Hi folks,

We just returned on EK203 earlier today. Here's the scoop:

Pre-flight:
Emirates Chauffer drive picked us up from our hotel on-time at 11pm (again, a Volvo V70 wagon), and we got to the airport comfortably in about 40 minutes. There is a dedicated check-in area for New York F/J passengers, which went very smoothly. We went to the same Emirates Business Class lounge near gate 22, which was as nice as on our inbound flight, and less crowded. Noticed that on the first floor near the toilets, there are 2 showers; however, we didn't use them.

Boarding was relatively smooth (lounge announcement came near the end of boarding). There is additional security screening at the gate, presumably to meet TSA requirements (take shoes/belt off, etc). 1 of the 3 x-ray/metal detectors is dedicated for F/J. Once through the additional security, there is one queue to get to the jetway. Once in the jetway, there are 2 lines -- one for F/J pax, and another for Y pax.

On-board:
Once again, our seats had mechanical problems. Like on the outbound, the individual seat adjustments didn't work on 11K, and to recline, I had to use the "fully lie-flat" and "fully upright" buttons. On the bright side, 11J was fully operational at takeoff. Immediately after take off, the crew had to reboot the ICE system on the entire flight, which brought it down for about 15 minutes. We immediately went to sleep, and missed the warm snack.

Food/beverage service:
- Bottle of water in the seat pocket
- Option of Champange/Orange Juice/Apple juice on the ground
- Warm snack after takeoff
- "On Demand" selection of warm and cold snacks
- Fruit/Yougurt and warm Mushroom Omelette (I forget the other options) prior to landing

Woke up about 6 hours into the flight, and not surprisingly, the warm snack service was over. So, I ordered 2 cold snacks and 1 warm snack. The chicken/shrimp tikka masala salad was pretty good. The cold spicy beef quesadilla was an unpleasant reminder of my college years (think TGI Fridays leftovers sitting in the fridge for 2 days). The flight attendant forgot the warm beef sandwich, but after sampling the quesadilla, I was in no rush to experience any other EK culinary delights.

About 7 hours into the flight, the video on my seat went down.
The attendant tried 2 soft-reboots to no avail, and then claimed "I'm sorry, we're busy in first class -- please be patient with us". The senior crew member arrived about 10 minutes later, and asked another crew member to perform a full seat reboot. Unfortunately, they inadvertendly rebooted Mrs. Billygoat's ICE system, which then experienced the same video problem as I had. All in all, after about 75 minutes of reboots, the ICE systems in both our seats began working (full reboot take 15 minutes) -- however, the seats adjustments in 11K were still limited.

In parallel, we noticed many other people (11D, 11F and 9J) having seat issues. 11D would recline but not go back up; 11F needed to be adjusted manually; couldn't tell with 9J. Keep in mind this was only what we were able to see (there are more J seats on the other side of the gallery). You could see the frustration in the cabin crew's faces; and in converations, some mentioned to us that the new systems have been an operational nightmare; bugs all the time. Apparently the "we're busy in First Class" comment made earlier was in frustration to a seat/ICE/laptop issue up there.

Breakfast was served about 90 minutes prior to landing. The fruit was reasonably fresh, and apricot yogurt tasty, but the omelette relatively bland. Both Mrs. Billygoat and I preferred the omelette we had on South African Airlines in coach just a couple of days earlier. SA just upgraded their coach food a few weeks ago. It still looks like typical coach food, but tastes pretty good -- significantly better than the Emirates J food we've experienced.

We landed about 20 minutes late. Thanks to the morning arrival at Terminal 4, there was practically no line at passport control and our bags were among the first off the carousel, thanks to the J class "Priority" tags. The EK Chauffer service (outsourced to Boston Coach) was waiting right outside the door, and the Cadillac (STS or DTS, I'm not sure) brought us home in comfort.

To answer questions:
Lladnar, thanks for the clarification. As this was my first flight with Emirates, I thought "SkyCruiser" was the name of the super fancy mini-suite found on the A340-500. Upon closer inspection, that is not the case, and this bird does have the SkyCruiser first class seats. (See posting #124 from Emirates777: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...2&page=9&pp=15)

Obviously we did not and have not sat/slept in the SkyCruiser seats, but at initial glance, they didn't seem that much nicer than the new J seats. But obviously Emirates First wins a lot of awards and accolades for a reason.

CTOM9, all the seats are forward facing in a 2-3-2 configuration. Also, its relatively easy to hop over the aisle passenger, even in
fully reclined position.

773ER, I didn't not get any pictures :-(

Summary:
Of the 3 segments (6 seats) we flew with the new J class, only 1 was fully functioning for the duration of the flight. Considering this success rate, and the very clear frustration on the faces of the cabin crew, EK should reconsider their press release:

- When functioning properly, the new seat is really nice seat. However, they really should have gotten all the bugs worked out prior to rolling out, especially on high profile routes such as NYC-DXB.
- Food really needs to be upgraded. I'm far from a picky eater -- and consider it barely acceptable coach chow.
- Upgraded blankets and pillows (in that order) would be nice as well

Thanks for reading!!!!