Marc's Blog: uae2021 - Flying to and from Dubai in Emirates Airline First Class

So, this was a "holly shit, this is nice" flight, which is good given that DXB SFO was close to 16 hours, but I have to mention that before that flight, Emirates behaved very badly: I booked this flight many months early using lots of credit card miles, and some overachieving idiot at Emirates, decided to flag a lot of accounts as fraudulent (people buying miles from others, which is not allowed). But mine was not, it was my own account I had just made, where I moved my own miles, and the IT monkeys at Emirates still close my account, forfeited my flight, along with mulitple other people who had the same problem. Worse, when I contacted them and gave them proof of my ID, and my miles being from me, they still ignored me. It took weeks of work and expert help from James Lee at Juicymiles (who helped me find and book the flight), plus many many phone calls and hours spent on the phone up to the day of departure, for them to finally re-instate my account, my flight, and my seat that they were refusing to rebook and confirm.

While it is hard to forget the horrible experience I went through to get the flight fixed, once I finally had it, it was really really nice. Finding first class checkin, for US bound flights (which was separate), was definitely challenging in DXB, I had to go back and forth the airport several times, but eventually got to the right place:

I didn't have a lot of time for the lounge, because I had fun late the previous night after Dubai Expo, and the flight was early the next morning, but still had enough time to go visit:

they also had a game room I didn't have time to visit

Dubai is totally fine with foreigners drinking

the lounge had its own kitchen and chef

I went with poached eggs next, they were quite good

but then I saw the sushi chef, so I had some too :)

As nice as the lounge was, I could'nt stay there forever, but let's just say that I wasn't starving when I left it and went to the plane :)

coach looked pretty good, almost matching business of some flights (not lay flat of course)

business was really really nice

and then first class, suites had 3 screens and a minibar

nice office with workspace and mirror with lights, side light, and flower

there is no overhead, you can just put your carry ons under your screen

cell phone coverage in flight

nice view of the flight

they actually had prayer times for where you were on earth and and arrow to show what direction to pray. I'm told few passengers use it though

Then, the food and drinks. The menu had lots of options and food made to order, you could have anything at any time. I may have eaten a bit too much :)

french opera cake, I'm impressed.

did I mention that I didn't starve? :)

breakfast, lunch, dinner, who knows? who cares? :)

The flight, being one of the longest flights in the world, didn't go east or west, but is a "fuck it, let's just go over the north pole and end up on the other side of the earth":

artificial stars were cute

after a long flight, we eventually got home

you can even score the landing

Despite the very shitty experience with Emirates wrongfully cancelling my account and flight and taking so damn long to admit their mistake and fix it, the flights were indeed great.