After a hectic 17 days back in the UK to meet our new grandson, check up on the oldies, meet up with friends, collect our post and get our China visas (more on that another time), it was time to resume our adventures.

The Philippines, a nation of over 7,000 islands and a mainly Catholic population of over 100 million had been on Debbie’s radar for a good few years – in fact we came very close to booking a diving trip there just as COVID hit. So with a small window of opportunity before the weather turns and typhoon season arrives in June, it was the obvious place to start the Far East leg of our travels and so flight tickets were booked into Cebu and out to Tokyo way back in October to take full advantage of a 30 day visa.

The Philippines are a bloody long way away, further East than Perth (Western Australia not Scotland), and after our horribly cramped flight from Mumbai to Birmingham we weren’t relishing the prospect of 7 hours to Dubai followed by a further 9 hours to Cebu, even though we had managed to purchase emergency exit seats for both flights. While having a celebratory lunch after retrieving our passports from the China Visa Centre in Manchester, a squeaky 2 days before our flight, Steve decided to do the online check in and was offered a ‘bargain’ upgrade to Business Class. The term ‘bargain’ is obviously relative – this certainly wasn’t a freebie, but we figured that £900 each for 16 hours flight time was worth it especially as Emirates Business Class is supposedly one of the best. Before pressing the button Steve confirmed with Emirates online chat that we could get a refund on the £300 already paid for the emergency exit seats, so in Debbie’s mind that brought the upgrade down to £750 each and she’d just got a surprise tax refund so….. sod it, lets splurge!

Emirates are very clear that promotional upgrades include the in-flight experience only, so no chauffeur car (understandable), no additional baggage allowance (a little mean spirited, but we wouldn’t have wanted it anyway) and NO LOUNGE ACCESS (shocking!). Just in case we were under any illusions that we may be able to blag access to the lounge, they told us again on check in that we couldn’t, and printed it on both sides of our boarding passes.

We might not have been able to get into the lounge, but we’d at least be boarded first and have a glass of fizz in our hands while scuffers class were being herded into their seats. WRONG! We’ve never seen anything quite so chaotic as Emirates trying to board a massive A380 double decker in the ‘cheap’ terminal at Manchester. No luxury whatsoever in an area otherwise used pretty exclusively by easyJet, but perhaps the only place they could fit an A380? First and Business Class passengers were segregated with those requiring wheelchair assistance, and there were a huge number of the latter on our flight. It was comedy watching the Real Housewives of Cheshire in their ultra-designer casual wear and 5 carat diamond rings jostling with elderly and/or infirm folk for prime position in the boarding queue. The wheelchair crowd obviously won the race! Eventually we boarded and our individual seating pods on the upper deck were fabulous and quite bling – semi-private, loads of space, a huge entertainment screen and an iPad-type thing, individual minibar stocked with water and snacks – just as we expected. We got our fizz, and the menu to peruse, and we were off. No sleeping on this flight – we wanted to enjoy every minute! Lunch was a good selection – mezze platter, spicy Middle Eastern prawns and cheeseboard for Debbie; terrine, steak and cheese for Steve. All very beautifully presented, on proper crockery and with real cutlery, and accompanied by really good wines – but it just wasn’t the ‘wow’ that we expected or have experienced in Business in the past. The cabin crew were rather stingy with the wine refills and Steve’s Port didn’t arrive (he was offered another cheese plate to go with a glass of Port when he reminded the stewardess!). The bar at the back of the plane was great – and some folk spent most of the flight there, consuming their fill of premium wines, spirits and cocktails and/or meeting new friends. Debbie visited a couple of times for soft drinks as none were being offered, we watched a film and before we knew it we were descending into Dubai and had a quick 2 hour transit before our onward flight to Cebu. At the gate the 3 people in front of us were all upgraded to First Class – we couldn’t be that lucky could we? No! This flight was on a Boeing 777 – not as nice a Business Class cabin as the previous flight, nowhere near as much space but with fully lie flat beds. It was now after 2am local time and we needed to sleep on this leg, so we did. Debbie had a snack and some nice wine first, Steve was out like a light but woke after about 7 hours in time for breakfast, Debbie didn’t. The Bvlgari amenity kits to freshen up were beautiful – we should’ve got one on the first leg too but didn’t. Overall, Emirates Business Class was nice and both flights very comfortable – definitely worth what we’d paid but we would struggle to justify value for money at full price and would’ve been very disappointed in the service offering too.

We landed at around 1600 Cebu time (0800 UK) the day after we left Manchester, with body clocks utterly confused as we’d crossed so many time zones. We were through immigration in no time, a visa granted on arrival allowing us to stay in The Philippines for a month, bags collected, cash withdrawn from the ATMs (3 lots as the limit per transaction is PHP 10,000 – about £130), and then we got ripped off for a taxi. Not badly, but a pushy dispatch lady insisted that PHP 636 (about £8.50) was the ‘official airport rate’ for the mile or so journey to our accommodation before taking control of our luggage trolley and leading us to a taxi which obviously wasn’t one of the official airport cabs. Hey ho, we’ll know next time – the correct fare was nearer to £2! As we’d not make it to the sea port in time for the last ferry to our destination we’d booked an apartment near the airport which was spacious, comfy and had a shop and Italian restaurant in the building. So large bottles of Filipino San Miguel (about £1.50/litre) and takeaway pizzas it was before a good sleep and starting our Philippines adventure properly and heading to the island of Malapscua in the morning……..