I flew EMIRATES FIRST CLASS during the PANDEMIC - was it worth it?

today's video is sponsored by surf shark hello and welcome to another video and good morning it's a very early start for me today i'm at a hotel just by london's heathrow airport and today i'm going to be answering a question that none of you have asked me i'm going to be flying emirates on the a380 in first class all the way to dubai and we're going to find out is first class really still worth it during the pandemic come with me enjoy the video and it's going to be a great one i'm a little bit nervous too so here we are terminal 2 at heathrow and it's such a cold day i'm kind of glad to have my mask on providing a little bit of extra warmth for me today anyway emirates here at terminal two they wouldn't normally operate out of a terminal three which is where their main lounge is um but because of the pandemic terminal three is currently closed emirates now flying from terminal 2 at heathrow before we start a quick note about my airfare i'd paid originally for business class on this ticket and then purchased a cheap 350 pound upgrade to first class this mostly only gives you the right to sit in first class and other services which normally come with a proper full fare first class ticket don't apply lounge access chauffeur drive service eligibility baggage allowance priority check-in baggage priority and your skyward's miles earned will remain as per the originally purchased business class ticket emirates were using the lufthansa lounge as their business class offering which i've been to many times i mean the lufthansa lounge is nice and everything but i'm going to use my priority pass to get myself into the plaza premium lounge here which is far better the plaza premium lounge has nothing to do with emirates and i'm mostly here to show you that it's one of the best lounges available on priority pass you can also pay your way in too with entry starting from 25 pounds for an hour there's a decent buffet which even comes with a small menu of hot items which can be cooked to order [Music] nice overall this is a great lounge even if it doesn't have any windows and while i was here i noted that the aircraft to operate my flight was over 40 minutes late being stuck somewhere over west germany and it should have been starting its approach here [Music] today's video sponsor is surf shark an award-winning vpn or virtual private network surfshark is part of my personal travel arsenal for a whole list of reasons if you're not attracted to the idea of leveraging lower ticket prices or staying safe on public wi-fi maybe the white listing facility industry-leading encryption and a quick kill switch in case you lose internet might convince you to give it a go but i find it so annoying when you can't access some content overseas but surf shark can help activate the vpn and select an appropriate spoof location and voila the content is restored it's dead easy and costs absolute peanuts too you'd be mad not to consider it especially as surf shark have a special deal for my viewers go to surf shark dot deals forward slash winging it for 83 percent off and three extra months for free of surfshark vpn it was so weird looking at that departures board you would have noticed on there the flight to the isle of man now actually that's only a couple of hundred miles away from us here in london it's a crown dependency so it's almost british it's not quite a part of the uk but you still can't travel there because of the restrictions in force on the isle of man which has the ability to control who comes in and out of its borders so you can't go there just a couple hundred miles away and that's perfectly explicable but you can go to dubai so rest assured this is a massive privilege dubai is on the travel corridor list for england uh set by the british government at least that's correct at the time of recording who knows what will change uh and what will be the situation when this video comes out i'll put a little explainer at the bottom uh here in case that's changed but yes terrific pleasure and a privilege to go to dubai i know that most of you who are watching this can't even think about travel for the next few months at least perhaps not even until the summer so fingers crossed i'm gonna have a great experience and hopefully you will enjoy coming along with me too so the aircraft landed about 40 minutes late on its inbound flight from dubai and then there's been some other kind of delay with the cleaning staff getting on board so i've got myself a coffee doing a few laps of the terminal here at the b gates at terminal 2 and yeah i've got a very strange feeling about this flight normally i work very far in advance i'd book my tickets seven eight nine ten months in advance sometimes a year and i look forward to the flights for months and months and months i actually bought this ticket only six days ago our aircraft today is an airbus a380 emirates accounts for over half the world's a380s having a staggering 117 examples our aircraft dates from 2018 a380s use special gates here at heathrow because they require three airbridges including one dedicated to passengers on the upper deck so here we go flight emirates eight to dubai about six and a half hours of first-class luxury coming our way i cannot wait thank you welcome back [Music] yes yes thank you is this one your preference this one's good for me all right because we are here in the galley so now this is good for me it will be fine honestly thank you very much appreciate it no i'm not it's my first time all right then i'll be quickly introduced cool emirates crew come from nearly 150 different countries and the crew on this flight was excellent i actually insisted on sitting in the back seats because i wanted to be able to include the engines in the footage you'll notice the crew are wearing thin white paper coveralls over their uniforms this is all part of emirates anti-covert measures but i rather suspect it's more about providing a visual cue that the airline is taking things seriously rather than providing any safety benefit to anyone but who knows maybe i'm a cynic if you need anything else yeah we are here and we're gonna bring it for you okay excellent thank you uh champagne please thanks a lot that looks good thank you very much [Music] thanks cheers it has been a while since i've done that we're just busy coordinating with air traffic control and i'll keep you updated once i have any further information okay so as we just pushed up there and all of the lights went out in the cabin and there was a complete silence apparently the apu the auxiliary power unit has failed um on this aircraft and we're going back on stand so let's see what happens well apparently whatever problem it was and it seems to be fixed the engines i can just hear starting now it looks like we're finally on our way to dubai [Music] oh [Music] so so london to dubai is 3929 miles and it'll take us about 6 hours and 15 minutes to fly today the airline has wi-fi available on board and the prices were pretty reasonable 15.99 is quite good for a whole flight of this length it worked well and there's even a handy coverage map as well as an online menu particular to the flight this emirates first class seat is well over 10 years