The Emirates First Class A380 – 2021 Edition

It’s been 2 years since the last time I flew the Emirates First Class, and I wanted to see if much has changed ever since then. Although this time around, my goal was to fly my wife in Emirates First Class on the double-decker superjumbo Airbus A380, and for her to experience her first shower on a plane at 40,000 feet up in the air.

This is going to be a long post, but I’ll try as much as possible to keep it not too long. So, thanks for reading along.

After planning our own wedding, my wife and I really wanted to treat ourselves to a Round-The-World trip on some of the world’s best flights and hotels.

In this post:

• St. Regis New York

• The Ritz Carlton Tysons Corner

• Air France Lounge – Washington DC (IAD)

• Le Meridien Hotel Dubai

• The Emirates First Class Lounge Dubai

• Emirates Boeing 777 Business Class

• The St. Regis Maldives Resort
  

• Aerotel Transit Hotel Changi Airport Singapore

• The Longest Flight in the World (Singapore – New York)

• American Airlines Flagship First (JFK – MIA)

• The American Airlines Flagship Lounge Miami

• American Airlines Flagship Business (MIA – LAX)

• Our Round-The-World Honeymoon Trip [External Link]
  
  

BOOKING:

Hearing that Alaska Airlines was ending its’ partnership with Emirates, we quickly locked in this booking. There was no availability for 2 passengers in First Class, and flexibility wasn’t an option for us since this was our honeymoon trip. But I was able to make the booking separately, booking my wife in First Class all the way to Maldives via Dubai, and a mixed cabin booking for me. 

For this booking, we redeemed 150,000 Alaska miles per passenger (300K for the 2 of us) and paid $58 in taxes and fees. The joy of Points and Miles, paying just about $58 for a $30,000 flight.

To be clear, we were both in First Class on our Washington Dulles to Dubai flight EK232, and my wife was in First Class from Dubai to Maldives while I was in Business Class.

CHECKING-IN:

Checking in was kind of less exciting, as the agent struggled while figuring out our PCR Test and other required health declarations as mandated by the Maldives immigration. As a reminder, if you’re traveling to Maldives, you’re required to submit a mandatory health declaration on the IMUGA (Maldives immigration’s) website. Check the website to see what the requirements are.

Emirates does not have its own lounge at Washington Dulles airport, but we were invited to visit their contracted lounge, The Air France Lounge IAD where we spent about half an hour before boarding.

Boarding started as scheduled, and a moment later, we were onboarded our flight EK232 from Washington DC to Dubai. Knowing that there were only 3 other passengers in First Class, I picked Suite 2K for my wife while I was in 3K. There were 4 middle seats available, Suites 3D and 3F eventually became our bedroom in the air.

As I was making some videos for our YouTube channel while the pre-departure drinks were being served, I requested that my Arabic coffee and dates be served right after take-off. Unfortunately, we experienced some turbulence the moment we hit 10,000 feet and it took a little longer before services commenced. Fortunately though, my Arabic coffee and dates were served in a totally different way. I was also offered canapes and warm nuts at the same time with the Arabic coffee and dates.

I did a detailed review of the Emirates First Class in 2019, so this time around, I won’t be showing too many details about the first-class cabin and the suites itself.

INFLIGHT DINING:

Like I mentioned earlier, this was our honeymoon trip, and the previous few weeks before the trip was quite hectic for us. So, even though this was a daytime flight, and a 13-hour flight for that matter, my wife was ready to sleep for the most part of the flight. And before I could get a picture of any of her food, she was already halfway into eating them. Oops! She ordered asparagus soup as appetizer, and prawn machboos for main course. She skipped dessert.

But for me, what’s First Class flight (especially on airlines like Emirates) without Caviar? Right? I love it when I get reminded by Emirates First Class cabin attendants about their Dine-On-Demand service. Meaning that you can dine when you want, and how you want it.

 For appetizer, I ordered Caviar which was quite tasty and well presented.

My wife had mentioned earlier that the prawn machboos was good, so I decided to go for that as well. Each of Emirates food offering comes with a basket of assorted bread.

