Hello everyone,
This is the 4th leg of my RTW report.
1st leg can be found here: http://flight-report.com/en/report-6256.html
2nd leg can be found here: http://flight-report.com/en/report-6298.html
3rd leg can be found here: http://flight-report.com/en/report-6322.html
So, after 5 days of fun in the desert sun, it was time to leave and see what the hoopla this Maldives place is all about. Our family dropped us off at the airport and check-in was done after a 15 minute wait in line. Immigration and security checks were also efficient. Point to make to North American airports – get the automated bucket loaders that Dubai airport uses. These things are awesome and I didn’t know they existed. The buckets or trays where you put your belongings in before it gets scanned is auto loaded into the belt and does not require a passenger to manually pull out of a stack. Once you are through the check, the bucket or tray is auto pushed into a bin and gets fed back to the front of the security check. What an age we live in ! Ok, I digress. Onto the lounge!
Thanks to my Priority Pass membership, we got into the Marhaba lounge in Concourse B. Got a good seat and was able to take a few pics of planes taxi-ing by and getting ready to take off.
Fly Dubai plane in the background and an Emirates A380 having a stare down. The Fly Dubai plane won out and took off first.
British B777 just landed and taxi-ing to a gate.
Emirates A380 taxi-ing.
Emirates A380 from earlier lined up for take off.
Emirates B777 just pulled in.
Shot of the lounge. Quick assessment showed a decent choice of food and drinks. There is also another side of the lounge not seen here but it faces the inside track of the airport above the main concourse level. Too much noise on that side which made us grateful that we were on this side.
After freshening up at the lounge, we made our way to the gate. Here is the pic of our bird taking us to the Maldives.
Sight awaiting us as we came down the elevator after first check-in at the gate. This was 30 minutes before final close but the monitor was saying “Final Call”. If the point was to scare people to run to the gate and not miss their flight, then good job Emirates. You scared the crap out of me. ><
Another pic of our bird.
Registration A6-EMO
Middle of the bus.
Shot out of the window. A lovely day to fly.
Safety video playing.
Wait a minute, why is there no leg room in Business class … oh wait.
Turned out the flight was 3/4 full and we had a spare seat. I took a look at the back of the plane and there were many seats available.
Time for push back.
More Emirates heavies getting ready for the morning bank of flights out.
Menu.
Choice of meals on the flight today.
Choice of meals for the Maldives – Colombo flight. The flight continues on to Colombao after the Maldives and the back to Dubai.
Emirates A340.
British B777’s
Virgin Atlantic A340
2 Qatar A320’s
Taking our spot in line for take off.
View from the screen.
Cabin crew, please take your seats.
Lined up and ready to go.
You can tell from the pic that we were going really fast. :)
Hey Emirates, your wings are dirty. With all the money I gave you, please buy some Lysol. :D
Hey! Why is my meal so small and where’s the champagne? …. Oh .. right. Damn you Business class for spoiling me rotten. ?
Went with the Sri Lankan chicken curry. The salad and main were good. Dessert was ok - note to Emirates, whip cream not equal to mousse.
4 hours later, we began our descent and was treated to the wonderful views outside. Slightly sucked that we were right over the wing and blocked some of the view.
Coming in for landing.
Coming in for landing on the screen. Its fun watching on the monitor. You always think you’re gonna miss the runway but then the pilots yank it last minute.
Hit the runway REALLY HARD. Seriously Captain, I know Boeings can take a beating but no need to test it out. :(
A good sign of things to come.
Walking down the stairs. The heat really hits you the moment you step out.
Look at all those beauties.
After cleaning baggage screening and immigration, we came out and found our hotel representative. We were talked to the booth and our bags were tagged. We did not see the bags till we got to our room. Wonderful service.
All the flights coming to the Maldives.
Our ride to the hotel.
I hope other FRs will show pictures of these luggage bins that you extol.
They may have efficient machine at check-in, but the windows make DXB very plane spotter unfriendly.
Advanced Final calls are becoming a worn trick in a number of airports. The most ridiculous I had was in MAN, where the final call was when the gate number was displayed, only that the plane wasn't there yet.
Small wonder the seat pitch is tight in Y on EK's planes : that is where all their foreign maids and hard laborers are traveling. Thanks for this FR !
10-abreast Y seating on EK's B777s is a scary thought - particularly if your flight is long haul!
Thanks for sharing this nice FR with nice plane pics. Nice to have seats for yourself! Hoping for a Maldives tourist bonus on your next report :)
Thank you for a very informative and entertaining FR!
Morale of the story: Dont fly on EK 777-200s!