I’d originally planned for us to get from Chicago to Dubai (via New York and Doha) on Qatar Airways in QSuites (Business Class), but those plans were stymied once we got to the airport due to the timing of our COVID PCR tests (see this post for more about that).
As a result, we were left scrambling trying to find alternative flights to Dubai that night. We got incredibly lucky because Emirates had opened up last minute award availability for at least two seats in both Business Class and First Class on direct flights from Chicago to Dubai. Not only did that mean we could still fly out that evening (and thus wouldn’t have to pay for new PCR tests), it would get us an extra day in Dubai seeing as it was a direct flight. The fact that it was a direct flight also meant we wouldn’t have to worry about layovers in both New York and Doha like we would have with the Qatar Airways itinerary.
Booking in Business Class would’ve been cheaper miles-wise, but I figured it’d be worth splashing out for the First Class experience seeing as the trip was to celebrate both Shae’s 40th birthday and our 17th anniversary. It would also be our first time flying First Class internationally, so this seemed like a perfect time to do that.
Here’s a review of our flight in Emirates First Class from Chicago (ORD) to Dubai (DXB).
Emirates EK236
Chicago (ORD) – Dubai (DXB)
Scheduled Departure Time: 8:45pm August 5, 2021
Scheduled Arrival Time: 7:10pm August 6, 2021
Aircraft Type: Boeing 777-300 ER
Seats: 1E (me) and 1F (Shae)
Flight Class: First
The First Class cabin on the 777-300 is in a 1-2-1 formation and only has two rows, giving it a total of eight seats. We decided to take the center seats in the first row so that we could sit together, rather than sitting separately in the window seats.
The center row has a partition that raises and lowers, so you can choose whether to have it up or down depending on if you’re traveling with someone or flying solo (the photo below shows it lowered).
The seats are lie-flat and have a very large footwell. The footwells likely would’ve been large enough to store our carry-on baggage, but Shae and I were the only two people traveling in First Class that night, so we put our bags in the window seats either side of us.
Our bedding was waiting for us in the back corner of our seat which included a mattress pad, blanket and pillow. In front of the bedding was just one of several storage areas. This one would be good for storing your wallet, glasses, passport, etc., although I didn’t end up making use of it.
In front of the seat was a desk and the in-flight entertainment system. There was a small lamp on the top left, along with a larger lamp on the desk itself. The TV was a very good size and seemed to be 32″ or thereabouts with good picture quality.
On the desk were a couple of face masks, a snack bowl and a sleeping toiletry kit.
The snack bowl included potato chips, mixed nuts, dark chocolate, mixed nuts, hydration tablets and chocolate liquorice balls. I’m not the biggest fan of liquorice, but the Lakrids by Bülow chocolate liquorice balls were amazing.
On the right was a mini bar with various soft drinks in it. Pressing the top left ‘Press’ button in the photo below raised and lowered it.
The other ‘Press’ button released the large tray table.
Above my seat to the left was an additional night light along with an air nozzle.
Stored in the desk was a stationery set (apologies for the quality of the photo – I hadn’t realized it was blurry until writing this review).
To the right of that was both a power outlet and USB charging port.
In the end of the armrest on my right was the input for headphones.
Emirates provides Bowers & Wilkins headphones in First Class. They seemed to be good quality headphones and did a good job of eliminating noise from the plane.
In the right armrest there was a controller for the in-flight entertainment system.
The TV screen itself had a touchscreen which could be used to choose what to watch or listen to, but due to how far back the seat is from the screen, that’s not as convenient. You can therefore use the small controller pictured above or a separate touchscreen console shown in the photo below.
Beneath the console was a second air nozzle which could be angled up when sitting up or down when the seat was laying flat.
The in-flight entertainment system itself had an excellent selection of movies, as well as TV shows, music, games and more. They even had a couple of live TV channels broadcasting the Olympics as those were being held at the time.
At the end of the left armrest was a control pad to adjust the seat, call for service and close the suite’s doors.
Yep, First Class seats on Emirates have doors that you can close. With those closed (and the partition up if you’re sitting in the center seats), you feel somewhat cocooned and have plenty of privacy.
