Flights to Nice - Friday 11 August to Saturday 12 August

Julie, our chauffeur, drove us to the airport nice and early, and there were no queues for check-in. The Emirates lady at the check-in counter was wonderful. She was able to change our seats from Dubai to Nice, to give us a whole row, later. She said that the flight had lots of space and she had put us at each end of the row and she was sure no one would be put in between. Hopefully my GF meal will still find me.

My GF meal made a nice change from previous Emirates flights out of Christchurch. It was a moist chicken breast with a nice gravy. The bread roll was quite reasonable and would have been really nice if warmed up. The spread was lactose free as well. The dessert consisted of the obligatory fruit salad, but was nice.



The plane left Christchurch on time but there was a delay of 40 minutes being able to get into Sydney. I watched a movie ('Paris can wait') and actually had a 20 minute cat-nap and felt much better for it. Snacks were handed out later and I scored some shortbread when I asked for something GF. We were off the plane for just 45 minutes and then re-boarding for the 14 and a half flight to Dubai.

The flight out of Sydney was very full and there were a lot of young children on board, but they were pretty good in the circumstances. We had our second dinner for the day, this time fish with tomato paste for me. The dessert was different but a bit dry.



This time I watched the movie 'Southside with you'. I can recommend the area we had our seats in (row 48 up the front of the plane), with two good areas for standing and moving about to stretch. There are even five toilets up the front, three of which are more spacious. Not so much queuing! I'm making this note for my own possible future reference!

I used my new portable battery-operated CPAP for this flight. It was a hell of a rigmarole to set up, but only because of the limited space around me and the fact that the seat in front of me was lying back and I couldn't reach or see what I needed easily. In the end I got some good snatches of sleep over a four hour period, and it might have been more if it hadn't been for the Aussie woman with the loud voice in the row behind.

'Midnight' snacks were brought around, including for me, with this being the first time for me that a GF snack has simply been given without a request. I had no appetite to eat it (a beef and chutney sandwich). Another three hours trying to sleep resulted in a few moments here and there. Breakfast was an omelette with asparagus and mushrooms, fruit and ordinary yoghurt, and the lactose-free margarine. I couldn't face the bread. We won't go starving on these flights!



We got into Dubai Airport on time, with their impressive systems for moving people quickly through to where they need to be. A huge mass of people moved quickly through the screening area, and then it was along walking ramps, up escalators, up lifts, along corridors, on a transit train, more lifts, more corridors, and finally to our gate B19. Our seven hour flight leaves in an hour and a half.