Note to self, cheaper is not always better. We headed to the LCCT (Low Cost Carrier Terminal) where Air Asia lands the majority of their planes and headed to departure to drop our bags to be greeted with “where is your visa for India?”.

Oh crap, this isn’t going to end well for us and panic quickly came over me as we had a connecting flight to catch in India with Emirates at Chennai. The story goes that Air Asia will not let you board the plan unless you have a valid visa for the arriving country even if it is a stop-over where you don’t leave the airport. So had we been flying to a larger airport say Delhi we would have probably been okay as the airport has a layover terminal.

We were directed to a special F38 desk to see what Air Asia could do and nope they were not letting us on the flight. So i cancelled the Air Asia flight and had a bit of a minor outbreak/panic attack as this was truly going to screw up the rest of the journey if we don’t get to Dubai on time. The desk man said we would have to go back to KL and apply for an visa for India at the consulate all for a 3 hour stop over? No thanks don’t want to see India anyway.

I decided to see if emirates had a connecting flight from here to Chennai but no luck… next while Toni visited the ladies room I quickly checked from KL to Dubai and there was a flight available at 7pm it was currently 3pm but we had to get to the other bigger proper airport about 20min away the KLIT (Kuala Lumpur International Airport). We hopped in a taxi and he was a great driver speeding on the way to the other airport, we didn’t even tell him we were in a hurry.

This airport is huge, new and much nicer than the LCCT. We quickly headed to the Emirates office and I made a call to see what we could do to get a refund on the other flight and purchase a ticket direct to Dubai. The Emirates lady was really nice and told me that she could refund the ticket minus 1000 rupees. My heart sank as that was about $300, so i politely asked for a better deal and she said she couldn’t do any better. Then it clicked, she said 1000 rupees not ringgits and Toni quickly checked the exchange rate and we would loose 10c each ticket! phew panic lifted and we booked flights for Dubai direct from KL on the brand new double-decker Airbus A380. I was excited to get on this new super-jumbo airplane.

We headed to the ticket desk and dropped our bags, Toni was starving but I made her wait till we went through the customs to the other terminal.

This airport is huge, we went from one building to the other via a monorail and arrived to be greeted with an internal rain forest, duty free shopping anf plenty of restaurnats… and another Starbucks. Starbucks is everywhere and to be honest the coffee is pretty average as its 90% milk (which isn;t good for you) and in massive cups… but they have free wifi.

We opted for a light salad and juice for lunch, sat and waited till boarding time at 6pm.

The Airbus A380 is massive with boarding for the special people on the upper level and us cattle on the lower economy. I must say that this is the first time flying Emirates and the service, space, seats and features are sensational. The seats all had TV’s, with loads of movies to choose from, you can even view the cameras on the outside of the plane which is pretty neat. I liked the fact that there are USB plugs and a power socked for you laptop.

The flight was probably only a 1/3rd full so after a couple of movies i grabbed a whole row of 5 seats to lay down. Pretty painless 7 hour flight made easier with the extra legroom not found on AirAsia.

We managed to meed my dad Mike at the airport as he was flying in the opposite direction from Canada to Perth. Our flight stuff up worked out even better as we had time for a coffee and catchup before he had to board his flight to Perth. We have been lucky so far and it was great to see him again.