Review of Emirates flight from Cairo to Dubai in First

UAE

EK - Emirates

Flight taken on 19 June 2024
EK928
12:58 03h 18m 17:16
Class First
Seat 2K
YGeorgeW
715 · 80 · 4 · 21

First Trip to the Middle East


I had an oprhaned BA flight that I needed to rescue after my stay in Cairo.  At the same time, I didn't want to spend 4 days in London.  So I took the REALLY roundabout way of getting to London via Dubai.  It's not the most efficient use of points, but I really wanted to try the shower onboard and this way I would get two flights and a quick stay in Dubai out of it.

This flight was also a number of firsts for me.  My first flight on Emirates, first flight with an onboard shower, and first time trying a Chevalier-Montrachet.  It was also only my second time ever on an A380 (my first time was flying Singapore's New Suites).


Flight routing


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Cairo International Airport (CAI)


Our Egyptian tour manager insisted that we arrive at the airport 4 hours before departure because it was a holiday and she was really worried about traffic–that turned out to be completely unnecessary as I arrived before the Emirates check-in counters were even open.  Note that there is a first level of security check just to get into the airport.


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After the second layer of security, I went about looking for the Emirates lounge in Terminal 2.  It is up a level, but the signs were very confusing and I wandered around the area for a bit before finally finding the lounge.


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What you want to look for is the MacDonalds–the Emirates lounge is just behind it on the left.  This is very easy to miss if you're coming from the other direction.


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Emirates Lounge (CAI)


The Emirates Lounge is right next to an airport hotel of some sort.


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There are seats for days in this lounge.  Because of how early I got to the airport, I was the only passenger in the lounge for quite a while.  The lounge only began to truly fill up about 90 minutes before boarding.  I spent most of my time here trying (unsuccessfully) to nap a bit.







Most of the window adjacent seats have power outlets between the chairs.


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There was also a dining area with a small buffet.  I skipped it because I had a much better breakfast at my hotel and also needed to save space for onboard.


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A prayer room is available.


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There was a spacious and very clean bathroom (to be expected since I was the first guest).


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I guess the shower rooms were first-come-first-serve, but I didn't ask about the process.


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Internet in the lounge wasn't the best, but it was serviceable.


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EK928


My flight to Dubai would be on A6-EEK, an 11 years-old A380.  As I mentioend above, this would be my second ever flight on an A380, following my Singapore Suites flight back in January 2020.


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Boarding began at 12:17pm.  Just as with Suites, my excitement was through the roof as I walked down the jet bridge to board.


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I was welcomed on board and shown to my seat–2K for this short hop to Dubai.  The FA welcoming me onboard was Claire, who was fantastic.


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Let's go over this rather ostentatious seat first.  In front you have a massive monitor with a lamp to the right, additional light to the left attached to the seat, a vanity mirror, and a pull-out drawer with a pen and notebook.  Per usual, a snack basket is waiting at the seat.  The seat itself is well cushioned, with a tablet remote control to your right (and an additional mini remote underneath that), a small storage right behind that.  On the left armrest is a small storage perfect for eyeglasses.  Then back to the window-side is your mini bar.  Keep in mind this is not chilled.  A power outlet can be found in front and USB ports to the right.

Is it gaudy, ostentatious, and almost a bit too much?  Yes.  But it's also a fairly well thought out seat with all the right tech.







Any luggage just goes right underneath the IFE in front (don't worry, this doesn't get in the way of the bed).


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In between seats is a small closet for your coats and jackets.  It also has the indicator if you turn on your DND.


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Even though this was a daytime 3-hour flight, Claire immediately brought me the pajamas, an amenity kit, and slippers, as well as a tote bag to put everything in.


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A rarity on airlines–these slippers actually have a soft back.  It made for a more snug fit and was quite comfortable.  In my ranking of airline slippers, they're probably right behind Lufthansa First.


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As I mentioned before, the inflight magazine and snack basket were already set up.  I didn't take anything from the snack basket.  I guess you can if you want to, but with so much available in flight, I never bothered.


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The aforementioned drawer with the notebook has a do not remove sign–that's just for the tray.  Feel free to take the notebook and the pen, which were good quality.


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Underneath the vanity are some makeup remover and other things like facial toner.  Again, I was told that I should feel free to take these as well.


