Day 32 - Friday 26th June

Today we would be leaving Abu Dhabi to fly back home to Sydney. We set the alarm for 5:45am and went down to breakfast at 6:30. We were the only people there apart from the staff. It was another great breakfast with great service.

As we were leaving breakfast, one of the staff ran up to us to give us a small gift to remember our stay. It turned out to be a nicely presented box of dates.

Originally we'd been aiming to leave the hotel at 8am but at 7:30 we were packed and ready to go and so we called reception for a porter to take our bags. They organised a taxi for us. As always the staff were helpful and attentive.

When we reached the airport at about 8am, a man with a trolley was waiting to help with the bags. Usually we cart the bags ourselves but we decided to let him help because we had an extra bag and, well, why not. We were getting used to being looked after even if it meant we needed to tip someone.

The man had only just starting pushing the trolley towards the terminal entrance, when another man dressed in Etihad uniform run up to us and took the trolley. I shrugged and thanked the first man and followed on.

The amazing thing was that he took us to a separate terminal doorway that is just for business and first class passengers. How did he know we were flying business class? We didn't tell him and he didn't ask.

He escorted us all the way to the check-in counter (where there was no queue) and helped by putting our bags on the conveyor. I'd been tagging along behind taking photos and one of the Etihad staff waiting near the check-in offered to take photos of us.

The Etihad lounge was close to the gate we would be boarding from later. It had an excellent display of breakfast but we didn't need it because we already had an even better breakfast at the hotel. Before boarding Suzy checked out the duty free but decided that what she wanted was still too expensive here.

There was another security check at the departure gate. I'm not sure why. There were plenty of people waiting and so it looked like it would be a full plane. At least there was an air bridge rather than a bus to get on the plane. In fact there were two air bridges - a separate one for business customers.

The plane was about 30 minutes late by the time we took off. I sat in the window seat to take photos of Abu Dhabi (and sand) as we climbed.

It was good to hear Aussie accents with the flight attendants. They we helpful, friendly and provided great service. The seats were comfortable and we had plenty of leg room. One thing they could improve would be to have more places to store things (such as iPad, spectacles, passports and other paperwork) near the seats. Some airlines do this.

They served lunch about an hour after take-off and then closed the blinds to get us in the mood to sleep. As with the flight over, the seat reclined to be almost horizontal and the attendants made up beds for us using mattresses and blankets.