Adventure Balloons Avis 

Please DO NOT waste your money like we have.This balloon trip was initially bought by a friend for my partners 50th birthday present LAST APRIL , a year and 4 months later and 12 cancelled trips we are still waiting.We even paid extra for myself to go with him and then when we kept experiencing cancellations we paid ANOTHER £100 so that we could greater our chances of a flight by being able to book also at weekends .....We are still waiting. Upon ringing customer services to ask for a refund we were greeted with the words "ring virgin where you will find their pilot has cancelled also" and " It says in our terms and conditions we do not offer refunds and that is fine if you would like to go to the small claims court , we will see you there" I now wish i had checked the review before we paid out even more money because like other people we really feel that this is a scam.......Hmmm i might even set up my own Balloon Company , what a nice easy way to earn a living !!!! BUT we are hard working, decent honest people who now wish we hadn't even been given this gift , you live and learn !!

Unless you have a lot of time on your hands do not even contemplate throwing away your cash. When you book a flight this may be cancelled up to 4 hours from the planned departure. You then need to re-book, and order to get a free extension to the purchase you have to do this five times. If you don't you have to stump up an additional 40% of the ticket price or wave goodbye to your investment. This means if you have a busy schedule that you need to get booking as soon as possible. To make matters worse the flights are only advertised for a week in advance so the area that you might want to go to might not be available on the date you are. Avoid at all costs.

We have just had our balloon ride cancelled for the 12th - yes 12TH time and our patience has run out. We totally understand the need for the weather to be correct and the health and safety requirements. However today, as it has been forecast for the last week is an absolutely perfect day - beautiful blue sky - calm, not a cloud in the sky or any wind anywhere, yet our balloon ride was cancelled AGAIN yesterday (for the ride this morning) due to "winds above safe limits"!! Having checked your website the conditions outside are the perfect conditions you describe on your site!
We agree some of the cancellations were clearly on bad weather days, many however were not. Most of our dates are weekends as one of the passengers is school age, however we have also booked in the school holidays - which have also been cancelled. We are of the opinion either-
1. The company doesn't want to fly at weekends - the cancellation last week (late on Friday night) suggested we book for the Monday morning as there were some spaces - not possible illegal to take children out of school without permission and how many people can just not turn up to work on Monday morning?!!
2. They over book flights and cancel some last minute
3. They simply don't have any balloons and it is all a big con as some other customers have suggested!

The WORST thing is this was a special present for my son and husband to celebrate significant birthdays, it was expensive £273, but purchased as a special treat to celebrate the occasion. Before purchasing - rather than just buying off the internet I called the office to talk to someone about trying to get the flight on my son's actual birthday (which is now a year ago!) at this time the lady I spoke to should have really enlightened me to the fact that this might not be possible!!! The impact of the weather should be clearly on the front of your website and mentioned when talking to prospective customer - at the very least CLEARLY mentioned in your FAQ, not hidden away in the T&Cs.
Good customer service is about managing people's expectations and this company clearly has no intention of trying to do this, they just want to take your money. Refunds are at their 'discretion' only. Well quite frankly this company is a disgrace and a total disappointment. BEWARE - spend your hard earned cash somewhere better that will actually provide what you think you are purchasing.
Although our latest cancellation text tells us to re-book, when I go to the website this is no longer possible - I am unable to book another flight!! 12 disappointments for £273 - I suggest you use an honest, trustworthy company that is able to deliver what they promise and sell you, this one is just after your money!!

My experience is far from a unique one. If you read the review site that aims to advise on upcoming trips you will see a good 20% of customers have experienced the same shortcomings I have with Adventure Balloons. The simple facts of the matter are that the UK is not a very suitable place for hot air ballooning. It's not. The weather tends to be all kinds of miserable most of the time - look out of the window now and there's a strong chance that you'll know what I'm talking about. Furthermore, if you held out a helium balloon right now what would happen? Would it float directly upwards or would it drift slightly in the breeze? It'll drift won't it, yes. Now consider, this is the test Adventure Balloons use to tell you if you will be hot air ballooning that day and on almost every occasion you will find yourself wedded to the ground. Now, so far this doesn't sound like Adventure Balloons fault does it? And to a certain degree it isn't, however, are they sympathetic to this condition? No. Are there adequate warnings on their website that you are extremely - and will repeat this, extremely - unlikely to fly, not just on the date you initially choose, but if my experience is anything to go by, massively unlikely to fly in the first year you choose, equally unlikely in year 2 and in fact I'm about to enter year 3 of absolute misery. What do I mean when I say misery? OK, so we have established quite well that it's really unlikely that you are going to get your balloon ride any time soon, so you might say, OK, we'll be patient, when we have a spare weekend we will book and if it doesn't happen it doesn't happen, no big deal. But you would be entirely incorrect in this. AB put a quota on how many times they have to cancel you each year and if you don't reach that quota you lose your voucher. As a special piece of good will they will even 'extend your misery - I mean voucher' by relieving even more money from you. and if you really stick with it and waste 10 precious days of your life you will be entitled, albeit entirely at their discretion to 40% of your money back.
Seriously, this is a scam. It is intended to benefit the people who run the racket and nobody else. I can promise you that you will be waiting a long, long time before you either lose patience and decide to cut your losses or make a slight slip-up and AB just cancel your voucher.

Think long and hard before purchasing. Is this the kind of present you want to buy someone?

Personally I think you will regret it if you do.