jackiedada

4:50 am is a very odd time to depart. From my experience, I've stopped taking EK501 (which is a 4:30 am departure). The reason is that your sleep cycle goes for a toss. you reach the airport around 2:30 am, start feeling very drowsy as you wait for boarding, hardly get 2 hours of sleep on the plane (maybe even less), and then when you just get into deep sleep, its time to land with a headache and red eyes. (The 2nd daily Boston service starting Oct is great news for me as I now have an option to Boston without taking the dreaded 501.)

I'd probably choose an earlier flight and try and get some sleep in the lounge. The lounge is open 24 hours. Head for the B lounge which has some nice comfy sofas where you'll notice several people getting some sleep. You can also go to the quiet area but the sofas are innately more comfortable.

hamburglar

You mean take the early morning MCT flight? What's DP?

jackiedada

Dom Perignon - The champagne that is served in F.

jackal

We did end up doing this--spending our last day in AUH and returning the rental car just before midnight and going straight to the lounge. I stayed awake and got some work done (over a whisky and cigar, which was rather pleasant) and then slept immediately upon boarding the flight to SFO, which actually worked well to get my body clock readjusted for the U.S.; my traveling companion napped on one of the couches and said he slept OK, though he slept more on the flight. We did have breakfast right before boarding.

It was a perfectly fine experience and IMHO much better (and less harried) than waking up at 5am to get to the airport at 6am for the 8am flight, but I'll agree with some of the other posters that it's actually not all that amazing/great of a lounge compared to other great ground experiences (LH FCT, BA CCR, etc.), so I probably wouldn't make an effort to go out of my way to spend a lot of time in it for the sake of spending time in it (i.e. don't plan to give up a day of sightseeing in DXB to arrive at the lounge at 10am for an 8pm flight). That said, for our needs and purposes and our 8am flight, it worked quite well.

DYKWIA

We did that flight last year. It's a killer. Next time I'd get a flight to DXB the day before and stay over in the Airport hotel.

subject2load

Best advice of the thread ^

m3red

Posting this once is enough!

CalFlyer

Recently I wanted to fly from Dubai to Jeddah. I arrived at the airport at ~8pm with the ambition to book myself to the 2am flight to Jeddah when at the airport (my schedule changed short notice, the flight had seats, and I had an open ticket for a later date available). At the airport I learnt that the 2am flight was for pilgrims only, so I could only take the 7am flight.

Here the problem: Since I had a work-related all-nighter ahead of me anyways, I decided I would just wait it out in the airport lounge. So I approached the security post (the one before passport control) with my boarding pass for the 7am flight, and I was refused access to the airport. "This is too far ahead of your flight. You cannot arrive so early. We would only let you pass if you had a reservation for the airport hotel." EK confirmed that this information is correct. All of this happened during Ramadan.

My question for you: How long in advance of your flight can you pass the checkpoint at passport control in Dubai? Anybody knows? ~11 hours seems to have been too long.

LifeontheBeach

I fly J, sometimes F, but if the hotels are charging an extortive rate, I will try to save money and find other alternatives: a cheaper hotel or a lounge. As Jackal said, it's about the experience, as well as somewhat about not paying through the nose.

Money is better off in my pocket than that of the hotel's bank account.

pomkiwi

No direct experience and I guess that the epic stories of setting up residence in the lounge are ususally transit experiences. I wonder if your experience would heave been different if you had arrived at 8am for a 7pm departure? It may be that they tend to be more strict in discouraging long stays overnight.

subject2load

Indeed.

Perhaps part of a new policy to address the (very very) early check-in syndrome.

Reminds me of that spoof thread which cropped up a little while back, discussing the feasibility of spending three or four days in the lounge - as opposed to the more conventional couple of hours or so ......

Am struggling to recall just which poster it was who began that thread

LifeontheBeach

F passengers pay a lot of money to fly. Perhaps very very early check in syndrome (VVECS) should be a part of their benefit.

3-4 days in the lounge?

What was the majority verdict?

subject2load

I think the 'majority verdict' was that lounges are there to kill a couple of hours or so before a flight, whether that means chilling out or catching up on work-related stuff ; but that when it comes to getting a night's sleep, the idea is to use places called hotels

AAJetMan

I spent 30 hours in Changi (SIN, yes, the airport!) earlier this year. Will do the same in Feb.
Now hoping to get at least 16 hours in DXB, although flying to USA so hopefully I'll be able to get an e-boarding pass (as advised on FT) far earlier than the restricted 2-hour advance check-in.

subject2load

Good luck with that - sounds like the most tremendous fun

To coin a phrase ...... you must have a lot of time on your hands !!

I suppose I should qualify my remarks (and sense of bemusement) by adding "each to his own......"