Emirates LHR-DXB on Brand New 777-200LR - Plus JW Marriott & DXB-LHR
Oct 10, 2007, 7:30 am
#1
Ambassador: Emirates Airlines
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Manchester, UK
Posts: 18,611
Emirates LHR-DXB on Brand New 777-200LR - Plus JW Marriott & DXB-LHR
Introduction
This is my first trip report (after promising myself to write one for ages), so please be gentle
The main driver in writing this report is that it will probably be one of the first reports on Emirates’ new B777-200LR aircraft. It also includes a report on the relatively new B777-300ER with lie flat seats in business class.
The whole trip cost a remarkable £182 for 2 business class returns from LHR to DXB, and 7 nights in the 5* JW Marriott in Dubai. How was this achieved? Well, I spent the first half of this year in a Courtyard by Marriott in New Jersey working my nuts off and earning the required 235K Marriott reward points for a Travel Package reward. This got me 70K Emirates FF points and a 7 nights e-Certificate for a category 6 Marriott hotel.
Normally, a Business Class return with Emirates would be 80K miles. However, during the month of Ramadan, they generally half the number of miles required. Thus, 80K got 2 return flights!
The build up started badly. A week before we were due to fly out, I was asked to go to New York for 4 days on business. This meant that I wouldn’t be getting back into the UK until 8am on the day we were due to fly out. As it happened, I finished what I needed to do on the Thursday, so I changed my flight to the UK to a daytime flight which got me back to LHR at 8pm.
With the help of Priceline, I managed to get a room at the Crowne Plaza for £39 which let me get a nights rest before heading out to DXB. The taxi driver at LHR wasn’t too pleased, and used every swear word available to tell me that I was a major inconvenience to him, and costing him a £50 fare into London. He also wasn’t too pleased when I clocked him going a very long route to the hotel, and told him in no uncertain terms that I knew what he was up to. So, I arrived at the hotel fuming, and wondering what exactly visitors to the UK would think if they had the same driver.
Saturday 29th September – Emirates Limo Service
We had a limo booked from Stevenage to Heathrow as part of the deal with Emirates. As it was my partners first time on Emirates, and my first time from LHR, we decided to get there early to enjoy the new Emirates lounge. As my plans had changed, it meant that she would be picked up alone at 11am, to meet me at the terminal about midday (for a 5pm flight). I got a phone call from the limo driver at 11:15am saying that he couldn’t find the address. I phoned my partner, and she eventually managed to get the driver to her house at 11:40! Quite why a limo car with a Sat-Nav system couldn’t find her house I don’t know. He told her that he’d only been given the first line of her address, and not the postcode, but they’d confirmed the postcode to me the previous day when they confirmed the car.
Anyway, the traffic was light, and she arrived at about 12:30pm. There was no queue at the business check-in desks. And we had our boarding passes within 5 minutes. Another 5 minutes saw us through the fast track security and into the shopping mall that is T3 departures. We proceeded to Gate 7 where the Emirates lounge is located.
Saturday 29th September – Emirates Lounge
The dedicated Emirates lounges put other lounges that I’ve used to shame. Even the BA Concorde Room at LHR is poor compared to the Emirates lounge. The lounge is long and thin, and has a fantastic view of the southerly runway. My partner is getting quite worried with my fascination with planes, and this worries worsened when I could not only name the airlines of the planes, but also the aircraft models and engine makers
We settled down in the lounge and helped ourselves to the buffet lunch. This consisted of a great selection of soup, pasta, curry, vegetables, salad, dim sum, kebabs and lots more that I can’t recall. There was also a good selection of beers, wines and plenty of champagne. I settled for the Sancerre, and this would be my choice for the 12 hours or so!
After around half an hour, the 13:45 flight was called, and the lounge emptied. We were the only people in there for about the next hour, and were asked a couple of times if we were Mr & Mrs XXXX who had not yet boarded the flight (the second time was well after the 13:45 departure time).
Saturday 29th September – EK030 – LHR-DXB – B777-200LR
At about 16:30, our flight was called. It was quite a trek to the gate (Gate 35), especially after a few too many glasses of wine. Once we got to within sight of the plane things started looking up! I was expecting an old 777-200, which would have been OK with the Emirates ICE. However, standing out proudly on the nose was the LR suffix. For those who don’t know, Emirates has just started taking delivery of these 777-200LR aircraft. Indeed, the first flights had been less than a month earlier. I didn’t quite get the registration, so I don’t know if it was the latest delivery which was only about a week old.
