All this cold weather doesn’t half bring the mood down. Fuel prices are going through the roof, we’re all struggling to keep our homes warm, and now the seasons are teasing us! Our garden flowers, shrubs and climbers are re-budding and daffodils are raising their sunny heads bringing us hope for spring, warmth and sunshine, but then the frost is quickly killing them off again. With the recent snowy conditions, it seems spring has been put on hold entirely! However let’s be realistic, spring will come again and just as we’ve had for the past 5 summers, our summer will all happen at around the same time and be gone within weeks. With the sunny season of late being so short lived, it seems that year on year out we’re not getting enough of a chance to enjoy it and re-charge our batteries. It used to be that we’d look forward to winter after a scorcher of a summer, however now we’re left wanting more!

It’s all very odd, but we’ve found that the key to enjoying your spring/summer is to maximise it! Book as much into Britain’s tiny summer as possible and photograph every moment so that when you look back it will feel as though you’ve actually had one! And what better to put at the top of that list than a fabulous trip 3,000 feet in the air, in a hot air balloon?! This is where we come in…

Adventure Balloons specialise in extraordinary champagne balloon rides across the most beautiful and fascinating parts of Britain, Oxford, Reading, Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Watford, Tring, London, Basingstoke, Hartley Wintney, Guildford, Farnham, Godalming, West Meon, Micheldever, Alton, Winchester, Kent, Sussex and Essex. We are the longest running passenger balloon ride company around London and the Home Counties and have been operating since 1985! People come to us when they want a balloon ride for that special occasion; For birthday presents we offer our unique HAPPY BIRTHDAY balloons, for valentine’s we even have balloon rides just for the two of you (and the pilot of course), we’ve a reputation for attention to detail and tailored service for Wedding balloon rides and proposals and you can choose from a number of voucher designs and even gift box your treat for Christmas surprises! Companies choose us for corporate flights and advertising and recommend us highly for our professionalism where appropriate and more personal touch.

You have all the options you need with us, you can check date availability, book online, order last minute for emailed vouchers or call us for more information and one to one bookings. Our telephone number is 01252 844222, call us local rate for consistently friendly help and guidance. From everyone here at Adventure Balloons, Welcome Aboard!

Organise your ‘pick-me-up’ treat now and you can start the New Year with the knowledge that you have something very wonderful to look forward to. You can book as far ahead in the next 12 months as you like, pick a date which means something to you, or simply celebrate a birthday, Valentine’s day, an anniversary in style. Here at Adventure Balloons we pride ourselves on providing the most unbeatable service tailoring each flight to the individual, creating a moment that will stay with you a lifetime.

You can enjoy an hour’s flight in any of the following locations; Oxford, Reading, Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Watford, Tring, London, Basingstoke, Hartley Wintney, Guildford, Farnham, Godalming, West Meon, Micheldever, Alton, Winchester, Kent, Sussex and Essex. But that’s not where it ends; so that you can make a ‘day of it’ we encourage all passengers to help set up the balloon and take it down again so that they get a real feel for what’s involved in ballooning and how it all works. You will enjoy a champagne toast and finally a flight certificate to commemorate the day and give you a token to remember it by, as if the memory isn’t enough!

We also give you the opportunity to purchase your in flight photo which you can hang on your wall with pride or tuck away in the photo album ready to show your friends and loved ones, along with giving them the exciting story of your day with us. Adventure Balloons were in fact one of the first balloon companies to provide in flight photography for passengers on balloon flights and in 2007 we purchased the world’s top selling digital camera, the Canon EOS400D. We use this camera on all of our balloons to give our customers the highest quality of photography.

For those of you who are more technically minded we are using an f1.8 20mm prime lens to provide better quality images than the standard Canon 18-55mm lens. This way we can guarantee the most professional photograph we can be proud to hand over to our passengers.

If you would like to know more, or would like to make a booking you can do so on our website, or alternatively, you can call us on 01252 844222!

Lindstrand Balloons has a proven and renowned track record of project management, and also boasts the highest available approval rating from the British CAA and the American FAA, and EASA, for the manufacture of lighter-than-air craft! And with the advent of pan-European legislation for balloon maintenance this year, who better to do the checks and walk us through any needed changes than the Managing Director of Lindstrand Balloons himself!?

Due to their high levels of excellence, Lindstrand Balloons make all of our balloons that way ensuring the absolute highest quality aircraft. Then each year their trained inspectors thoroughly check over our fleet of hot air balloons making sure they are up to the British CAA, the American FAA, and the EASA standards. Adventure Balloons have been working as a technical partner with Lindstrand Balloons since they started in 1993, and were in fact one of their first customers.