Our flight attendants – Gabriel and Mohammed – introduced themselves, as did the purser Shiraz. All of them were very friendly and did a great job throughout the flight.
Before takeoff they brought us Hydra Active pajamas which were incredibly comfortable and cozy. According to the label on the case they came in:
Hydra Active pajamas are designed to prevent skin dehydration during flight. As you move, the fabric gently releases naturally moisturizing sea kelp, so your skin stays soft. Hydra Active’s patented Microcapsule Technology locks in the moisturizer, so you can wash the pajamas and use them again at home.
With the pajamas came some slippers and an eye mask.
We were also offered champagne which was a bottle of 2008 Dom Perignon. Apparently this retails for ~$250, so probably the most expensive alcohol we’ve ever tried.
Gabriel and Mohammed also brought us a hot towel, along with Bulgari amenity kits which were tailored for men and women and contained all kinds of items.
Having truly settled in, it was finally time to take off. Emirates had a camera at the front of the plane so we could watch it take off.
About 20 minutes after takeoff our champagne glasses were refilled and warm nuts were served.
Due to the fact that we’d only booked our flights a few hours before takeoff, Emirates wasn’t able to provide the full First Class dining experience. While we were at the gate waiting to board, they called to advise that we’d instead be provided with the Business Class dining service. They’d apparently tried to get the First Class dining ordered, but understandably this wasn’t possible with only a few hours notice seeing as they’d not expected anybody in First Class on our particular flight.
That only seemed to apply to the dining service though rather than the drinks service. We were provided with both the Business Class and First Class menus for food and drink and based on the champagne and whiskey we were served, they seemed to have First Class drinks available.
Here’s the First Class wine menu:
Here’s the First Class food menu which also includes other drinks such as cocktails, liquor, etc.
Before takeoff, Gabriel and Mohammed had asked us to let them know anything that we might want to eat from the Business Class menu. That way they could obtain it from the Business Class cabin beforehand and bring it into the First Class cabin so that we could eat on demand rather than at set times.
Here’s the Business Class menu that we could choose from. In the end it didn’t seem like there were too many differences from the First Class menu (pictured above) as most of the dishes that we would’ve chosen were the same as those available in Business Class. The main difference is that caviar wasn’t served which was a bit of a shame seeing as we’ve never had that before, but at least that meant we didn’t know what we were missing out on.
Having had a couple of glasses of Dom Perignon, I decided to switch things up and have some whiskey. I initially chose the Aberfeldy 16 year old single malt as I thought we had to select from the Business Class menu, but Gabriel brought out a bottle of The Dalmore whiskey and asked if I’d like to try that instead, presumably because it’s on the First Class menu.
I decided to go with his recommendation and I’m glad I did as it was very good.
We’d been provided with some mixed nuts earlier and those were followed up with another snack which seemed to be Cool Ranch Doritos with pretzels and then by a small snack-size Twix bar.
About an hour and a half after takeoff, Shae and I decided to have dinner. I chose the smoked salmon carpaccio which came with poached prawns, lemon pepper aioli, olives and cherry tomatoes.
Served with my appetizer was a side salad and a bread basket containing pita, garlic bread and some other kind of bread (I can’t remember what it was). Their garlic bread in particular was fantastic and my smoked salmon carpaccio was exquisite – probably the best smoked salmon I’ve ever had.
Shae was a little more exotic and ordered the traditional Arabic mezze which consisted of hummus, muhammara, baba ghanouj, stuffed vine leaf and Kalamata olives.
For our main course we both ordered the roasted beef filet which was served with thyme jus, gnocchi, grilled carrots and green beans. The filet was extremely tasty, tender and cooked perfectly.
Both Shae and I ordered two items off the dessert menu. I got the chocolate and hazelnut tart and seasonal fruit which was all perfectly ripe.
Shae also went for the chocolate and hazelnut tart, but went for the cheese board rather than the seasonal fruit.
