As seems to be the norm for us, leading up to the vacation things were busy at work. I guess things are always busy for us at work but as we approach vacation all the little things start to pop up at the last minute and the additional trip preparation seems to add to the stress.
Since we were leaving on an evening flight we’d both be working a full day. In the previous days we had done a vast majority of our packing and preparation. When the kids got home from school they packed their backpacks with snacks we were going to bring for the trip, made sure to bring their headphones and some (light) books for the plane and all the other essentials.
Since we would be going from winter to summer weather, the kids wore sweatshirts rather than their winter jackets to save space.
We had packed our clothes into two large suitcases and we each had a backpack which we could use to add any overflow. Luggage has a tendency to get bigger during the course of the trip and the backpacks were our safety valve. While we each had a generous allowance of two checked bags, we didn’t want to have to drag around another suitcase if we didn’t have to. Packing is my superpower and everything fit relatively easily.
To the airport
We hailed a Lyft and I was surprised to get one in just a few minutes. Where we live it’s usually 10-20 minutes to get one since we’re in the suburbs. This was also Valentine’s Day Evening around 5:30pm so I also thought we’d have a longer wait than average but by chance the driver happened to be driving by our house on the way into the city. SCORE!
There was normal rush hour traffic though we were mostly headed in the opposite direction of most of it. We were in the airport by 6:30pm. At the Emirates check in desk there was already a surprisingly long line for economy checkin even though the flight wasn’t leaving until 10:15pm. Luckily there were two economy lines. One was for people that had not yet checked in and the other was for those that had checked in online. Luckily I had checked in online the day before!
While there were only 4 groups ahead of us, it still took a solid 15 minutes for us to get to the counter where we were able to check our bags and get tags for our carry on backpacks. They also printed out our boarding passes which I had requested in case the passes on the Emirates app didn’t work. With our big bags checked it was time to get some food for the boys who were getting increasingly hangry.
Dinner
Boston Logan airport has several lounges that belong to the Priority Pass program which we each have with some of our credit cards. There are also two restaurants participating int he program. None of the restaurants are in the international Terminal E which we would be flying out of, but one of them was located in the adjacent Terminal C and didn’t require going through security to get to.
Priority Pass membership is a benefit of several of the high end credit cards my wife and I have including the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. The program allows you access to certain airport lounges around the world for free. The membership provided by our credit cards also allows us to bring ourselves and two guests. That is inconvenient when traveling as a family of four but since we both have the card it’s not really an issue.
Recently the Priority Pass program has included some restaurants in the program. At participating restaurants you are entitled to a credit of $28 plus an extra $28 for one guest. The credit covers any food and beverage purchases as well as taxes, but does NOT cover gratuity. If you buy more than you have credit for then you pay the difference (plus the tip). If you buy less than the credit then you owe nothing except the tip. Always be sure to tip on the full amount!
The restaurant in Terminal C is Jerry Remy Sports Bar and Grill. Jerry Remy is a famous broadcaster for the Red Sox and the food is baseball themed and typical sports bar grub. It’s located BEFORE security.
It was not busy on this Valentines Day evening (shocking!) and we found a table. We told the waitress that we both had Priority Pass cards and she explained that we could get 2 $28 credits per card for a total of $112 against food and drinks on our bill, but that would not count towards a gratuity, just as we expected. We were quite happy to have quite a large amount to put towards our bill.
The kids were starved so we quickly ordered our food including appetizers which we don’t normally get when we’re paying for it. The waitress asked if we had any particulate time constraints which was nice. We didn’t because we had a few hours before our flight, but if we had a tighter turnaround it’s nice to know they would try to accommodate us.
Overall the food we had was above average. It certainly wasn’t destination dining, but the food was tasty, well prepared and presented nicely. We even had money left over to split a couple desserts and just fit under the total credit so we didn’t owe any additional. We left a generous tip in cash for the waitress.
Security
After we settled the check, we didn’t owe anything else on the bill and we left a healthy tip for the waitress. We then headed to security. Our last experience in Terminal E security was that they didn’t have TSA PreCheck which allows for expedited security lines where we don’t have to takeoff our shoes. We were in Terminal C which DOES have TSA PreCheck and it IS connected to terminal E (there is no Terminal D at Logan). It wasn’t busy in the terminal so we figured we’d see if we going go through the PreCheck line in terminal C and avoid having to take off our shoes, take out our computers and all that hassle. To our surprise they let us go through.
The only problem was that for whatever reason, the printed boarding passes had two with my wife’s name on it but none had Tomatico’s name on it. The seats were all correct, but two had the same name and Tomatico didn’t have one with his name on it so they understandably wouldn’t let us through.
With that we had to trek back to Terminal E and try to get that sorted out at the ticket counter. It was a 10 minute walk and when we got back to the Emirates counter, the lines was EXTREMELY long. Even the line we had originally been in for those who had already checked in online was out past the ropes. It was going to be a LONG wait.
Then I realized I had the Emirates app on my phone and double checked to see if the electronic boarding passes were still there. They were and they had the correct names on them. With that we decided to try our luck with those in the security line and save our time at the ticketing counter.