When Simon Forse the Managing director came to inspect our balloons back in 2009, we were delighted to be told that the burner we’d purchased back in 1993 was in excellent health! Simon was curious to know how many flights it had done since it left the factory and so was obviously more than satisfied when we told him it had flown for 15 seasons with hardly any major replacements! With this he asked if he could put an advert in the UK’s balloon magazine about the burner and of course we were more than happy for him to go ahead! Any publicity’s good publicity right!

So bear in mind that while other balloon operator’s may boast modern equipment, our partnership with Lindstrand Balloons ensures even more than that. Our teams combination of the most modern and the most reliable equipments makes for a ballooning experience you can trust.

For more information about Adventure Balloons or Lindstrand Balloons, please call us on 01252 844222, or simply visit the website where you will find a wealth of information to answer a full range of customer enquiries. For bookings call us on the same number, or simply book online for fast and easy payments and date availability checks.

Are you looking for a new and exciting way to capture your audience’s attention? The best way to do this is to stand out from the crowd. To be different to your competitors gives you a unique selling point, it enables your audience to remember you. Sure, all advertising is good advertising, but if you use the same old approach, you will just blend into the crowd and become the same as all the rest. With a quirky slogan, a catchy tune and some clever marketing, you brands image could be the first thing to crop into potential customers minds when they’re shopping for your area of product or service.

Picture the bill board advert now; what kind of image is likely to draw in your audience base? Have you considered a hot air balloon? At Adventure Balloons, our baskets have recently been used for video and photography shoots for McCains Chips (three nuns floating over the roof tops) Sheila’s Wheels Car Insurance (Pink trim on the basket of course) and now it seems some of our baskets have aspirations to break into flim!

Just look at the image above, if you saw this spread across the typical 14” x 48” billboard, there’s no doubting it would draw you in! Well this is what music photographer Paul Heartfield thought when he wanted to do a photo shoot with The Leisure Society. After contacting us, to hire one of our balloon baskets, we were only too happy to help and with baskets of various sizes, accommodating the seven piece band was not a problem at all. All that was left to do, was combine all the band member on their available dates, with a beautiful blue sky and the perfect countryside setting! And as you can see from the photograph; mission accomplished!

Alternatively, you could always use our balloons to advertise your product, service or new feature by plastering it’s basket in a banner with your company colours, logo, or slogan? Better still, we could even have the balloon itself designed in the shape of your product. Nothing captures passes by more than a hot air balloon, wherever you are and no matter how much of a hurry you’re in, everyone will stop to look up! Research has found hot air balloon advertising as a very effective and cost effective method of marketing your business. Interested? Then why not give us a call on 01252 844222.

For more about Leisure Society try http://www.theleisuresociety.co.uk
and www.myspace.com/theleisuresociety

For band photography go to http://www.paulheartfield.com/

In January this year Adventure Balloons experienced the breathtaking experience of flying a balloon during some of the most beautiful weather conditions! With January 2012 fast approaching, we can only dream of having an equally amazing experience! We flew from France through the Mont Blanc Tunnel to Mondovi in the Piemonte region of Italy a place famous for its annual balloon festival which was being held. This part of Italy produces Barolo and Asti Supmante wines, delicious truffles and quality balsamic vinegar.

As the area lies between two mountain ranges, the winds tend to be very light. Thanks to the time of year, the beautiful landscape was sprinkled in snow making the buildings in the city sparkle and shimmer, a magical look that took our breath away. We flew with up to 30 other balloonists over the town and surrounding countryside and found that the Italians are extremely welcoming with a huge fondness for the Balloon Festival. Wherever you end up landing, you can be sure that you will be welcome and you could see balloons as far as the eye can see flying low among the roof tops for all the people to see.

It really was an experience like no other; in fact on one occasion we flew past a church tower as the midday bells were ringing, far too beautiful for words. Spotted by the bell ringer, every bell in the tower began to chime in an amazing peal; we’re still not sure whether this was to warn us off or to participate in our enjoyment!  The whole area was dotted with churches, we were bound to land near one, however our inspiration came from the Cathedral or “Sanctuary” at Vicoforte near Mondovi which has the largest elliptical dome in the world, or so we were told; what a sight it was!

If you’d like to enjoy Adventure Balloons wealth of experience, we are renowned for giving an experience second to none. What gives us our job satisfaction is tailor making every passengers balloon flight to be individual, stunning and ultimately a wonderful experience, one you will never forget. Perhaps you’d like more information? Simply browse our site where you can even book online, or call us on 01252 844222.

