This year my plan was to visit South Africa September/October, which is springtime in South Africa, but sometime in late January/early February "South Africa fever" crept up on me. I got in touch with my South African friends and after they said I was welcome to come visit for a couple of weeks over Easter and then I talked to my boss who gave me a couple of weeks off.
The next step was to find plane tickets. As usual I ended up in Economy class. This time I wound up with a new (for me) airline; Emirates.
I can't afford Business or First class tickets, and although I travel regularly it's enough to earn enough miles to upgrade. The only time I've experienced getting an upgrade was when I went to Rome in September '15 and the only reason I was upgraded then was because two colleagues discovered they were on the same flight and wanted to sit together. They realized it would be easier to give me person A's Business class seat than it would be to try to persuade the person next to person A to move to person B's Economy class seat and the end of it was that a very formal Lufthansa purser came and "invited me" to Business class. I obviously accepted the invitation.
Anyway, enough digressions...
In the morning of Sunday March 20th it was time to head to Oslo International airport, Gardermoen. I arrived pretty early and after finding the check-in counter for Emirates I checked in to my flight. It was generally a pleasant experience. The staff was friendly and I got boarding passes for both my flights, a Meal Voucher to use at Dubai International airport, and a luggage receipt.
After going through security I did some duty-free shopping and then I headed to O'Leary's pub for a bite to eat while I waited for my flight (as far as I know it's the only eatery at OSL with table service, which is very convenient when traveling alone).
When there was about an hour left 'til departure I headed for my gate. I was a little taken aback by the long queue to get through passport control, but fortunately it didn't take very long and I soon found myself at gate F20.
Oslo (OSL) to Dubai (DXB)
Airline: Emirates Flight: EK 160
Plane type: Boeing 777-300 ER (A6-ENB)
Seat: 47K
The boarding process was pretty efficient. They started with passengers requiring assistance, then families traveling with small children before they started with Business class passengers. When that was finally done they started with Economy class. They boarded us segment by segment and since I had a seat almost all the way at the back of the plan I was one of the first to board.
From row 46 backwards the seat configuration is 2-4-2 instead of 3-4-3 and a buddy of mine had recommended getting a window seat back there. I booked seat 47K not long after I bought the tickets, since Emirates allows you to pre-choose your seat for free.
A blanket, pillow and a set of earphones were waiting in my seat:
Legroom was acceptable:
I was lucky! The lady in seat 47J had been separated from her family. Apparently they hadn't pre-chosen seats and since it was a pretty full flight there were only scattered seats available at check-in. She was very unhappy about it at made a bit of a fuss. The cabin crew worked some sort of magic and found her a seat next to her daughter and husband. 47J stayed empty which I was very happy about!
There was WiFi on the plane and it worked well. Not super fast, but enough for me to keep up with social media, check emails and surf the web. With Emirates you get 10MB for free and for (a whopping) $1 you can buy another 500MB.
The menu for the flight:
The disadvantage of being seated at the rear of the plane is being one of the last to be served. By the time they made it to my seat they were out of the chicken dish, so I was stuck with the salmon. It was ok. The salmon it self tasted good, but the pasta was a bit dry and I didn't even touch the spinach. The starter was good and the dessert was delicious. In total one of the better meals I've had on a plane.
The cabin crew only came around with the drinks trolley once (during dinner service), but they walked around the plane with trays with water and juice several times. I'm sure something stronger could've been arranged upon request, but I didn't feel the need for alcohol and didn't ask.
About an hour or so before landing we were served vanilla ice cream.
In Dubai we parked at a gate at concourse B. After going through security (where I had to be patted down by security because something triggered the metal detector when I walked through) I headed to concourse A. I was keen to test the American chain restaurant Shake Shack and since I had 5 hours to kill I figured I had plenty of time to get over there, eat and get back in time for my flight to JNB.
I'll admit I was a bit overwhelmed by the scale of DXB. It's a massive airport and I've never been to an airport of that size. I was slightly nervous as I stepped into a huge elevator down to the train station (you have to catch a small train to travel between concourse A and B), hoping I wouldn't get myself lost.
Fortunately I found Shake Shack easily and ordered their signature burger, fries and a chocolate milkshake. The burger was rather greasy, but the fries and the shake were both very good.
Straight across from Shake Shack is the Heineken Lounge. I decided to have a beer or three there before returning to concourse B. Free WiFi was a good trade-off for expensive beer, since I couldn't get the airport WiFi and my iPhone to cooperate.
About 90 minutes before departure I decided to head back to concourse B. When I got there I found that the gate for the flight had been switched from B2? to C21. I found the new gate with time to spare.
Dubai (DXB) to Johannesburg (JNB)
Airline: Emirates
Flight: EK761Plane type: Boeing 777-300 (A6-EGG)Seat: 49A
I didn't take pics of the seat, legroom etc on this flight. It was the same as on the flight from Oslo to Dubai and I was bone tired. It was in the middle of the night and fatigue overtook me as I was sitting at the gate, waiting to board.
We took off heading north and then did a U-turn to head south. As we turned we had a great view of central Dubai, including Burj Khalifa (the world's tallest building).
The menu for the flight:
I was asleep before they served the Light Bites. I woke up a couple of hours before landing in Johannesburg, in time for breakfast. I asked for the Scrambled Egg with Chives, but somehow ended up with the Mushroom omelet. The consistency of the eggs were surprisingly good, but there was just too much mushrooms. The chicken sausages were good, the baked beans were decent and the rösti potato tasted good, but was soggy. The croissant was a bit chewy, but with the strawberry preserve on it tasted pretty good. I kind of wished there had been some yoghurt on the tray.
As we approached JNB we had a great view of the Johannesburg skyline:
I'll be in South Africa for another week and Friday April 1st it's time to head back north. I've got a 23 hour layover in Dubai on my way back, which I'm rather excited about.