In the Terminal E security area the line was surprisingly short. Our experience has been that it’s always crowded and chaotic but I guess fewer people were traveling on Valentines Day. When we got to the agent he noticed that our tickets had TSA PreCheck on them and he asked if we wanted to do PreCheck instead of the normal line. We definitely did and he pointed us to a different agent nearby that we hadn’t seen before. Apparently the international terminal now has a PreCheck line!
We got in line behind a number of pilots and crew and were through security in about 5 minutes with no issues and a whole lot less stress than if we didn’t have the App (or Precheck).
Lounge
From there we were off to the Air France lounge which is a lounge that is part of the Priority Pass network. We had been to the lounge before a previous trip and enjoyed it more than the other Priority Pass lounge in that terminal. My wife and I each swiped our cards and brought in one guest since we couldn’t all get in on one card.
Since it was Valentines Day the lounge had cupcakes and chocolate covered strawberries as special holiday offerings. It wasa nice touch. Lounges are great because they are less stressful and more comfortable than the gate areas (normally). It was relatively quiet the evening we were there.
We had some last minute snacks to make sure we were full for the 12 hour flight ahead of us. We knew there wasn’t going to be much of anything of interest to eat offered on the plane. We had put a lot of thought into which snacks to bring and hoped we had selected enough of the right things. Time would tell!
About 5 minutes before our scheduled boarding time was to begin we headed up to our gate which was on the other end of the (relatively small) terminal.
Boarding
By the time we got to our gate they were boarding families with children. They waved us through and we were at our seats within minutes. Our seats were as expected in the center section of the second row of the main economy section. We packed our stuff away and settled in for a long flight.
We found the entertainment system used the dreaded two prong headphone jacks. Luckily the airline provided a relatively decent set of headphones for us to use. Luckily I had an adapter I could use with my noise cancelling headphones. I still don’t know why airlines use those types of adapters. Maybe they break less frequently, but whatever reason, I should get more adapters so the rest of the family can use their own headphones on these flights.
I’m glad we got in early as the people boarding later seemed a lot more stressed than the ones boarding early. Even though it meant extra time on the plane we find it starts the trip off right if we can get on early. Normally we want to board domestic flights early when we’re traveling for business because we don’t check our bags, but on these international family flights we usually check bags so that’s not the reason. The kids are more relaxed on the plane than they are waiting in the gate area and on the plane they have access to the entertainment system. They don’t get a lot of screen time at home so when they have it on vacation it’s something the get pretty excited about!
The seats, while still economy seats, were quite comfortable. As someone who’s relatively tall (6′ 2″), I’m very sensitive the the space between the seats and how uncomfortable it can be when my knees are jammed into the seat in front of me. I didn’t have to worry about that on this flight. There was plenty of legroom compared to most domestic flights I’ve been on recently.
Looking through the entertainment system I could see why Emirates has one of the most highly rated systems in the industry. The selection of movies was fantastic. I actually found myself looking at some classic movies I’d never seen such as Lawrence of Arabia which seemed appropriate. Watching it during the flight made me incredibly thirsty which probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It also sucked up a good chunk of the flight since it’s a rather long movie. I also watched Breakfast at Tiffanies and Jaws, all of which my wife was shocked I had never seen before.
There were also a fair number of recent Hollywood movies as well that we all picked through and watched several of. There would still be tons of movies left to watch on the return!
Shortly after the on time takeoff the flight attendants started serving dinner. The kids got their children’s meal first. They weren’t given an option and each got something different for the main course but similar options for the sides and dessert. Neither of them picked at anything other than the candy bar that was part of the dessert. Neither of them looked appetizing in the least.
I stole their waters that they weren’t going to drink because Lawrence of Arabia was making me so desperately thirsty!
The adult main course came by and I found the options similarly inedible. I think I ate the bread and maybe picked at the dessert. This is why be brought our own snacks!
Over the course of the flight they offered us a mid-flight snack and breakfast about 2 hours before we landed. None of us ate much of it. I realize “good” airplane food is hard to do and Emirates didn’t do a better or worse job than other airlines. It was what we expected.
We all slept very sporadically on the flight. My wife slept the best of all of us. I probably slept the worst since I had one kid on each side of me. They either would ask me a question or bump me every time I was about to nod off. Oh well.
I did watch our flight path. We flew a much more southerly route than I would have expected. I thought we would fly over Scandinavia and down through Eastern Europe as the map originally suggested on takeoff (showing the projected route), but we ended up flying over Portugal and Spain and east over the Mediterranean before heading south through Egypt, presumably to avoid Israel which didn’t appear on any of the maps. Likely a little political statement of sorts and something I had seen other bloggers point out.
We landed after just under 12 hours in the air a few minutes ahead of schedule. We didn’t know what to expect as we had never flown this long before but in the end, the comfortable seats and the excellent in flight entertainment system really helped the time go by.
Overall we were really impressed with the flight and ready to get to Dubai!
Tomatico Travels 
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