The F lounge lift was immediately ahead of us as we deplaned and after asking for directions to the dining area, we sat down and ordered some food. Our (or my) body clock was still sync'd to HKG time so it was about 2-3am for me. However, in Dubai it was "only" 11pm-ish so we decided to have "dinner/supper" instead of "breakfast". Unfortunately, I was too tired and forgot to take a photo of the menu. The buffet spread had changed to a selection of cold meats and salads. We sat down for a "dinner" - Mrs Dark8 had a Laksa. She thought this was a full laksa and was complaining how small it was until she re-read the menu and realised it was meant to be a laksa "soup", and therefore should have been an entree. I had a steak while Z didn't feel like eating and had nothing but a bit of bread from the bread basket.
I was pretty dazed from the lack of sleep, and Z was getting cranky. Luckily the F lounge had a very quiet "rest area" with sofas/lounges that were almost lie flat. I couldn't take any photos of that because the lights were too dim in that room, but we dozed off for about 2-3 hours before my phone's alarm clock woke us up and we had to make our way to T3.
It was our first time at DXB and we had no idea T3 was sooooo far away. There were some notice boards etc which gave us an estimated time as to how long we'd need to walk before we got there, and it was about 30 minutes! To make matters worse, we were boarding at gate 5, and when we got to T3, I saw that the gate numbers were in descending order, that meant our gate was right at the other end of the terminal!! Thankfully, one of those golf carts stopped for us and we hitched a ride up to the gate. By the time we arrived, boarding had already commenced so we quickly unloaded our stuff off the cart and walked into the now familiar F cabin.
I had assigned seats 2A, 3A and 4A again, and this time around all the seats were in perfect working order. I found the service on this leg to be more "warm" and not as "mechanical" as the first leg.
Plane spotting before pushback - I think that might be an EK777?
Palms outside our window after take off
Zoe was enjoying all the little gifts and snack basket she was given.
She had something from the kids meal before we took her for a shower and then drugged her (yes again!) and she fell asleep soon after. Now that I'd flown EK F already, when the FA asked if I knew how the shower operated, I was very proud to say "yes".
The flight was pretty much the same as previous leg, but even shorter this time. I had one meal and showered again before sleeping (without a Henny this time) and woke up about an hour before landing. CDG wasn't as hectic as I thought, and we made our way out to collect our luggage and met our EK chauffeurs. My wife was very impressed with these French drivers as they were tall, young and handsome....thanks wife.....EK arranged for 2 cars for us, one for the luggage and one for us. We sat in the Audi, and the Merc followed behind.
I had booked an AirBNB in the Bastille area, and it took about 1 hour for us to reach our destination. By then, it was around 11am Paris time, and check in wasn't until 1pm. We had a bit of brunch downstairs and waited until check in time before heading to our apartment.
More writing up a bit later on