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Emirates offers Bowers & Wilkins headphones, which were excellent quality.


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The most important thing I needed was a cup of coffee, which was brought out promptly, with the Emirates logo stenciled in.  What a lovely look!


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I also had a cup of Arabic coffee before takeoff as well.

The purser, Ruth, came by to introduce herself before we got moving.  The announcement proudly explained that there were 24 crew onboard this flight from 18 countries and spoke 15 different languages.  Only on Emirates.


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We pushed back at 12:58pm and took off 19 minutes later.

As with Singapore, I have hard time taking pictures out of A380 windows, so here is a picture of the automatic shades–two levels of shades.


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Right after the seatbelt sign was switched off I went to check out the lavatory.  The front bar had not yet been set up.


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Here is the famous Emirates shower "spa."  The fun thing about A380s is that you can get creative with this forward space.  The room is massive, with all of the amenities you need, including hangers for your clothes, a monitor with the flight map, a tower of towels that is always promptly replaced, fragrances, etc.  You see the what I think is supposed to be the Dubai skyline as part of the art, but this varies by plane (as does the actual bathroom finishes).  I'll discuss the shower later.







Getting back to my seat, Ruth or Claire had already set it up in a lounging position, without my prompting.


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Here is the food menu, in a lovely leather-bound case.  There's an impressive list of mocktails, cocktails, teas, and spirits.  For lunch, nothing particularly fancy outside of the caviar course, but that's often best on an airplane–attempts to be fancy often fall flat because of the constraints.







Most importantly for me, here is the wine list.  At this time, Emirates was still primarily serving the 2013 Dom, which was a great vintage.  Of the recent vintages, I'd place it below '08 and '12, but ahead of '06, '09, '10, '15.  It's a really impressive wine list overall, and doubly so when you consider this is for a 3-hour flight.  Based on what I've seen so far, the quality of the offering doesn't always correlate to the length of the routes.

In the miles and points (and indeed, the frequent traveler world in general), people mostly obsess over the champagne.  You see it reflected in how most airlines spend their premium wine budget.  To focus on the champagne only would be a grave mistake when it comes to Emirates.  More on that later.







Ruth came to my seat about 13-14 minutes after takeoff to take my order.

She then got out the massive tray table, it's fairly heavy.


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Service began 22 minutes after takeoff with the 2013 Dom Perignon.  It's still drinking great.


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Then Ruth set the table for the meal.


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Here were the bread selections for this flight.  Only the the rolls on the left looked interesting to me, so I just picked that one.


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What a massive serving of caviar!  Emirates really isn't joking around when it comes to their unlimited caviar.  I wonder if full flights ever run out.


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As I was wrapping up the caviar course, instead of having more Dom, I switched to the wine I was most looking forward to on this flight: a 2011 Bouchard Pere et Fils Chevalier-Montrachet.  Bouchard is some of the best "value" you can find for Chevalier-Montrachet (and white Burgundy in general) and they're quite consistent.  It was my first time having any of the Montrachet Grand Crus–there's a reason why these are the most expensive and most sought-after chardonnays in the world.  2011 was a good, but not great vintage for white Burgundies, but Bouchard hit it out of the park with this one.  It is a good example that in Burgundy, you should not focus on the vintage or the vineyard even, but rather on the producers.   This was easily the wine of the flight.


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There was a slight mistake with the menu and the smoked salmon I requested was not available.  So I switched to a simple lentil soup.


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I had a red meat course for my main, so I reluctantly switched away from the Chevalier-Montrachet to the Lynch Bages.  It's a fantastic Fifth Growth and consistently outperforms its classification (of course, its price tends to match that performance).  2006 wasn't a banner year for the Left Bank, but this was a solid wine at 18 years.  If I had time I also would have been interested in trying the Penfolds RWT, but this was too short a flight.


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I had the lamb zurbian for my main–nothing fancy, but it was actually quite enjoyable.  The lamb was very tender and flavorful.


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After finishing my main, with about 90 minutes left in-flight, I asked Ruth if I could take a shower.  There wasn't much time left in flight, but she agreed and went to get the shower/spa attendant to set up the shower.  Soon it was ready to go.

I was almost giddy stepping in–it's one of my aviation bucket list items to shower in the air.  The Etihad debacle from the Bangkok trip prevented that from happening back in January, but now I can try it on Emirates!