old now but still manages to impress the closing door is probably the most obvious feature with the seat and it really does provide quite a lot of privacy the doors close all the way and are full height too there's a ton of storage like this deep bin by the window which should take everything you'd need to stow and more the table is large and sturdy and comes with a ridge meaning things shouldn't slide off easily you can move your seat towards or away from the table electronically although that's the least of its settings the level of choice when it comes to customized seat functions on emirates is mesmerizing my personal favorite seat gimmick is the mini bar though which is actually really cool although there's no alcohol in here now we're on to the gimmicks there's a vanity mirror which is very ott and if you want something really unnecessary in a little draw below the tv is a writing kit whose sole purpose it seems to me is to be removed and kept as a souvenir i like the emirates supplies hygiene kits on this flight now you're not supposed to wear the same mask for too long and there are two spares here plus there's sanitizing gel and gloves if hygiene really bothers you i'm sure we've all seen an emirates first class review before this was my first time actually flying the airline and to be honest i like the suite a lot more than i thought i would the decor in real life isn't as overpowering as i expected okay thank you as we reach our cruising altitude it's time to think about the food on board i'll let the menus play out so you can read them by using the pause function [Music] all right so here we go there are definitely worse places to be at 35 000 feet got the doors closed masks still on though um it is only 19 minutes past 11 uh local time in london which means that really i should be having my lunch um i've just asked the person it is possible to have two hot meals on this wait two lunches even though this is um scheduled only to have breakfast and a lunch dinner service due to the time it was supposed to depart at 9 10 a.m um but i think in the interests of reviewing this product fairly i'm going to be getting a breakfast so i've ordered some stuff for breakfast it's not normally what i would have at this time in the morning but it should be quite interesting breakfast is usually quite an underwhelming meal in business and first class and i'm really interested to see um what emirates make of the breakfast service here on board especially during the pandemic so far so good i can't really see any reduction in service standards um it's absolutely fantastic got my don perignon now i am not a champion expert but this stuff is fantastic it is like manner from heaven [Music] breakfast isn't a meal where an airline can really show off but i really enjoyed what i had everything was beautifully presented and the spinach and goat cheese omelet was delicious as you'd expect there's enough entertainment on board to keep you occupied for weeks and these noise cancelling headphones were excellent [Music] the tv screen is an impressive 32 inches there's so much to see and do with the suite it's kind of easy to be overstimulated but in case you want to change your scenery you're welcome to visit the shower which is for first class only and you can book a slot with the person upon boarding okay so here we are inside the massive shower suite here on the emirates a380 this is available in first-class passengers it is absolutely enormous the lavatory by the way is under here just here we've got a hairdryer i don't think i'm going to be needing it with this amenity kit sick bag i really hope you don't need that in the next 20 minutes blue paper a hanger for your shirt or jacket towel a toiletry selection which i'll be taking with me into the shower really beautiful mirror and sink here and this is the shower which will unlock it's actually pretty big in there and one of the reasons it's so big is this handle and seat here are where you'll sit if you're in the shower and a belt sign comes on it's probably been also installed here for accessibility but this handle and bench are where i've been told to sit in case the seat box sign comes on also worth knowing is you have 20 minutes in the shower suite in total and there is five minutes of water time which you can just see here on this rather funky looking gauge and that is the shower suite on board the emirates a380 unbelievable that you can take a shower at 41 000 feet [Applause] okay so let's see what the water pressure is like on this emirates a380 shower let's go i'm a bit nervous oh hey it's not bad my bed had been made up for my return from the shower there are pjs but i was only sleeping for an hour and i kept them pristine as another souvenir instead as you can see the bed is pretty roomy in flat mode dinner was elegant and the food was of great quality if i had one small comment about emirates food it's that while it was all very good there wasn't really a single dish that blew me away or exceeded expectations i flew business class on the way home from this trip and i don't see a huge difference between the food services but that might just be me we're now on the home stretch to dubai in the next few minutes weather-wise it's a lovely evening it's a very pleasant 21 degrees celsius with a light wind blowing local time in dubai is 21 minutes past 8 p.m we're subject to air traffic control into the bar we in the estimating touchdown at the latest attempt passed time i'd like to take this opportunity to thank you very much the in-flight entertainment concludes with a lavish advert for dubai and a quick survey for now let's enjoy the approach into the airport [Music] [Music] [Music] overall a very worthwhile experience and definitely worth the 350 pound upgrade as a one-off treat emirates high service standards clearly hadn't dropped during the pandemic and i couldn't see any cutbacks in quality excused by the current situation you might think this is the end of the experience and the end of the video but let me just show you the chauffeur setup here in dubai well that's the most efficient arrival i've ever had at a big airport bags were just coming out on the belt as soon as i was through passports now to see if i can find my chauffeur there's basically a big chauffeur terminal as you leave present your id or boarding card get a small ticket with your pre-booked destination and you'll be escorted to a vehicle that's probably a good place to leave things until next time don't forget to visit surf shark dot deals forward slash winging it for 83 off and three extra months for free of surfsharkvpn thanks for watching and i'll see you in the next video

Channel: Wingin’ It! Paul Lucas

Views: 257,772

Rating: 4.861763 out of 5

Keywords: emirates first class, emirates a380 first class, emirates, emirates a380, airbus a380, a380 first class, takeoff, landing, a380 upper deck, first class trip report, emirates first class review, emirates first class trip report, emirates new first class, emirates london to dubai, london to dubai flight, first class, a380 takeoff, emirates safety video, emirates cabin crew, dubai airport, emirates heathrow, paul lucas

Id: c7fOmMrfU0g

Length: 24min 37sec (1477 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 30 2021