2 / 346 LHR-KUL 10 FEB 11 (BUSINESS)
Posted: 16 Feb 2011, 07:12So wind the clock forward seventeen years and here I am writing this trip report on the pool terrace of the KL Mandarin Oriental feeling nicely relaxed despite a long journey and an eight hour time difference.
Through Amex Platinum Travel Service (PTS) we were able to get business class returns under their “2 for 1” Emirates offer. Each ticket ended up costing less than a VS UC Z fare to LAX or SFO, and we got to fly on the A380! Incidentally, the hotels on this trip were also all booked through PTS so as to take full advantage of the substantial FHR (Fine Hotels & Resorts) benefits on offer. Here in KL that means three nights at the Mandarin Oriental for the price of two in a Club floor room! Being on the Club floor means free breakfasts, free afternoon tea & cakes, and a complimentary two hour waiter service bar (and canopes to die for) each evening. Later on our trip we’ll be benefiting from the same at the Cameron Highlands Resort and Singapore MO.
Getting back on track....the Emirates flights:
Our adventure began on Thursday 10th when we were collected from home at 08:45 by the Emirates limo, a Tristar operated Volvo estate. The flight wasn’t until 13:45 but, need I say more to fellow VFlyers as to why we’d opted for an early pickup! Tristar had called the day before to confirm pick up time and, importantly, amount of luggage we’d be taking. When I said three largish suitcases he advised “I’ll send an estate then”. I don’t recollect ever being called the day before for a VS provided car and can only assume that EK pay Tristar a bit more to call their customers the day before so as to double check & confirm everything. With Emirates everyone in business class, regardless of fare bucket, gets the limo and of course it’s not just for the UK home-airport-home runs but airport-hotel-airport in the various destinations you’re visiting. All in all a huge benefit potentially saving you a significant sum in taxi fares.
The drive to Heathrow took a bit longer than usual due to sheer weight of traffic and the road works around J10 so we ended up arriving at T3 around 10:30. Alas no VS drive through check-in on this occasion, or private security channel. Nonetheless no queue at all at the Emirates business class check-in and our three cases were checked through to KUL and Priority/Business Class & Fast Transfer DXB tags added to. The lounge invitations (for LHR & DXB) formed part of the printed boarding pass. Fast track security, as so many have said here, wasn’t really much faster than the normal queue. Virgin’s offering of the private channel really is a valuable benefit!
The Emirates Lounge at T3 reminds me somewhat of the Air New Zealand Lounge at LAX in terms of size and shape and great runway views, very long with windows all down one side. Not a Clubhouse by any means but all in all I felt it was excellent mainly thanks to bottles of Veuve Clicquot being liberally scattered about in ice buckets at either end of the lounge and in the middle! The main food serving area was in the centre and the offerings there were countless, from delicious lamp chops to rare ahi tuna. There was ample seating which essentially consisted of leather sofas and armchairs and a vast restaurant style table & chair area. The wireless was free and worked faultlessly. Hopefully these photos give an indication of the lounge layout:
While in the lounge a woman (Steve just asked me to edit this bit and term her “mad drunk Welsh woman!) asked us for some help setting up her new iPhone so Steve came to her rescue and spent a good half hour providing guidance! She and her female travelling companion had downed at least a full bottle of Veuve before any of this iPhone stuff and later when Steve had set her phone up she decided to call the iPhone helpline with other queries. During the call she kept saying “can you speak up, I can’t hear you properly” and gradually she became louder and louder until such time that the all of us in the vicinity were savvy to her password! It really was rather amusing when clearly the help desk instructed her to remove the protective wrapping from the phone! Following that her vocal tones subsided to normal. For those of you that know me & Steve though you’ll understand that we actually hit it off with this “middle aged mad duo” (en route to Phuket, Thailand) and later they would be our on board bar drinking companions en route to DXB.
Boarding was delayed slightly due the inbound A380 having arrived late (fog earlier in Dubai had delayed all flights out of DXB) but the great thing was that when flying the Business/First on the EK A380 from Heathrow you board “from the lounge”! So on we got via the dedicated First & Business walkway with an uphill incline that took us straight to the upper deck.
We’d selected 18E&F months earlier having researched EK business class seating in depth. The way that it works is, IMHO, ingenious and is a bit difficult to explain other than to say that every other row down the middle is ideal for couples.
The rows in-between “couple rows” are staggered in such a way that each of the two seat areas is totally private and extremely spacious. It also works in a staggered fashion down each side of the aircraft with every seat having aisle access but no two seats being next to each other. The reason I say “ingenious” is the clever way space is used in that the area where the feet end of the flat bed goes is in fact the mini-bar/shelf/storage area of the person infront.
The forward area of the top deck is First Class private suites and all remaining seating is business. The sizeable area at the rear of the top deck is the on board bar which, I have to say, is awesome! The sheer amount of space is incredible with at least room for a couple of dozen folk to mingle. Hopefully these photos give a feel:
Unfortunately the half hour delay that we were expecting compounded to a two hour delay because one pallet of cargo needed off loading. We were able to watch via the IFE tail camera the mayhem that ensued with at least 30 of those metal unit loading devices having to be unloaded in order to locate the single offending one. The A380 has three cameras that you can flick between on the IFE . The captain came on regularly with updates, apologising profusely and trying to provide assurances to those with connecting flights that Emirates would “take care” of them at DXB. I’d worked out that for us to be impacted the delay would have to run to at least three hours which thankfully it didn’t. I felt sorry for the elderly couple near us connecting on to Perth as it didn’t look good for them. In the event we were later to see in DXB that EK held the Perth flight among others for those delayed from London. The on board Champagne offering in EK Business is Bollinger and frequent top ups were offered while we on still on the ground.
