February 25, 2017
Emirates 726, DAR-DXB
777-300ER, A6-ECT
Depart: 4:30pm
Arrive: 11:05pm
Duration 5:35
Seat: 7K
Before we knew it, it was time to head home. We again flew from JRO to DAR on FastJet before connecting onto Emirates to Dubai. We’d only found business class award seats for the return trip, but that was plenty comfortable for the long journey. Emirates uses the shared Tanzanite Lounge in DAR which was fairly full with passengers headed to the Mideast and South Africa in the middle of the afternoon when we visited.
View of our FastJet plane on boarding in JRO
Both business and first class boarded through 1L and we made our way back to 7K. Although it has a misaligned window, one of the nice things about 7K is that there’s very little traffic at boarding or during the flight. Waiting for us at our seats were a pillow, blanket, headphones, sock, eyeshade, menu, and a bottle of water. After we settled in, a flight attendant came by offering a choice of juice or champagne.
View from 7K
“Cabin crew, please deplane” was called at 4:20 and we pushed back a few minutes early and began a slow taxi to the end of the runway and department DAR to the northeast at about 4:45.
Farewell DAR
The seatbelt sign turned off as we crossed through 10,000 feet and the service began quickly with scented hot towels and meal and drink orders. I have menu and drink list images if anyone's interested, but Emirates does post them on their website for upcoming flights and they tend to be pretty formulaic. Drinks were served from the galley with hot mixed nuts.
Gin and tonic with nuts
After a bit, the crew came through to lay placemats and served the appetizer tray of a rather boring salmon and a surprisingly decent salad. As appetizers were served, another crew member followed behind offering bread from a bread basket and wine from a wine caddy.
Starter tray
As appetizers were finished, the crew picked up the plates and served entrees hot from the galley. I was quite pleased with the chicken curry I selected although it wasn’t particularly photogenic. The chocolate cake for dessert rounded out a quite nice meal. Kudos to the caterers in DAR.
Lovely chicken curry
Time for chocolate!
After the meal, I reclined my seat and slept fairly soundly until the pilot got on the PA to announce that we were 45 minutes from landing in Dubai. Although the Emirates 777 seat is only angled lie flat, I’ve generally found it perfectly suitable for sleeping. My bigger complaint with the seat is the difficulty of aisle access when the person next to you is sleeping and the presence of a middle seat in business class.
We did a full circle over the desert of the eastern UAE and zigged and zagged our way to DXB where we landed at 10:45 and had a short taxi to a bus gate. Although riding a bus is no fun, it’s always impressive to see a 777 from the ground.
We had a lengthy layover so we headed into town to kill some time and then dozed for a few hours in the lounge before our flight to LAX.