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There is a choice of different scented shampoo, conditioner, and body wash.


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As I was changing, I realized the floors were heated!


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Once inside, you have 5 minutes of water, which is indicated by the remaining time dial.


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It's easy to start or pause the shower using the button.


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There's also a place to sit down inside the shower.

It was a fun experience, completely unnecessary, but why not?  It also made me feel quite refreshed landing in the Dubai heat.  The water pressure several miles in the sky is also surprisingly strong.


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When I returned to my seat, I found it already cleaned up.


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There was a fruit platter waiting for me.


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Ruth, being the great purser that she is, brought two boxes of chocolates for me to take with.  When she realized I hadn't gone back to the bar, she insisted I go check it out and escorted me there.


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They were cleaning up the bar area, so not much to see, but she offered me some chocolates to try (these are the same ones in the box).


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I grabbed a few to nibble on.


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Soon we were on our final approach to Dubai.  3 hours is truly not enough to enjoy this flight, but it's also incredible how much you can pack into it.  Claire also stopped by to chat a little before we landed.  Both her and Ruth made for a fantastic crew on my first Emirates flight.


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We landed at 5:12pm Dubai time and was reached our gate a mere 4 minutes later.


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From there it was off to immigration, which only took about 10 minutes or so before I was landside hailing an Uber (alas, no chauffeur for the award ticket).


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Display all

Product ratings

Airline

Emirates 9.4

  • Cabin9.5 / 10
  • Cabin crew10.0 / 10
  • Entertainment/wifi8.5 / 10
  • Meal/catering9.5 / 10
Lounge

Emirates Lounge6.6

  • Comfort6.0 / 10
  • Meal/catering7.0 / 10
  • Entertainment/wifi7.0 / 10
  • Services6.5 / 10
Departure airport

Cairo - CAI5.8

  • Efficiency4.0 / 10
  • Access6.0 / 10
  • Services6.0 / 10
  • Cleanliness7.0 / 10
Arrival Airport

Dubai - DXB9.1

  • Efficiency8.5 / 10
  • Access9.0 / 10
  • Services9.0 / 10
  • Cleanliness10.0 / 10

Conclusion

Lounge: As I understand it, Emirates outstation lounges are mostly the same. It's a serviceable and spacious lounge, but nothing too exciting, especially if you're flying first class.

Cabin & Seat: This is one of the most recognizable first class seats out there. It's ostentatious in an almost-annoying way, but actually remarkably comfortable and fairly well thought out. For a larger person, it might feel a little narrow, but for me it was fine. The door was also easy to control. I did not spend any time messing with the IFE on this flight, but WiFi was largely spotty and more or less unusable (not that I tried to use it much).

Service: Ruth and Claire were both fantastic. They went out of their way to make sure I got to enjoy as much of the first class experience on such a short flight as I can. Really can't ask for more.

Meal & Catering: In terms of the meal, it was less exciting after the caviar course. The non-caviar main course was tasty, but all that exciting. It's the wine list, and especially what Emirates offers outside of champagne that is really exciting. Most airlines don't offer anywhere close to the quality of still whites and reds that Emirates does.

Bottom Line: If the routing made sense, I'd fly Emirates First again in a heart beat (despite the price). It's just such a fun time. In this case, the routing didn't really make sense, but I flew them anyways.

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Comments (4)

  • Amazing review of the famous Emirates F! I wish I had enough for this.

    • Thanks for reading, Ryan! The regional routes to/from Muscat and Cairo aren't bad (especially on points), the HKB-BKK is another "cheap" option on points. These are all shorter routes, of course.

  • Wow, I'm super impressed with such a full-service First class experience on such a short flight! That's one hell of a lot of caviar!

    It's ostentatious in an almost-annoying way

    Haha, yes, it's so overly blingy that it just looks tacky, but looking past all the bling, it really is quite a solid product. And of course, their newer F cabins are much more understated

    Thanks for sharing!

    • Thanks for reading, Kevin!

      I'm super impressed with such a full-service First class experience on such a short flight! That's one hell of a lot of caviar!

      I've had a few EK F flights since, and I still think both in terms of service and (caviar in one sitting), this one takes the cake. I of course, could have asked for more caviar on my other flights, but plenty of other things to eat and do.

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