the history and culture – even *trying* to speak the local language! This I am sure is where my love for travel began. Since then, I have journeyed tens of thousands of miles, visited a wide variety of countries and am always looking to plan the next adventure with my family.

I am a self confessed Disney fan (some might say nerd) as I read about, love and collect all things Disney. In fact, one of the things I like to do more than anything is to head over to Disneyland Paris for a few days to relax, take in some Disney magic and add to my ever-growing pin collection. After all, it’s practically on our doorstep so it would be rude not to! Over the years, there are so many hints and tips that I have picked up first hand, which I love to share with my customers when they’re booking a Disney holiday. One of my personal travel goals is to experience every Disney Park, Resort and Cruise Ship in one spectacular trip. °o°

Since leaving education over 20 years ago, I have always worked in the travel and hospitality industry, interacting with people on a face to face basis and helping them. This is one of the things I love most about working at Holiday Hamster – meeting and getting to know the customers so that I can plan their perfect holiday with them, wherever in the world they want to go.

I can honestly say I’m extremely proud to be working for Holiday Hamster. Everyone on the team shares a passion for travel. Just like me, each Travel Consultant wants to help our customers plan their holidays from the moment they first contact us, until after they return home and call or pop in to tell us all about it (often sharing their holiday snaps too). Hearing all of their stories gives me great job satisfaction and is why I love being part of Holiday Hamster!

My name is Steph, and I recently joined the team at Holiday Hamster in January 2024. I am really excited to embark on this next chapter in my travel career.

My career in travel started back in 1998, after completing a Travel and Tourism course at college. After that, I travelled the world as a flight attendant. I moved from commercial airlines to private aircraft in 2005, where I was lucky enough to operate the private jets for the Qatari Royal Family. I then settled back in the UK, continuing to fly for private jets until having my daughter in 2016.

I am passionate about travel, and I love spending quality time with my family and friends in my spare time.