Our plane was equipped with WiFi with three different data plans available:
- Unlimited internet (excludes streaming services) – $19.99
- Text messaging (WhatsApp, Messenger, etc.) – $5.99
- 30 minutes internet – $9.99
All those prices are based on the cost for the entire flight, so very reasonable for our flight of ~13.5 hours. We decided to get the unlimited internet package seeing as it was only $20 and discovered something interesting. It seemed to be tied to my Emirates Skywards account, so we were both able to log in to that account on our phones and use the same package.
The speed wasn’t very good though, so it might be better to stick to the $5.99 messaging package if you don’t really need to browse the internet.
The in-flight entertainment system had both A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II, so I rewatched A Quiet Place first to remind myself of what happened, then watched the second movie.
I got through about half of Part II before I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I dozed off for a while with my seat partially reclined. When I woke up a while later I finished watching the movie, then went to the restroom to change into my Emirates pajamas.
Seeing as we were on a Boeing 777-300 ER rather than their Airbus A380-800, they didn’t have the special bathroom which has an onboard shower. Although I knew that going in to it, I was a little surprised by quite how basic their First Class restrooms are on the 777-300. They were very small and seemingly didn’t have any special amenities, so it was more like the kind of restroom you’d find in economy class on an international flight.
As mentioned earlier, Emirates First Class has lie-flat seats. Not only are these comfortably wide in the first place, but the arm rests also end up at the same level as the seat when it’s lowered which means you have an extra couple of inches of space on both sides.
I started putting my bedding down, but then Gabriel came over to do it for me.
The couple of times we’ve flown internationally in lie-flat seats I’ve had a fairly hard time sleeping. I did better on this flight as the bed was so spacious and the flight was nice and smooth. At first the cabin was a reasonable temperature, but it seemed to get a little warmer as the flight progressed.
Although there were a couple of air nozzles that could be directed down, I woke up a few times pretty hot. I decided to keep trying to sleep though and managed to get several hours of sleep overall.
One of the nice features of the First Class cabin on Emirates is that the ceiling has stars that light up.
Shae and I both woke up with about an hour left of the flight, so we promptly ordered our breakfast. At the start of our flight they’d asked us to let them know of any food we might possibly want during the flight, so one of the items I asked for was the oven roasted prawns from the Light Bites menu. These came with sautéed spinach and creamy polenta with chives, so I decided to ask for that to be served with my breakfast.
That came out first with some yogurt, fruit and pastries. Although it was a small bowl, it contained far more polenta than it looked which was cooked very nicely, along with three plump, juicy shrimp.
From the official breakfast menu I’d ordered the cheese omelet which comes with grilled chicken sausage, sautéed mushrooms, pan-fried sweetcorn cake and asparagus. I’m not a fan of cheese, but thankfully the cheese was inside the fold of the omelet rather than mixed into the egg itself, so I was able to pick around the cheese.
What wasn’t so good was the chicken sausage. It seemed like it had been microwaved 17 times prior to being served and so was very hard, dry and difficult to eat. This was the only flaw during the entire experience of our flight, so it was very minor in the grand scheme of things. If it hadn’t been cooked so badly, it also would’ve been nice to have two sausages rather than a solitary, small sausage link.
By the time we’d finished eating we only had a couple of minutes to change out of our pajamas before it was time to be seated for landing.
Once we’d landed we got to leave by our own private exit at the front of the plane. Just before exiting, Gabriel handed me a sheet of paper with some music recommendations on it. Earlier in the flight he’d asked what kind of music I liked as I said that I normally prefer listening to music on planes than watching movies.
I shared that my favorite kind of music is epic/trailer music like Audiomachine, Immediate, Two Steps From Hell, etc. This type of music isn’t something that anyone has ever heard of, but when I mentioned Two Steps From Hell, he said “Oh, so Thomas Bergersen” who was one of the two founders of that music company. It was therefore fun that he knew about this kind of music and he said he’d make a list of some similar, lesser-known artists. Sure enough, he remembered to do this and is what he’d written on the sheet of paper he gave me as we departed. This was a lovely, thoughtful touch that made the flight even more special.
