Up at 2:30am, you wouldn’t do that by choice unless it was for a good reason! We did our final pack and were picked up by our driver at 3,15am, out at the airport and through immigration and security by 3:50am and in the Emirates lounge by 3:55. It’s pretty comfortable and we both got some breakfast.
Boarding was from 5am, a short stroll back upstairs from the lounge. We pushed out at 6am.
We had bulkhead seats with a toilet right in front of us. There is no space for storage of things you might need during the flight. On a plus, they provided pyjamas and a comfort pack.
In the air at 6:15am WA time.
Our flight was long and uneventful. I guess I managed around 5.5hrs of interrupted sleep, Deb got a little bit less. I was disappointed at the entertainment system on-board, my touch screen didn’t work, and only 1 of the other 2 options to control the system worked, sort of, the screen was dark and couldn’t be lightened, and very perplexing the movie (The Amateur) I watched was out of focus.
Coming into Dubai the 1st Officer told us it was 38C at 12:45pm. Lucky for us we don’t leave the terminal. Our connection was from the same terminal. (Or so we thought)
As we were on approach the captain all of a sudden lifted the nose and flew around, something must have gone wrong. (A staff member on the ground said apparently the Captain didn’t have permission to land.) So we circled around for about 15 mins. Our connection was looking tight. But we did get a very good view of Dubai
What a shit show the connection was. As we got off the plane we were directed to the right and told there would be someone else further along to give us more directions. Well that didn’t happen, we finished up circling back about 500m before we found the woman who directed us in the first instance, she took us all the way back to where we got to before, got the lift down stairs and then had to wait for a bus transfer to Terminal A, about a 10min drive. I can’t believe how poorly sign posted Dubai airport is. After a couple more missteps we eventually made it onto our plane at 4pm local time, as the gate closed.
The good news with this flight, it has a new fit out and everything works as it should, unlike our 1st flight!
We were in the air at 2.25pm and on our way to Istanbul., it is a 41/2hr flight.
We landed at 5:45pm and were out of the terminal by 6:25pm. We found our driver and were on our way into Istanbul, about a 40 min drive away.
Our hotel, The Pera Palace Hotel, is very old world, established in 1892, has lots of character, and some views of the river.
