chugo101

We're flying out on Sat 26th Aug from Birmingham to Melbourne (stopping at Dubai for a couple of hours on route) with Emirates Airline.

Can anyone tell me if these are a good airline food and entertainment wise and how they are with children - I have a very restless 'nearly' 4 year old and an even more restless 2 year old!

I'll also offer a health warning - If my children are on this flight then avoid it!!!

I plan to have a few drinks and have a long snooze leaving my hubby to deal with the chaos!!

TheAshleys

We have flown Emirates twice in a year. They are great.

On the first leg, you will probably be on an Airbus A330 which has a run of the mill entertainment system, 20 odd channels, games for the kids, the movies run one after the other.

On the second leg, you will be on one of their new A340's (I am aircraft nut), and they have new systems on there. 100+ channels, video on demand, you can watch any film any time, pause, rewind, fast forward. Loads of games too. It is absolutely fantastic, the flight flew by !

Food excellent, Dubai airport is the best I have been too. If you can get in the lounge, even better, the breakfasts are great there.

Cabin staff, A1. Only downside, they are a bit tight on the drinks and you have to ask for extra wine etc. Also, some of the resident passengers on the Dubai leg can be a bit funny, but just different cultures I guess. My wife having the person behind remove his shoes and socks and stick his feet through the gap in between the seats on our armrest was not amused !

Overall 9/10

Have a great flight.

Pollyana

Good airline if you can cope with passengers and crew that have the attitude that men are superior and women beneath notice. They dislike serving alcohol ( and only do it cos of the passengers they'd lose if they didn't.)
The praying in the aisles might freak the kids out a bit too.....!
Personally wouldn't fly them again if you paid me, but each to their own

chugo101

Talk about 2 extremes!! I have one who loved it and one who hated it! Any more who have experience of Emirates???

ew502

Hi

We have flown with emirates twice, the second time we chose them because the first time was so nice. The food was good both times, lots of room, lots on the tv, games too. My oh likes to eat and it was never a problem asking for more!!! Never came across praying in the aisles, but did on a korean airline....was a bit scary!!

If I had the money, would always fly with them.

Hope this helps

BandS

I have flown with them on numerous occassions and cannot fault them. The food, service and entertainment was good and I have never seen anyone praying.

Sharon

h2oskineil

Hi we are frequent fliers with Emirates and I have to say I haven't yet seen anyone praying in the aisles.... but I know what they meant.
I think you will see a high propertion of Middle Eastern travellers than you are probably used to.

We have found the 1st leg with the 777 aircraft, it has the 500 channel of entertainment and films on demand. You can select a film, pause and rewind. The second leg is an Airbus, still nice but not such a good ICE system.

Here's a bit from the www about the airline.

Emirates has won the 2006 World Airline Award for the Best Inflight Entertainment - repeating its success of 2005 in this category. The 2006 Best Airline Inflight Entertainment Survey achieved a total of 1,224,356 eligible survey interviews, during the 9 month project period.
BEST INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT


Rank Airline 2005

1 Emirates
2 Singapore Airlines
3 Virgin Atlantic
4 Cathay Pacific
5 Qatar Airways
© Skytrax Research

Commenting on the results, Peter Miller, (Skytrax Director Marketing) said ..... "the importance of inflight entertainment (IFE) to a typical long- haul passenger continues to grow, and in terms of competitive performance ratings between different airlines, the quality of IFE is now a very strong, determinant factor."

"This is particularly applicable than in the Economy class cabin. The largest PTV screens, and most sophisticated IFE options were at one time restricted to First and Business class passengers .... however, as more airlines introduce enhanced programme choices, audio and video on-demand and other IFE amenities, this is a product feature that plays a very important role in final levels of passenger satisfaction".

Neil.

TrickyTree

We recently flew from Brisbane to London using Emirates and would certainly use them again. The only downside I would say is that we had 3 legs there and 3 legs back and of those 6 legs 4 of them used older panes that had the old entertainment system on which was not as extensive as the new ICE system. Food was very good and I found the beer and wine flowed as well as other airlines. Overall I would put them second behind Singapore in airlines I have used.

Johnsyweb

I am sure you will have an excellent flight. We have flown that route a few times now and would definitely recommend Emirates. Great service, impressive food for an airline and no shortage of drinks or entertainment. On some of their newer planes the in-flight entertainment is superb: lots of games, films, TV programmes and every UK Number One Single!

And at the end of it all you end up in Melbourne! What more could you ask for?

Bon voyage!

--paj

Alan Collett

They are my preferred airline (ditto wife and children) when flying to the UK, mainly because they fly into Gatwick rather then Heathrow, and their inflight entertainment on the long flight from Melbourne to Dubai is excellent.

I recommend enrolling in the Skywards Frequent Flyers program: www.skywards.com (the verson for the kids is called Skysurfers: www.skysurfers.com) as after a flight to Australia you'll probably have nearly enough miles for a free trip to New Zealand (Emirates flies onto Auckland from MEL).

Happy travels!

Fiona&malc

We've flown Emirates a few times and no complaints at all, Entertainment was good, as was food, lots too drink and the cabins seemed really spacious. wouldnt worry me flying with them again.

zoe13

i flew with them for the first time last november, from manchester into perth. they were great in as much as i didnt get charged for my excess baggage (should have had only 40kg but ended up with 57kg!) and the plane on the first leg was the one with the better entertainment and comfier seats. unfortunately that was the short leg, and the plane (no idea what it was, i'm not an airplane nut!) for the longer second leg was not so good. however what was bad over both legs was the service, which did surprise me. we were snowed in for 3 hours at manchester and i know that was no one's fault however we only got a biscuit after the initial 2 hours, and nothing after, and no drinks were offered. i was actually nearly 6 months pregnant at the time and the lovely couple i was sat with had to ask the crew for some water for me as i felt quite faint (can i also say before anyone may assume i was a cranky hormonal pregnant woman whinging - trust me, i wasn't, and i have never felt faint before!) ok so getting past the three hour delay, the food was ok on the first leg. on the second leg they seemed to have their meals muddled up, and i had a half frozen veggie roll (veggie=cold mushrooms and that was it) when we should have had dinner, and dinner when we should have had a snack. also i found the seat uncomfy (again nothing to do with being pregnant as i actually lost weight when i was pregnant and never had a sore back, ok!!). on the second leg the staff vanished for long periods of time, and we had our plates left in front of us for around an hour after we had finsihed with them - they had vanished again, they weren't even collecting any plates further up the plane.

the couple i sat next to from manchester said they flew with emirates many many times per year to where he was working in bangladesh. he said they used to be fantastic but that they found the service had declined in the last couple of years. i also sat next to a chap going into perth who worked in qatar and the yemen who flew emirates as his company used them, and he said he wouldn't use them if it was his choice.

i would fly with them again as it may just have been a bad crew, i hope that is all it was. i have normally flown into perth using singapore airlines and i don't know anyone who has faulted them. emirates are cheaper though!