Review of Emirates flight from Amman to Dubai in Economy

Background

This flight was part of a short Middle Eastern trip.
As I mentioned in my Kolkata-Bangkok  and Bangkok-Amman flight reviews, this trip was built around a $367 business class fare for Kolkata to Amman and a chance to fly the Kuwait Airways A330-800. The dates of Royal Jordanian flying to Bangkok and the KU A330neo flying on routes I could take it matched up in a way that left a few days in between. It was a bit too much time to spend just in Jordan and Kuwait, so it made sense to go somewhere else.
Once again, I looked at all sorts of destinations, from Baku to Benghazi, Aden to Casablanca, and Moscow to Port Sudan, in the end settling on the somewhat less exciting Dubai.
The original booking was Etihad Amman-Abu Dhabi and the Etihad bus to Dubai, and the plan was to then go on Jazeera Airways or Kuwait Airways to Kuwait from Dubai. But Emirates had a somewhat reasonable multi city Amman-Dubai, Dubai-Kuwait fare so Etihad was cancelled and Emirates booked instead.
The price for Amman-Dubai and Dubai-Kuwait was $380… these two short flights in economy were more expensive than the whole Kolkata-Bangkok-Amman itinerary in business. I did get a little discount with miles though.

Queen Alia Airport

The flight was originally meant to depart Amman at 6:30 PM, but in the morning an email was received that it would be delayed to 8:45 PM. This was quite frustrating since the hotel room had to be extended and arrival in Dubai became very late.

Here's what AMM looks like from outside.

Arrivals are on level 1 and departures on level 3, there's no level 2.
A look at this evening's departures, everything is in the Middle East.

Have a look at the last flight: Yemen's flag carrier Yemenia to the nation's largest city, Sana'a (the flight was cancelled about an hour later).

For some reason they show the old AA logo for the Qatar/AA codeshare flight to Doha.

There was a security check to get into the check-in area, although it wasn't very thorough. You just had to put your bags through the scanner.
Check-in didn't take too long despite there being a bit of a line.

Our flight is a codeshare with United and Qantas.

The Islamic night prayer played softly during check-in, which was nice to hear.

There was a Christmas tree before immigration/security.

Neither had long lines, but security took a while since they wanted every electronic device to be turned on and they also struggled with explaining things in English.

More Christmas decorations after security.

I saw this Saudia A321neo while walking to the gate, but no other aircraft.

Without anything else to do it was time to wait for boarding.

Aircraft & Boarding

Today's aircraft is 4.4 year old A380-800 registerd A6-EVP.

Boarding was very chaotic, there was one gate for economy and one for business/first, but only one gate actually had the flight information on it and there were at least three separate lines that were all mixed up with each other.

It was a bit of a walk down to the plane as well, there was even an escalator. I got some pictures of our superjumbo on the way down.

Seat & IFE

Nice colors and designs on the seats.

Each seat had a pillow, blanket, and headphopnes.

There was also a screen and USB port along with screen controls under it.

Power outlet hiding under the seat.

Good quality headphones.

The seatback pocket contained a safety card, sickness bag, and magazine/duty free catalogue.

Personal lights and air vents.

I wasted no time getting into Emirates' famous ice (Information, Connectivity, Entertainment) system.

The selection is incredible. I hadn't flown Emirates in close to a decade, and I vaguely remembered them having good entertainment, and of course they are well-known for that, but this was far more than I had expected. I almost wanted to fly them to New Zealand a few times just to actually enjoy the selection since on such a short flight it was barely possible.
My only complaint would be the several minutes of ads at the beginning of each movie but that's fairly normal across most airlines.

Departure

As I was looking through the entertainment the "no-nonsense" safety video was played. Maybe it was because I really wanted to get back to the entertainment, but the safety video felt too long for one that was meant to be very short and to the point. It didn't help that it was played in Arabic and then in English, when both languages really could have been done together.
After that was over, I started to go back to the entertainment - but no, then a video was played to advertise ice and suggest that everyone use it, which I had been trying to do…
Red mood lighting was turned on before take off (later switched to blue).

Looking at the camera.

And we're off! (20 minutes later than the delayed departure time)

Dinner & In-flight

Dinner service started soon after take off.
This is my pre-ordered special meal.

It looked pretty good, but I couldn't really eat much so I just had the cashews. On my next flight I had the brown thing on the right side, I assume it was some kind of bread, and that at least I can say was awful.
I also got some apple juice.

I used the bathroom afterwards, it had nice designs on the door and was realtively clean inside but without additional amenities.

I wish I could go up those stairs…

On the way back to my seat I heard FAs talking amongst themselves and to different passengers in several different languages. The crew on this flight weren't too friendly, but it was cool to hear the diversity of languages.
A look at the cabin during the flight.

Ahead of me there was a group of teenage girls from some sports school. At one point during the flight they brought out a basketball and it looked like they were about to throw it to someone further back… luckily that didn't happen because I don't think it would have ended well 😂
Very frustratingly, the headphones were all taken away more than half an hour before landing.

Arrival & Dubai International Airport

Blue lighting was turned on prior to arrival.

Flying over the suburbs of Dubai.

Welcome to the United Arab Emirates!

Emirates is extremely dominant in Dubai-International, especially in Terminal 3.

We parked next to a United 777, which happened to be the only non-Emirates plane I saw.

It was only then that I noticed the little stars inside our plane.

Orange lighting was added to the blue.

We have officially arrived.

The lights turned red before deboarding.

This part of DXB was new to me, it felt like a big North American airport, wasn't very nice.

Arrivals was extremely chaotic. There were long lines for the lifts to go down into the immigration area, people were rushing and pushing, same thing on the escalators. Immigration didn't take too long, luckily, but I can't emphasize how busy and crazy it was.
Same thing for baggage claim. There were 2-3 flights on each belt (Düsseldorf was on our belt earlier) and even with so many passengers connecting that means hundreds of people crowding around each belt.

It was also very busy after baggage claim. Airport workers were trying to get everyone into the (crowded) waiting area, people were trying to find their rides, there were crowds going in different directions trying to find out where to go. One of the exits from the airport was closed which also complicated things and apparently it was also very difficult for people to park their cars or pick up people from the airport.
Anyway, eventually I got out to spend a few days in Dubai before coming back for the flight to Kuwait. I'll end this report here, thanks for reading.