Once on board (there was no queue), we made our way to our seats in row 11. This is the last row of business class. We had seats A&B on the left hand side of the plane.
The first thing that was apparent was the size of the video monitor. It’s huge, and widescreen format (which is a first for me). It also has the updated version of the Emirates ICE (Information, Communication, Entertainment) system. This takes the already fantastic system to a new level. The picture quality is the best I’ve seen, and the difference between the new and old ICE was marked. The only slight problem was that the films are still distributed in the 4:3 format, but you have the option to zoom in to the 16:9 (widescreen) format. This looked fine, although you do lose a bit of the picture off the top and bottom.
The information part of ICE seems to have changed the most. The moving map is a lot slicker, and the there seems to be a lot more information. For example, the registration of the plane, flight phase (Taxi, climb, cruise etc.) are now included.
Moving onto the seat, this is now lie-flat in business class. I don’t think that the seat goes 180 degrees flat, ie. parallel to the floor, but the flights have around a 3 degree nose up attitude anyway, so it certainly feels flat and comfortable. We both remarked that we thought the seat was more comfortable that the BA First seat. There is also a massage function, which to me is a bit lame. It just seems to vibrate certain parts of our body, which is quite enjoyable, but not what I’d call a massage
Included in the seat is a wireless remote control. This is used for everything from the seat position, through to the ICE control. Everything can be controlled separately if the wireless functions don’t work. This was quite useful in my case, more of which later. Being wireless, I wonder how many of the controls will go missing…
There is also the usual telephone type handset to control volume, channel up and down, swipe credit cards and actually use as a phone.
Push back was bang on time at 5pm (a first for me at LHR!). And we took off at around 5:25. After an initial climb to 6000 feet, we then climbed up to the cruising altitude and headed for Dubai.
This is probably a good time to mention the faults with the plane. Firstly, there was a terrible creaking coming from just behind our seats. This appeared to be the ‘bulkhead’ (not sure what the real word is) that separates J and Y class. This noted by a member of the crew who seemed to be on the flight as a helper/troubleshooter. I got the feeling that Emirates probably do this for the first few flights.
The second problem was with the ICE. The movies worked great, but as soon as the safety videos or any other informational videos were shown, around 30% of the screens went blank. Once these had finished, the movies returned. The troubleshooter made a note of all the seat numbers and rebooted the systems. This was done on a seat by seat basis, and it took around 10 minutes to complete each seat. This didn’t really seem to have any effect, as most of the screens went blank during the Dubai Information video that gets played just before landing (some would say that this is a blessing). I also had a problem about 30 minutes into the first movie. The sound went, and I had to restart and fast forward. After that, it worked fine for the rest of the flight.
The third problem was that my remote control ‘hung’ following the reboot of the ICE. This wasn’t a problem, as all the functions could be achieved by alternative methods, but is something that needs sorting out.
Now on to the service. I get the feeling that it could have been the first 777-200LR flight for a number of the FA’s, so I’ll forgive them for being a bit hit and miss. Following take off, the first time we saw any of the FA’s was 55 minutes into the flight. You could see a few people getting agitated and going to the galley but returning empty handed.
After this things did improve, but the days of the Emirates staff wandering through the J cabin with a bottle of wine to top up glasses seem to be gone.
I won’t go into much detail on the food, but I went for an enjoyable seafood salad to start, following by a prawn curry, followed by a fantastic desert AND (check that BA) cheese and biscuits.
We landed into Dubai around 15 minutes early, but by the time we’d got to our remote gate, we’d used up all the slack. As it was around 3am, the arrivals and immigration area was quiet, and our bags were just coming off by the time we got through. Another 5 minutes and we were in our limo to the JW Marriott.
This is my first trip report (after promising myself to write one for ages), so please be gentle
The main driver in writing this report is that it will probably be one of the first reports on Emirates’ new B777-200LR aircraft. It also includes a report on the relatively new B777-300ER with lie flat seats in business class.
The whole trip cost a remarkable £182 for 2 business class returns from LHR to DXB, and 7 nights in the 5* JW Marriott in Dubai. How was this achieved? Well, I spent the first half of this year in a Courtyard by Marriott in New Jersey working my nuts off and earning the required 235K Marriott reward points for a Travel Package reward. This got me 70K Emirates FF points and a 7 nights e-Certificate for a category 6 Marriott hotel.
Normally, a Business Class return with Emirates would be 80K miles. However, during the month of Ramadan, they generally half the number of miles required. Thus, 80K got 2 return flights!