Once we were off the plane we were met by a member of the Emirates ground crew. The airline picks up First Class passengers and drives them through the airport to the immigration desk which saves a lot of walking and is a fun end to the entire experience.
The Emirates staff member who met us let us know that we could get a complimentary chauffeur service to our hotel. Once we’d picked up our bags, we therefore made our way to the chauffeur service desk. Unfortunately it turned out that the service is only complimentary when booking a paid First Class ticket.
Rather than booking a taxi though, we paid for one of their chauffeurs to take us to our hotel which cost something like $125-$140 AED ($34-$38 USD). Having since taken several taxi rides in Dubai, that cost is probably 2-3x how much we would’ve paid for a regular taxi, so we’d go that route in the future rather than paying for a chauffeur again.
Final Thoughts
We had a wonderful experience flying from Chicago to Dubai in Emirates First Class. We missed out on the full First Class dining experience seeing as we only booked our flight a few hours before it departed, but their Business Class dining and First Class drinks experience was fantastic nonetheless.
Gabriel and Mohammed were both excellent at their jobs, our seats and bedding were extremely comfortable and it was an all-round amazing way to fly.
The restrooms were surprisingly small and my breakfast sausage was drier than Death Valley, but those were the only minor flaws on an otherwise excellent flight.
How We Paid For Emirates First Class
It cost 136,250 Emirates Skywards miles and ~$180 in taxes per person to fly from Chicago O’Hare to Dubai in Emirates First Class, so 272,500 miles and ~$360 total. Emirates is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards, so I transferred 273,000 miles from American Express to Emirates. Thankfully these transfers are near-instantaneous as we were trying to book a flight for that night.
Due to how soon we booked our flights before takeoff (only a few hours), the flights were no longer bookable online. I therefore had to call Emirates, but that process was very smooth – the phone agent spoke very good English and he was extremely helpful and friendly.
I’m not sure how much the First Class tickets would’ve cost for our particular flights, but looking at similar flights it looks like one-way flights in Emirates First Class from Chicago to Dubai cost more than $10,000 per person. Getting to have that experience by redeeming points was therefore a fantastic opportunity.
Check Out All The Posts From Our Dubai/Egypt/Jordan Trip
- It’s Time For Shae’s Secret Birthday Extravaganza!
- Flight Review: Emirates First Class – Chicago (ORD) To Dubai (DXB)
- Hotel Review: Grand Hyatt Dubai (1 Bedroom Grand Suite)
- Awesome Dubai Desert Safari For Shae’s 40th Birthday
- 1 Week In Dubai: Here’s What We Did
- Hotel Review: Ramses Hilton In Cairo, Egypt
- Exploring Babylon Fortress In Old Cairo, Egypt
- Visiting The Pyramids Of Giza In Cairo, Egypt
- Hotel Review: Marriott Mena House In Cairo, Egypt
- 6 Days In Cairo, Egypt – Here’s What We Did
- Our Dead Sea Experience: Floating, Mud & Tequila Shots!
- Hotel Review: Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa, Jordan
- 10 Tips For Driving In Jordan
- Visiting Petra In Jordan – One Of The New 7 Wonders Of The World
- Hotel Review: Petra Marriott, Jordan
- 1 Week In Jordan – Here’s What We Did
- Flight Review: Turkish Airlines Business Class – Istanbul (IST) To Chicago (ORD)
- Hotel Review: Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport, IL
- Spending Breakdown: 3 Weeks In Dubai, Egypt & Jordan – Here’s What It Cost
Glad you had a special flight for your special occasion! Normally the F lav will have flowers and F amenity items. Guessing your booking missed the cut-off for catering to get those items loaded. Still beats economy, right??
Absolutely!
Wow what a great trip!!Those PJ’s sound really cool! where can you buy them?? Can’t wait to hear more..We did FC Lufthansa once with miles and loved the Dom and Caviar. If you need to try the Caviar-the French Laundry in Napa is doing a Pop-Up Caviar venue…..FYI
I’ve heard good things about The French Laundry, so that sounds awesome. I’ve also heard good things about Lufthansa First Class, so it’d be great to experience that some day too.