Day 1 - Flying Air Emirates

O-M-G!!!!!!

One of the nice things about flying Business Class on Emirates is the complimentary limo service to the airport. Even though our flight was not until 9:40PM, being the first day of March Break, and with rain in the forecast, we decided to err on the side of caution and arranged a 5:30PM pick up to allow for traffic on the roads and crowds at the airport. Promptly at 5:20 the limo arrived and by 6:20 we were sitting in the Business Class lounge at the airport! Some two and a half hours before boarding was to commence!! Oh well, it’s not like sitting in the lounge was a hardship!

The reason we had requested Crystal’s Air Department put us on Emirates was to fly the new Airbus A-380-800 super jumbo, which carries 500+ passengers and flies direct, non-stop from Toronto to Dubai. Boarding commenced at 9:00, so at 8:45 we set off for our gate, which was not far from the lounge. Some have likened the appearance of the A-380 to a Beluga whale and from up-close, it really does look like that. The plane itself is not overly long, but it is BIG with, if you haven’t seen it, two cabin levels! First and Business Class are located on the upper deck, with Economy located on the lower, each with its own jet-way access. As it happened, we were the first to board Business Class, which meant time to take pictures. As you can see, it’s big, it’s bright and it is certainly different from ANY plane we have ever flown on before!

The Business Class Cabin

The Business Class In-Flight Bar in the aft of the cabin.  We've been in houses where the kitchen is smaller!!

The in-flight entertainment has so many choices you could fly around the world multiple times before you used them up!  This is one of the more interesting things:  a real-time view from the camera mounted in the tail.  You also had the choice of looking through the 'belly-cam' straight down (that allowed us to watch our landing in Dubai from a very interesting angle) or the pilot's eye view.  Any white-knuckle fliers would certainly NOT be watching these!

We had heard good things about Emirates service and we were not disappointed. The quality and variety of the food (Dinner and Breakfast) is excellent, with multiple entrée choices available for both meals. The individual seat “pods” were comfortable and dropped down to full lie-flat beds, which allowed us both to get a good six hours of sleep, something we don’t normally get on a long-haul flight such as this one.

And to top off the comfortable accommodations and excellent food, Monica was batting a thousand on her two usual comments: 1) her travel agent put her over the wing - again; and 2) her first choice for dinner was gone before they got to her (never mind that it was Larry who got the last one!) Not what you would call complaints, but as we threw some comments back and forth, the flight attendant who did most of our service thought it was kind of funny, and suggested that we start watching ‘Marriage Ref’.

Smoked Duck Breast appetizer

Canadian Waffles for Breakfast

The Crystal representative met us at the luggage carrousel - we were the only Crystal people on the flight - and led us out to where the transfer vehicle was waiting: a nice, shiny new BMW. Too bad the trip only took about ten minutes!

Arrival at the hotel was quite painless, and we were in our room 18 hours after we left our house on Friday. The Grand Hyatt is a beautiful hotel with a tropical forest Atrium just off the lobby. And the outside grounds and pool areas are gorgeous, too. We took a walk around last night before going for dinner (yes, we were actually hungry even though “breakfast” on the plane was at about 5:30 p.m. local time). We ended up eating at the Manhattan Grill, a ‘New York style’ restaurant in the hotel. They have a new Executive Chef and he was presenting a tasting menu to show off his talents. The pictures below are the main course (of a four-course meal) and dessert, and they were every bit as tasty as they look!

Wagyu Beef Tenderloin and all the trimmings.  Yum!!

A dessert trio:  Creme brulee, Chocolate truffle cake with a peanut butter surprise layer, and New York style Cheesecake.  Are you hungry yet??  Forgive the picture of Monica - at this point we'd been up for about 31 hours.

Well, we barely made it through dessert before the day caught up with us, and we dropped into bed at about 11:30….only to wake up at 4:00! So after some tossing and turning, we decided to get up and start working on the blog. The things we do for our family and friends!!

So now, as the sun rises over the horizon at 6:45 a.m., it’s off to breakfast and our first day in Dubai.