Taking off on the A380 was incredibly quiet, virtually no engine noise at all, I guess as we were upstairs and so far from the engines. Before we knew it we were in the cruise at 39,000 feet.
Emirates’ IFE offering of ICE Digital Widescreen is the best of all IFE’s I’ve seen. OK I only fly long haul once a year so quite happy to be put right if there are even better offerings out there! The system is on permanently from the moment you board and that’s it...it stays on even for landing. Had it not been for the tail-cam we wouldn’t have been able to witness the cargo fiasco outside! The screens are massive and the picture quality very good. For me the forward view tail camera was compulsive viewing for takeoff & landing, having a pilot’s view of the approach into DXB was amazing. Countless films/TV programmes & masses of music, including every UK No.1 since nineteen fifty something!
Lunch choices were taken during the delay on the ground and lunch itself was served around an hour after take-off. One thing that got to us a little was the fact that people in the “couples seats” who clearly want to eat at the same time were served all through the flight by different crew members. The chap working my aisle who took my lunch order apologised that the lamb had run out which didn’t matter as I wanted the seafood. Five minutes later Steve’s order was taken by another crew member working his aisle and his request for lamb was not an issue. I guess each aisle has an allocation of each meal type but it just comes over as non customer focussed serving a couple eating together in this way. Also, whenever we asked for something, like a coffee, it was a case of each crew member having to separately take our orders and then what we’d asked for would arrive 5-10 minutes apart. That aside the meals were fantastic even though I’d finished mine before Steve got his!
The bar area on the A380 is to die for! We ended up having a bit of session with “mad Welsh duo”, knocking back more Bollinger and enjoying the sheer amount of space
We landed at DXB around an hour & fifty minutes late at 02:15 so had no issue with our connection on to EK346 that was scheduled out at 04:05. Off we got, straight through transfer security and up to the departure lounge/shopping mall in search of EK’s lounge. This was our first time to DXB’s Terminal 3, talk about vast. Apparently it’s the largest building in the world! Anyway, time for a moan.....the EK business class lounge, considering it is (or surely should be?) their flagship lounge is IMHO a pile of pants! Like a flipping giant size bus waiting room with seating for what looks like 1500 plus guests. It was very noisy because, as it’s effectively a massive mezzanine area above the main terminal, all the tanoy announcements and general hubbub from the main concourse could be heard. I’ll say no more but read for yourselves the sheer number of negative reviews online.
Departure on the KL leg of the flight was relatively painless, once we had fought out way through the scrum at the gate and onto our awaiting 777, through the business and first jetty (even though our business seats were behind the economy door). Once up, after a short and unexplained delay, everyone slept... very few requesting the sandwich selection... so there is little to write about this flight other than the delicious poached egg breakfast that was offered two hours before landing at KUL! Just a bit baffled as to how you can produce perfect soft poached eggs on a plane? Almost forgot..."very" nice amenity packs were handed out on this night sector:
The majority of Emirates’ 777-300ER fleet now has the new lie flat beds (and ICE Digital Widescreen) but I knew from prior research that this flight would have the “deeply reclining” business class and classic ICE (still a full on demand IFE system). Despite not having the lie flats we managed to sleep pretty well. You have so much leg room that you can’t touch the seat in front. The full recline position, coupled with having the foot rest on maximum height, is not bad at all. OK flat bed is the bees knees but we can’t have everything now can we!
In the weeks running up to our trip I’d been using flightdata24.com looking at which aircraft have typically been operating our upcoming four flights. This, coupled with info obtained on Flyertalk, meant I knew that 27 of EK’s three class B777-300ER aircraft had the new business class as do 10 of their three class B777-200LR’s and 12 of their B777-300’s (non ER)!! Just 10 B777-300ER’s remain with deeply reclining and we were on of those. One thing to point out is that we felt less hot and “hemmed in” when fully reclined on these deeply reclining seats. The lie flats seem to suffer from lack of air flow when in the flat position. I know VS suites seem to be same, just too darn hot when you bed down for the night! I also gather from FT that EK’s ageing A330’s are set for retirement over the next year or so.
We landed in KL bang on time at 14:55. Immigration was painless and our three large cases were among the first off. Before we knew it we were being whisked to KL city centre (70 km’s away) in a Mercedes E-Class. We couldn’t have wished for a better welcome at the MO as we were immediately greeted and escorted straight to our fantastic room on the 26th floor where check-in paperwork was completed “in room”! We were also given a special letter informing us of all the Amex "Centurion" benefits we would be getting! OK I know I'm Platinum but....Centurion?
Right now I’m now completing this TR a few days on. We’re in the Cameron Highlands having collected a Hertz hire car in KL and driven the 200 or so km’s north. Yet another value add of the Amex Platinum card is being able to decline the CDW insurance and various other car hire insurance add-ons, indeed I love the page in the Amex travel insurance handbook in the car hire section that says “just say no”....that saved us a fortune so, all in all, very happy with the extensive benefits the card provides in relation to annual fee paid.
Off to Penang tomorrow then next week we’re flying MH down to Singapore, our final stop. Will try to do another TR for the return sectors. Hope this has been a good, if slightly long, read everyone
James (& Steve!)