The build up started badly. A week before we were due to fly out, I was asked to go to New York for 4 days on business. This meant that I wouldn’t be getting back into the UK until 8am on the day we were due to fly out. As it happened, I finished what I needed to do on the Thursday, so I changed my flight to the UK to a daytime flight which got me back to LHR at 8pm.
With the help of Priceline, I managed to get a room at the Crowne Plaza for £39 which let me get a nights rest before heading out to DXB. The taxi driver at LHR wasn’t too pleased, and used every swear word available to tell me that I was a major inconvenience to him, and costing him a £50 fare into London. He also wasn’t too pleased when I clocked him going a very long route to the hotel, and told him in no uncertain terms that I knew what he was up to. So, I arrived at the hotel fuming, and wondering what exactly visitors to the UK would think if they had the same driver.
Saturday 29th September – Emirates Limo Service
We had a limo booked from Stevenage to Heathrow as part of the deal with Emirates. As it was my partners first time on Emirates, and my first time from LHR, we decided to get there early to enjoy the new Emirates lounge. As my plans had changed, it meant that she would be picked up alone at 11am, to meet me at the terminal about midday (for a 5pm flight). I got a phone call from the limo driver at 11:15am saying that he couldn’t find the address. I phoned my partner, and she eventually managed to get the driver to her house at 11:40! Quite why a limo car with a Sat-Nav system couldn’t find her house I don’t know. He told her that he’d only been given the first line of her address, and not the postcode, but they’d confirmed the postcode to me the previous day when they confirmed the car.
Anyway, the traffic was light, and she arrived at about 12:30pm. There was no queue at the business check-in desks. And we had our boarding passes within 5 minutes. Another 5 minutes saw us through the fast track security and into the shopping mall that is T3 departures. We proceeded to Gate 7 where the Emirates lounge is located.
Saturday 29th September – Emirates Lounge
The dedicated Emirates lounges put other lounges that I’ve used to shame. Even the BA Concorde Room at LHR is poor compared to the Emirates lounge. The lounge is long and thin, and has a fantastic view of the southerly runway. My partner is getting quite worried with my fascination with planes, and this worries worsened when I could not only name the airlines of the planes, but also the aircraft models and engine makers
We settled down in the lounge and helped ourselves to the buffet lunch. This consisted of a great selection of soup, pasta, curry, vegetables, salad, dim sum, kebabs and lots more that I can’t recall. There was also a good selection of beers, wines and plenty of champagne. I settled for the Sancerre, and this would be my choice for the 12 hours or so!
After around half an hour, the 13:45 flight was called, and the lounge emptied. We were the only people in there for about the next hour, and were asked a couple of times if we were Mr & Mrs XXXX who had not yet boarded the flight (the second time was well after the 13:45 departure time).
Saturday 29th September – EK030 – LHR-DXB – B777-200LR
At about 16:30, our flight was called. It was quite a trek to the gate (Gate 35), especially after a few too many glasses of wine. Once we got to within sight of the plane things started looking up! I was expecting an old 777-200, which would have been OK with the Emirates ICE. However, standing out proudly on the nose was the LR suffix. For those who don’t know, Emirates has just started taking delivery of these 777-200LR aircraft. Indeed, the first flights had been less than a month earlier. I didn’t quite get the registration, so I don’t know if it was the latest delivery which was only about a week old.
Once on board (there was no queue), we made our way to our seats in row 11. This is the last row of business class. We had seats A&B on the left hand side of the plane.
The first thing that was apparent was the size of the video monitor. It’s huge, and widescreen format (which is a first for me). It also has the updated version of the Emirates ICE (Information, Communication, Entertainment) system. This takes the already fantastic system to a new level. The picture quality is the best I’ve seen, and the difference between the new and old ICE was marked. The only slight problem was that the films are still distributed in the 4:3 format, but you have the option to zoom in to the 16:9 (widescreen) format. This looked fine, although you do lose a bit of the picture off the top and bottom.
The information part of ICE seems to have changed the most. The moving map is a lot slicker, and the there seems to be a lot more information. For example, the registration of the plane, flight phase (Taxi, climb, cruise etc.) are now included.
Moving onto the seat, this is now lie-flat in business class. I don’t think that the seat goes 180 degrees flat, ie. parallel to the floor, but the flights have around a 3 degree nose up attitude anyway, so it certainly feels flat and comfortable. We both remarked that we thought the seat was more comfortable that the BA First seat. There is also a massage function, which to me is a bit lame. It just seems to vibrate certain parts of our body, which is quite enjoyable, but not what I’d call a massage
Included in the seat is a wireless remote control. This is used for everything from the seat position, through to the ICE control. Everything can be controlled separately if the wireless functions don’t work. This was quite useful in my case, more of which later. Being wireless, I wonder how many of the controls will go missing…
There is also the usual telephone type handset to control volume, channel up and down, swipe credit cards and actually use as a phone.
