Mumbai, India (BOM) July 2008: Arriving in Dubai International, Dubai UAE (DXB) from London-Heathrow International, London England (LHR)

04JUL08 Dubai International, Dubai UAE (DXB)

The touchdown was sweet in the darkness of the airport. We taxied into the terminal which took a while. We were hoping that we got a gate this time around as the last time, we got to Dubai, it took forever to get to the terminal.

So taking the later BA flight and connecting over London caused us to arrive at 10:30p as opposed to 6:45p on the nonstop flight from Houston...About a four hour time savings. Not to mention that those folks are on their way to Mumbai already.

We deplaned and followed the signs to the Connection Desk.


We made our way to the congested Connections area. We stopped at the first area we saw and there was no sign of Cathay Pacific Airways (CX). eventually, i caught the attention of an agent and he told us to go to the next Connections section.

There was a huge crowd around the CX desk, but we stood on the queue and waited as time ticked by. The good thing was that our flight did not depart until 12:30a. It was weird the culture in that part of the world has people standing really close to you. So this guy was almost on top of me and I was so uncomfortable that I told him to step back. Eventually, he did.

It was now our turn and after a few minutes, we got a window and an aisle seat. We then cleared the security area and made our way down to the departure level.

Our gate was at the end of the terminal so we got a good taste of the airport. There were people everywhere, sleeping all around the terminal. We were happy that that would not be us on this trip. We walked past a few Lounges and wondered if our credentials would work. But, we had no time to check it out as we were on a mission to our gate.

Eventually, we got there and although they were accepting customers in the gate area, they were going nowhere. So, we just relaxed and sat down as I tried to find an electric outlet. I sat for a while and realized there was free WiFi in the airport. Cool!

I took the chance to check some more hotels and also sent and checked e-mail. Soon, we entered the gate area and made our way down to the waiting bus. This process took some time as the flight was full.

Once on the bus it took us a while to make it out to the plane. It was cool as we approached; it was an Airbus A330 and a Boeing 777-300. I had forgotten which one we were on, but eventually, we pulled up to the middle door of the giant Boeing 777-300!