Right after dinner, I made a quick visit to one of the two lavatories. I was expecting to see some cutbacks from Emirates in some ways, but not at all, the service has not changed one bit despite the pandemic.

LIE-FLAT BED:

I had requested for one of the 2 flight attendants in First Class to help us prepare the double bed earlier so my wife could go to bed, something which they were pleased to do. The Emirates bedding is plush, and very comfy.

We slept for about 5 hours, with still about 5 hours to go. We decided to spend some time hanging out at the onboard lounge. For those who may be reading about Emirates First Class or Emirates Airbus A380 for the first time, both first and business class passengers have access to the onboard lounge which is located at the back of the aircraft.

I don’t usually change to Airlines pajamas during my flight, instead, I just keep them and use as a giveaway or something. But as you can see from the above picture, my wife had her Emirates First Class pajama on.

Emirates Airlines has changed the packaging of its’ Bulgari amenity products. The amenity kit now comes in a more durable bag which looks way better than the old one in my opinion. Though it’s hard to tell, but there’s a slight difference between the female and male bag. You’ll have to pay close attention to differentiate them.

SHOWER ON A PLANE:

We went back to bed for another 2 hours before we were woken up for our shower. My wife and I had scheduled our shower time for 2 hours before arrival. The 30 minutes shower time which comes with only 5 minutes of running water was very refreshing and much needed. This was my third shower on a plane, and first time for my wife.

As I would expect, a plate of fresh fruit and hot tea was waiting for us in our suites right after shower. 

Since it was already morning in Dubai, and for our body clock to start getting used to the time zone, we ordered breakfast for our next meal prior to landing. I ordered egg white omelet, served with rösti, sautéed spinach and baked beans. It was very tasty, just like I had it in 2019 pre-Covid.

HAPPY HONEYMOON:

Just when we thought we’ve received the best inflight treatment from Emirates during this flight, about half an hour before we landed, the purser (Adele T) walked up to our suites with a Happy Honeymoon platter. We had chitchatted a little bit at the beginning of the flight, not knowing she was going to throw us a little surprise towards the end of the flight. 

We found this to be very thoughtful of the entire crew of the flight EK232.

Earlier on during the flight, I needed to quickly get a few things done online, and since I didn’t remember to add my Emirates Skywards account number to this booking, I was not eligible for free Wi-Fi on this flight. But I purchased Wi-Fi access throughout the flight for $20.

To my surprise, the internet speed was great for a Wi-Fi on a plane, and the coverage seem to be stable for the most part.

The flight attendants started preparing the cabin for landing right after breakfast, and our flight landed as scheduled. 

Since we had a day stopover in Dubai before our next flight to Maldives, we were surprised again to see another Emirates staff having our names on her tablet. She fast tracked us through the Emirati / Dubai airport security, and we were escorted to the Emirates First Class lounge.

And even though I was flying business class out of Dubai on our next flight, it wasn’t a problem accessing the lounge since my wife was flying First Class. As a matter of fact, we did a couple of in/out, and there were no questions asked each time we returned to the lounge. It was always welcome back.

We spent some time at the lounge while we figure out our next move. Our plan was to spend a day exploring Dubai, and eventually stop by at the Dubai Expo using our complimentary pass from Emirates, but instead, we had a last-minute change of plans, and we spent the entire day resting at our hotel which was barely 5 minutes from the airport. Le Meridien Dubai Hotel.

MY VERDICT:

Emirates airlines has been one of the best for so many years, and the airlines offers nothing but exceptional service both on the ground and up in the air. We were blown away with the level of service we received during this flight. 

All the flight attendants were awesome, and Adelle the purser took the exceptional service to another level.

There were no cutbacks whatsoever, no modified services or amenities. The only difference you’ll notice is the mask requirement and social distancing.

The airline provided such a great service with the health and safety of its’ passengers and staff in mind.

The meal was great, shower was refreshing, wifey was well rested during this 13 hour flight, and the food at the Emirates First Class lounge was one of the best we had during this our entire $70,000 Round-The-World trip.