Picked up a couple of items from duty free and went to the lounge. Please note in Dubai there are 2 business class lounges and we ended up on the wrong one. Okay it was nearer our gate but it's the much smaller lounge which Skywards silvers can use if travelling economy near gate 8. The better, 2 floor, business class lounge is up near gate 21 and has a much better choice of food and more seating available (although it's always really busy too). Only the actual business class passengers are allowed to use this instead of Silver card holders. Anyway found some food and had a couple of glasses of Veuve whilst waiting and got chatting to a guy who was on our flight who was working in Dubai on a 3 year contract. This made the time pass extremely quickly and we hadn't realised the flight had been called. We arrived at the gate and most of the boarding had commenced. There was still 30 minutes to go but the 'holding pen' was virtually empty.
Directed to our seats and were given our pre-take off champagne. Took off on time at 3.10pm and the canape and drinks service were given out. I didn't like the canapes offered, so was given a couple of dishes of nuts to keep me going. Again, main course food orders were taken whilst drinks were being served.
Food service started from the back of the business class section and by the time they came to us in seat 1, they had run out of starters so had no choice at all. I didn't like the remaining starter so had an additional bread roll instead.
Lunch menu:
Starter: Arabic mezze or Beetroot and ginger salmon - and a salad
Main: Lamb shanks or Seafood bouillabaisse or Pan fried chicken breast or fillet of dory
Dessert: Crepes suzette or Lemon meringue
The Lamb and seafood were good as mains and the crepes suzette were okay.
The food on the outgoing leg seemed to be a lot nicer and more tasty.
We watched a film called The Shooter with Mark Wahlberg and my husband requested the Rocky film on the video which plugs into the seat arm whilst I had a couple of hours sleep.
Prior to landing, afternoon tea was served with a variety of sandwiches, scones and sweets.
Landed on time at 8pm and very quickly through immigration as we were first off the plane and no other flights had come in at the same time. Found the baggage belt and discovered this was shared with an incoming Dublin flight that had landed 30 minutes prior to the Emirates flight so there was no space to stand at the belt and just kept an eye out for bags at a distance. I noticed the Emirates crew bags come off first and then our business class bags so had to do a very swift 'excuse me, excuse me' to the throng of people around the belt to get our two bags - it never ceases to amaze me how people just will not move so you end up just shouting 'excuse me can I get my bag please' even louder to try to retrieve your luggage.
Walked through customs, saw another couple who had been in business class pulled up by the staff - not sure if it because they were dressed in combat shorts/vests/flip flops and just come off business class or just because they were first through the green channel but I'm glad we weren't pulled over as I didn't want to wait any longer to get home.
Gave our names to the chauffeur drive and waited about 5 minutes for the new Mercedes car to pick us up (it always used to be volvos) but apparently the contractor has been changed, before a shortish 30 minute journey home to unpack, put the inevitable load of washing in and go to bed before starting at work again at 8am the next morning. Oh well, back to reality!