Push back was bang on time at 5pm (a first for me at LHR!). And we took off at around 5:25. After an initial climb to 6000 feet, we then climbed up to the cruising altitude and headed for Dubai.
This is probably a good time to mention the faults with the plane. Firstly, there was a terrible creaking coming from just behind our seats. This appeared to be the ‘bulkhead’ (not sure what the real word is) that separates J and Y class. This noted by a member of the crew who seemed to be on the flight as a helper/troubleshooter. I got the feeling that Emirates probably do this for the first few flights.
The second problem was with the ICE. The movies worked great, but as soon as the safety videos or any other informational videos were shown, around 30% of the screens went blank. Once these had finished, the movies returned. The troubleshooter made a note of all the seat numbers and rebooted the systems. This was done on a seat by seat basis, and it took around 10 minutes to complete each seat. This didn’t really seem to have any effect, as most of the screens went blank during the Dubai Information video that gets played just before landing (some would say that this is a blessing). I also had a problem about 30 minutes into the first movie. The sound went, and I had to restart and fast forward. After that, it worked fine for the rest of the flight.
The third problem was that my remote control ‘hung’ following the reboot of the ICE. This wasn’t a problem, as all the functions could be achieved by alternative methods, but is something that needs sorting out.
Now on to the service. I get the feeling that it could have been the first 777-200LR flight for a number of the FA’s, so I’ll forgive them for being a bit hit and miss. Following take off, the first time we saw any of the FA’s was 55 minutes into the flight. You could see a few people getting agitated and going to the galley but returning empty handed.
After this things did improve, but the days of the Emirates staff wandering through the J cabin with a bottle of wine to top up glasses seem to be gone.
I won’t go into much detail on the food, but I went for an enjoyable seafood salad to start, following by a prawn curry, followed by a fantastic desert AND (check that BA) cheese and biscuits.
We landed into Dubai around 15 minutes early, but by the time we’d got to our remote gate, we’d used up all the slack. As it was around 3am, the arrivals and immigration area was quiet, and our bags were just coming off by the time we got through. Another 5 minutes and we were in our limo to the JW Marriott.
Last edited by DYKWIA; Oct 11, 2007 at 9:05 am
Oct 10, 2007, 8:59 am
#4
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Denmark
Posts: 788
"My partner is getting quite worried with my fascination with planes, and this worries worsened when I could not only name the airlines of the planes, but also the aircraft models and engine makers."
ROFL... Why is it that FT'ers think alike. I managed to mention to my wife that these engines were made by Rolls Royce on a recent EK flight, and based on the expression on her face - I instantly remembered that not all people have an interest in flight related topice
ROFL... Why is it that FT'ers think alike. I managed to mention to my wife that these engines were made by Rolls Royce on a recent EK flight, and based on the expression on her face - I instantly remembered that not all people have an interest in flight related topice
Oct 10, 2007, 12:21 pm
#5
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Germany
Posts: 479
On the way back good food, very good service: I had to stop them with the refills...
This is the problem with EK today: you never know, it's hit or miss...
Oct 11, 2007, 8:03 am
#6
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Malta
Programs: Skywards Silver
Posts: 550
I presume you're referring to the wireless remote. There's a simple solution, all you need to do is replace the remote in it's cradle for it to re-synch and it should return to normal. That is how the system should work but knowing it's new there could be teething problems.
Oct 11, 2007, 8:40 am
#7
Ambassador: Emirates Airlines
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Manchester, UK
Posts: 18,611
I presume you're referring to the wireless remote. There's a simple solution, all you need to do is replace the remote in it's cradle for it to re-synch and it should return to normal. That is how the system should work but knowing it's new there could be teething problems.
To be fair, I didn't mention it to the FA's as I could just use the alternative methods. So, maybe it was something they could have sorted out quite easily.
Cheers,
Rick
Oct 14, 2007, 11:25 pm
#10
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Pennsylvania
Programs: AA Platinum Pro, AC *S, Marriott Gold Elite, Hyatt Explorist
Posts: 9,689
I had fingers crossed for 3x3x3 but I knew such a config would never "fly" with EK. (pun intended
)Cheers,