BKK - DXB Boeing 777
Arrived after a long journey from Hua Hin into Bangkok airport at 11pm for a 2.30am flight. The airport was absolutely heaving with people. Luckily, the business class check in had only 2 people in front of us, so the queue went down fairly quickly.
Checked in and was advised that we had our reserved seats of 7J&K and went off for a little look around. Wasn't that much to see so went into the Executive Club lounge which was small and not many seats available. Luckily the quiet room was free so we just lay down and had a little snooze.
Unfortunately, I didn't check my boarding pass when I was given it back following check in and discovered we were given seats 10 J&K which is in the larger business class cabin close to the economy bulkhead (not the place to be if you want to sleep due to lots of small children/babies).
Priority boarding worked well at this airport.
On boarding, mentioned to the snr stewardess about the wrong seat allocation and she said she'd see what she can do about moving us. After checking, there was only 1 seat available on the whole aircraft (this was kept free because it was broken anyway) so we would have to stay put. The FA said the best thing we could do was turn our volume up on the headphones to do our best to cut out the noise. She knew it was a difficult/noisy family that was in the bulkhead row as the previous senior FA had informed her of problems on the Australia to Bangkok leg.
Didn't get much sleep on the flight so managed to watch a couple of the films (the Interpreter was one with Nicole Kidman which was good). The FA's were excellent and gave us special attention during the flight as they were unable to move us. They kept asking me if I wanted more champagne and hubby had lots of bucks fizz - perhaps they were trying to keep us mellow [^]
Arrived at Dubai on time and proceeded to the Emirates Business Class lounge. This was extremely busy so we just had a little bit of breakfast and another drink and waited about 50 minutes before heading off to the gate to join our last and final leg home.
The bonus of this leg was that the 777 had been recently refitted and the seats are alot wider (I even managed to curl up and watch the film in these seats)and seemed to recline flatter too. It also had the video on demand which was excellent just like the VS LHR flights.
DXB - BHX Airbus 330-200
Finally, heading back to sunny Birmingham.
Priority boarding hah!! It was a scrum, just like Easyjet. Everyone was bussed to the plane which was horrendous in the Dubai heat.
I don't know what the problem is with seat 2K but again I had a dodgy screen that just wouldn't angle itself out of the seat in front, so if the person in front reclined I wouldn't be able to see anything. Luckily, the FA managed to get a maintenance man and he fixed my screen and hubby's screen which had broken out of its outer casing.
Again, really good service, food excellent again - you cannot fault Emirates for their food and drink, they're really good.
FA's more businesslike but I suppose after the special attention on the last flight, it just seemed that way.
Inflight entertainment was on a loop this time so asked the FA for a video which we slipped into the arm of the seat and we watched 'After the Sunset' with Pierce Brosnan, Woody Harrelson and Selma Hyack (sp?).
One of the smoothest landings I've had followed this flight so thank you Mr Aussie pilot.
Priority disembarkation at BHX and we thought we'd have priority baggage too. No chance, you're dealing with BHX here. Our bags took nearly an hour to come onto the belt. Even the crew's bags were held up - perhaps it's just brummies on a go slow!
Our car was waiting for us provided by Emirates and they even commented on the length of time it took to get the bags - not just ours, the other business class passengers too.
Although to be fair to BHX, I think there may have been a problem as there were more police and sniffer dogs around than normal and the Emirates chauffeur commented on the fact that she was not allowed to drive around the airport as she usually does but had to go off site several times to loop around.
Anyway, holiday over and back to work - c'est la vie.
