Lounge Review: Emirates First Class Lounge Dubai (DXB) Concourse A

I’ve reviewed the Emirates First Class Lounge at Dubai before, but that was in 2013, so here’s an updated review.

The entrance to the spa is right in front of the entrance to the first class lounge. As a First Class passenger, you’re entitled to a complimentary treatment. This time, I chose a haircut since I never seem to get haircuts as often as I should, and it was pretty decent (although my hair is very simple and unstyled).

I can’t help but be impressed whenever I visit this lounge. It’s huge. Cavernous, almost. It’s also a bit sterile, in that it doesn’t feel “cozy” at all, and the first class lounge is strange in that it’s often only very sparsely populated with passengers, and yet there are tons of staff just standing around with nothing to do.

The lounge has just about every sort of lounge amenity that you could think of. There are video games, TVs, a business center, a formal dining room, a more casual cafe-ish dining area, shower rooms, a spa, shopping, a kids room, a cigar room, a prayer room, a relaxation room, and a shoe shine stand.

I spent some time working in the business center. One thing that could be improved is the wifi speed. The wifi is pretty slow (about 1 mbps down), but it works.

Although I didn’t use it this time around, I’ve taken a nap in the relaxation room before, and it’s plenty comfortable for that purpose. They have pillows and blankets and eye masks at all of the seats. Not a place you’d want to spend too much time given the lack of privacy, but fine if you need a place to lie down for a bit.

One nice aspect of this lounge is the dining area with proper table service. There’s both an extensive menu as well as an extensive buffet for whatever you’re looking for.

Here are photos of the made-to-order menu at the time. Apologies for the hand and camera shadows!

One thing that slightly worries me about the buffet is how often the food gets turned over. The lounge never gets particularly busy, so I’m wondering how long some of the food items sit there before they get thrown out…

I decided to order some food from the menu. To start, they brought out some mezze and some bread and butter. More airlines should serve good bread and butter. Good bread isn’t that expensive, and it’s super good. I think the best bread I’ve had on airlines has been on either JAL or Qantas, and I appreciated the bread and butter served in the lounge here.

Next up I had the spring roll. Which was a spring roll. Not too much to say about it.

For me entree, I had the paneer achari, which was pretty good. A solid vegetarian main, although I wish they had more vegetarian options on the menu.

For dessert, I just had a large bowl of berries. Berries are so great and can be rare to find while traveling!

Overall, the Emirates First Class lounge at DXB is just an impressive physical space. The lounge spans the length of much of the terminal, and you can board directly from the lounge onto A380s. The lounge offers all of the amenities that you might expect from a lounge, and generally does a good job with all of them. The service can be a bit strange given the extreme surplus of workers to passengers (you’d think that would mean that the service would be extremely attentive, but I haven’t found that to be the case), but it’s definitely a treat every time I get to visit this lounge.