Day 1 – Manchester to Dubai

December 25th 2008

15 months since the first idea, then 6 months planning and booking, we're on our way.

But first, the small matter of Christmas Day! Early (for us) start to get the last packing and planning sorted, finally cracked getting 1Mb of tunes onto Sarah's phone but as usual technology tries to get in the way and a couple of failures in transferring the data sees my blood pressure going through the roof – small things suddenly take on gargantuan proportions... Skiing lessons from Sarah at the Chillfactor e for me, so no prizes for guessing what type of holiday will be coming up in the next 12 months!

So, slightly later than advertised we're off to Dukinfield for the first visit of the day. Stephen, Louise and Amelia. Yummy sausage and bacon butty (when will we see food like that again??), excellent surprise activity adventure to look forward to and Amelia in good form showing some of her huge array of presents off to us. Lovely start to the day.

Brief stop off at the cemetery then it's on to John and Betty's in Stockport for more pressie exchanging and more activity stuff – what, don't we get out enough?? - this time taster session at the Velodrome, excellent. Sarah on a bike though, that could be worth selling tickets for :-)

Round to mum and dad's for, you've guessed it, more presents – my headphones worked amazingly on the flight – then all back to John and Betty's for Christmas dinner. Dinner lives up to expectations of course, starter, main, pudding, cheeseboard – hmmmm, the stuff that curling up in front of the fire and falling asleep is made for... But no! 5pm, a quick change into traveling clothes and we really are off on the first leg of our journey, a lift to Manchester airport T2.

Christmas Day is certainly the day to avoid the queues! Only 3 flights showing on the board when we arrive. Checkin immediate, no queue at security, we're through the whole process in less than 10 minutes!

Most shops shut of course, but for future reference the food court, duty free, boots and whsmiths are all open (Boots/whsmiths close soon after we arrive) so there's enough distraction to pass the time. Pretty much everyone at the airport is getting on our flight, which is full, and you get some idea of the volume of people they can fit on these things. In its half open state the terminal actually looks quite busy.

Boarding is early, although departure isn't thanks to a broken jetway (ah, Manchester...) but this doesn't ultimately affect our arrival time.

My 2 previous long haul experiences to the far east have both been with Emirates, back when they were a new airline in the early 90s and both experiences were excellent. More recently flying to Dubai, not so good. Perhaps the plane was old, but the seats were uncomfortable and the whole thing just didn't live up to expectations. So far today though we're back to form, new Boeing 777. We had a bulkhead behind us which I was dreading wouldn't allow us to recline, but there was plenty of room and nobody behind us to kick the chairs. Even the 4(?) year old next to us was remarkably well behaved, hats off to the parents traveling to Australia(?) with 4 children alongside us, hardly a peep.

In flight entertainment just amazing, 500 channels to choose from, all starting on demand so no waiting for the next loop. Sarah and I synchronised watching Get Smart, I stuck with it but Sarah switched from the US Ricky Gervais, Mr Carell, to the real one in watching Ghost Town(?). She laughed a lot so perhaps I'll watch it on the next flight if the options are the same. Food good, really does set Emirates apart from my usual airline experiences, didn't have my first choice but the Lamb dish I ended up with was probably even better. Stuck with the water, although Sarah sneaked in some red wine.

Reckon I got about 3 hours sleep in 30 minute bursts so not feeling too bad at time of writing, considering the clock on my computer say 4:43am at the moment.

2 hour transit at the airport. After an incredibly long bus ride to the terminal from the plane Dubai airport is as you'd expect, new, airy, busy, but our gate is at one end of the terminal building so is nice and quiet here.

Anyway, they've just called us for boarding so one last thing. This new Burj tower they're building in downtown Dubai....Outrageous!

(This was free wifi at first attempt, don't expect everywhere to be like this!)