Great trip report and thx for sharing it! I flew Emirates myself recently, and just loved them (you can find a trip report on my FT page). I am just puzzled by one feature. For the last couple of weeks, all flight between UAE & Europe/USA have been avoiding Iraqi and Syria airspace (because of the ongoing conflict I assume). You can see this yourself on
http://www.flightradar24.com. The flight path of your journey went right over Syria & Iraq. I thought I was interesting to mention, but not sure what to make of it :-).