[Jo and Andy]

Looking at flights I could not believe the difference in flight prices for us
to go with Emirates to Christchurch.

Fly from Birmingham, stop over in Dubai, then on to Christchurch, about £500 cheaper than via Sinagpore with SAS from Manchester. (I live in B'ham)

Is there a reason why it is not a good idea?

[Smiler]

Jo

No Its a brilliant idea. Flew over in feb with emirates.

Wanted to again but decided to go via LA to see FIL. Dubai airport is new and v pleasant too.

Would use emirates again over NZ airways.

Deborah

[katandbob]

Looking at flights I could not believe the difference in flight prices for us
to go with Emirates to Christchurch.

Fly from Birmingham, stop over in Dubai, then on to Christchurch, about £500 cheaper than via Sinagpore with SAS from Manchester. (I live in B'ham)

Is there a reason why it is not a good idea?

Hi Jo & Andy, could you give us a bit more info on the emirates route?
we're not far from B'ham

cheers

Kat

[Jo and Andy]

I went to www.emirates.com and did a one way with two destinations I think, came out about £13?? 2 adults 1 child in Nov (bet I did something wrong now).

THought of a 2 / 3 day stop.

Been told that Dubai should be very nice that time of year, good planes, 500 channels on the seat back tv's.

will look more tomorrow.


Where are you from? When are you going?

JO


Hi Jo & Andy, could you give us a bit more info on the emirates route?
we're not far from B'ham

cheers

Kat

[kiwidebs]

Jo, I've never flown Emirates but they always get good reviews. They're right up there with Singapore for service etc. And my friend who lives in Dubai tells me that the humidity and so on get more comfortable from October (she wants me to do the London-Dubai-Auckland route!). Another friend of mine has been to Dubai on holiday twice with two little ones and loves it!

Hope this helps
Debs

[Timbo]

Debs. It may interest you to know ( if you didnt already) that Emirates fly from Gatwick to Auckland, as well as from Heathrow.

[kiwidebs]

Thanks for that Timbo - definately would be easier than Heathrow. Will bear that in mind when we finally get around to booking airfares!!

Debs

[Moorf]

And, for those in Scotland, I believe Emirates fly to NZ from Glasgow !!

[A&R]

We ( me, wife and the 4 kids) flew with emirates for our visit to NZ back in March/April. They were excellent. Its worth knowing they run a skywards reward program. Once you get about 25000 airmiles ( i.e NZ and back) you get upgraded to silver members means you get business class check in facilities and use of their airport lounges etc. Plus you can redeem the airmiles on some of the hotels.
You can also book seats ahead if you have kids whether you are silver members or not. This is brilliant as it saves having to wait in the check in queue.- After checking the length of the queue just run off have a macdonalds or something and then come back when the queue has about 5 in it brilliant! Saves all the hassle with the kids moaning about 'How much longer'!!? etc.
They also have excellent in plane entertainment ( ICE) with tele in the back of all the seats with about 40 games about 50 odd movies and 100's of music channels. The kids wern't bored at all and nor was I . You can even see the runway when your taking off via onborad cameras etc.
On the way home we actually had a delay ( result of problems at melbourne) this carried on to Dubai where we missed the connecting flight. Emirates put us all up ( two interconnecting rooms) in a 5 star hotel with meal tickets and also gave us a ticket for a free tour of Dubai! We didn't mind being late at heathrow!! I would say this was in April we had a picture taken in front of the Al burg 7 star hotel paddling the water the air temperature was 33c and the water 28c just like a bath. I would say it would be too hot in June July etc. but April seemed fine.
We are flying tomorrow and stopping in the JW Marrito courtesy of Emirates airmiles for a couple of days before starting the new life in Auckland.

can't say enough good about emirates they have treated us as if we were royalty.

:D :cheers :exit

[katandbob]

going to join Skywards and earn some bonus points ready for next year - my boss has just flown to singapore via dubai with emirates on thursday - he wont fly any other apparently

[Jo and Andy]

Have been thinking over the weekend that Dubai is a bit early in the journey for the stopover, am going to look at if I can do a stop over with them to Singapore then on the Christchurch.

[Tia Maria]

Jo and Andy,

We felt exactly the same about Dubai being too early to break the journey (First flight= 6hrs 50mins, Second Flight= 15hrs 55mins, refuel, 2hrs 55mins), especially as we want to go fairly direct, and intend to use our sightseeing time in New Zealand, rather than on the way (I believe Emirates stop to refuel in Sydney.)

Original plan was to fly Singapore Airlines, spend a day at Changi airport, using the transit hotel as a base, so the kids could run around before boarding a second night flight to Christchurch and hopefully they will sleep the whole time. That's the theory!

But I've heard good things about Emirates also, so if they do go via Singapore, we would definitely consider them. So please let us know what you find out.

Cheers