Day 77: Emirates A380 First Class flight - Easter trip Grand Finale
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All photos are, as always, my own. They may be a bit blurry as the forum initially rejected some of them them due to being too high storage, so I compressed them slightly.
PART ONE
Welcome to this report, in which, having spent two weeks over Easter travelling through Southern Queensland, Adelaide and New Zealand, I round it all off by flying home with Emirates in First Class on their flagship A380. This had been a childhood dream of mine for years, and I was thrilled that the time to try it out had finally come, even if it would only be a 4.5 hour flight from Christchurch back to Sydney.
I've been looking forward to writing this report for so long, but I'm just now realising how hard it's going to be to put into words just how glamorous and glitzy it is on-board. I boarded at the upper deck of the 380 using the separate gate for First and Business passengers (at the aircraft door, Business turn right and First turn left), and was shown to my seat immediately. As I said, this has been a dream of mine for ages, so as you'd expect I'd seen this cabin many, many times on YouTube reviews and vlogs, and all sorts of social media, etc. and it was utterly crazy seeing it in person in front of me, and even more so knowing that I wasn't just a passenger with an economy ticket peeping my head in for a peep, but this would be my seat here. And here it is:
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Notice the large sliding doors (they are automatic and controlled by push buttons) for ultimate privacy.
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Everything is just so glitzy. Now you might think the gold is a little garish and tacky to look at, but I can tell you with confidence that it doesn't in person at all. It just looks ultra classy, luxurious and... well, expensive, which it is
As a journalist, I loved the sliding out tray with leather covered notebook and Emirates pen; said notebook I have been using to take seminar notes at uni.
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The seat is absolutely enormous and beyond comfortable. It's exceptionally squishy leather that one simply sinks into when taking a seat, and genuinely I could have sat in it, in any position, for hours on end. When I fly to Dallas, I can expect a sixteen hour flight, which will be horrible. How I wish I could expect a seat as comfortable as this for that flight! Anyway, back to this flight, and the seat position is controlled entirely on the personal iPad sort of thing, which is also where the award-winning (you can see why) entertainment system is controlled. You can do simply anything with the seat, tailoring the position of sixteen different parts of the seat all differently if you need to, or using the preset options, which include a Seatbelt Sign position that returns the seat from however it is at the time, to the upright position. The buttons you can see on the armrest are for the automatic doors.
The three enormous windows in my cabin are also automatically dimmed or shut, either by way of the tablet or by the buttons at the bottom of each window. You can choose to close all of them or just one or two, it's a very flexible system. Obviously all of these features are very impressive, but there's loads of them, so I was glad that my personal attendant gave me a comprehensive tour of the suite features. He also gave me a large, hot rag which was very refreshing for wiping my hands and face, and poured me a cup of strong Arabic coffee and offered me a selection of wonderful filled dates, including orange peel and pistachio. I was also given a frankly enormous and jam-packed amenity kit filled with a ridiculous amount of stuff (including my favourite Bvlgari Le Gemme Tiger cologne, usually retailing at $450-$550, in a classy, generous sized bottle).
I was handed the frankly massive drinks menu, including wine list, and menu for dinner, and asked if I wanted a pre-take off drink. I went for a bucks fizz, as it's a firm favourite, and it came with some warm nuts. I took my dinner order and asked to shower and then dine about half an hour after take-off, so that I may relax with the lights off for the rest of the journey.
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Cor, the TV screen was simply enormous, and such high quality - and as for the options, you could browse for absolutely hours. Talk about being spoiled for choice. Anyway, I luxuriated in my palatial surroundings sipping my bucks fizz and choosing a film. Had I not had the bucks fizz, I'd have been well-refreshed even so, as the seat comes with a personal minibar. You push a button and it automatically slides up. Completely unnecessary seeing as the personal attendant is only too happy to get whatever drink one wants freshly made, whatever and whenever, but a fantastic quirky feature nevertheless!
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The noise-cancelling headphones provided are extremely high quality, and also very thickly cushioned so as to be superbly comfortable and not dig into the ears. You might expect I'd start to use them now, as we began pushback and taxi to the runway, but no: I was making use of a far more fascinating and unique feature of the entertainment system than simply watching a TV show. No, I was watching our takeoff. That's right: you can go live to the cameras on top of, on each wing, or at the back of the plane, and actually watch your flight take off in real time on the big screen! It was fantastic to watch, and of course, the A380 - this being my third flight on the 380 and second time on upper deck - delivered an expertly silent and smooth take off. The mood lighting in the cabin had kicked in by now, which looked simply splendid. I felt really very happy and content indeed.
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I decided soon after take off to relax a little bit, so I closed the doors, dimmed the lights and windows and also changed into the slippers that I'd been given by Qatar, just because they were a bit more comfortable than wearing my usual shoes. The whole point of flying First Class is to be comfortable, no? Not to try and impress people, so I don't feel any guilt about flying in the casual clothes I was wearing, after all, half the time people change into pyjamas provided anyway! The sleepwear for this flight would be loaded at Sydney, ahead of the onwards overnight stretch to Dubai, so I wouldn't be given these today, but was perfectly happy in the The White Company gear from my previous flight.
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BLISS. Honestly, I can't put into words how attentive the staff were, and how wonderful the cabin and seat was. I was thoroughly enjoying myself, and Emirates First were certainly living up to expectations. And of course, I had decided to accept the steward's immediate offer of another drink. Hmm... the wine list was enormous. What did I feel like drinking on this Emirates First Class flight?
Why, the finest Dom Perignon, of course.
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And it was certainly very good indeed.
Continued in Part Two.
Final exam due tomorrow (this particular module has been HELL) so after a day of work I'm FREE until October.