If anyone was going to cross the English Channel in a Hot Air Balloon it had to be Adventure Balloons and my how patient we were! Being the only UK balloon flights company to possess a ‘Happy Birthday’ balloon, of course we had to choose this for the trip!

We exceedingly patiently waited on standby from the beginning of October 2010 for the first Channel Crossing by hot air balloon since 2005! But low-and-behold, October and early November simply didn’t provide the North Westerly winds required to blow us to France by the shortest route (from Dover to somewhere close to Calais). In a normal passenger flight scenario, we leave room for enough gas to get us through an approximate hour flight. Making the crossing did not entail the addition of any passengers and so we obviously had more room for gas, however a crossing with a speed or direction in excess of 2 hours would be tricky and could even result in a rather unfortunate wet dip if the fuel ran out. Obviously not wanting to take this risk, we had to wait it out until the ideal weather conditions arose.

As you can imagine, the organisation and preparation required for an event such as this is quite staggering! It was all hands on deck! Another Balloons Over Britain member company Airborne Balloons (http://www.airborneballoons.co.uk/cross_channel.php) organised the event, leaving the matter of getting the balloon ‘ship shape’ in our hands. This involved the addition of further fuel tanks without compromising on space, radios, cameras, sandwiches and of course the essential ingredient, chocolate. We also had to organise immersion suits and a self inflating 4 person life raft (just in case) which was hired from http://www.aerosafe.co.uk/index.html. To save space the life raft was attached to the outside of the basket as was one of the fuel tanks!

Our hopes were raised on Monday April 4^th when weather conditions appeared spot on; however it wasn’t until a few days later that the event went ahead. At five o’clock in the morning we arrived in the dark at Lydden Hill Motor Racing circuit for the mass ascent and an attempt on the world record for the greatest number of balloons flying the channel! Palletways sponsored the event and were very hopeful. At 6am we had our safety briefing which was shortly followed by the very much anticipated balloon take off at 7:15am. Our balloon, carrying probably the youngest person to ever fly over the channel by balloon, then flew over Dover Castle, overtook the ferry as we sped along at speeds of up to 30knots at 1,000 feet (nearly twice the speed we could safely fly passengers) and having flown over Calais Harbour we landed at Calais Airport at 8.45am, covering about 25 miles in a hour and a half!

What an achievement and what a memorable morning it was!

Are you a ‘die hard’ festival goer? Do you live for your rock? Maybe you’re committed to one festival and go back every year with a reputation for being the king/queen of the fields. I’ll bet you even make your own flag for your tent don’t you….be honest now! Reading Festival is one of the UK’s favourite festivals with a great mix of bands covering music genres from indie to rock, and punk to dance, there’s something for everyone.

With next year’s tickets going on sale on the 2^nd December and talk of them selling out sooner than ever, you’re sure to find that this coming line up will be as good as the last! But have you considered what it would be like to see the whole thing from a different perspective altogether?

Here at Adventure Balloons we have flight locations dotted all over the UK. However on our balloon flights from Prospect Park, during flights at the end of August, our passengers are often lucky enough to see Reading Festival from a new and quite wonderful angle! On August bank holiday Friday evening 2011, our balloon ride passengers were treated to some great aerial views of the Reading Festival. But as you can imagine, with all the rain from the previous few weeks this was another muddy music festival! In fact, one passenger commented, “Best viewed from a distance” and I’m inclined to agree! But if you’ve ever been to a music festival you may remember the breeze the sound waves make leaving those gigantic speakers and how they literally ripple through your hair making it blow around behind you. So as you can imagine, the sound travels very well and we could hear an interesting mix of the bands performing on the many stages!

If you’d like to see Reading Festival from this perspective for yourself, then get in quick. You can book your flights for next summer now either by booking online or by calling us on 01252 844222.

I wouldn’t in a million years have ever thought that any part of England bared resemblance to Africa’s beloved Kenya! With its glorious mountain peaks, its humid climate, its world renowned safaris and wildlife reserves, not to mention its glorious tropical lakes and park land, how on earth would modest England share any similarity at all?

At Adventure Balloons one of our most popular flight locations is Surrey and it’s no wonder really! During the flight, if you’re lucky enough, the wind will take the balloon over Hankley Common which is south of Farnham. Your pilot will introduce you to the common land areas from 3’000 feet in the air and strangely, the land bares a strong resemblance to the game reserves in the Masai Mara in Kenya. We like to get the most out of the flight for our passengers ensuring a memorable experience, so we like to play little games, for example on this flight path there is always a prize for the first passenger to spot a wildebeest! Just to the North of Hankley Common is the start of the River Wey, and if you take a look at the picture (above) of our Happy Birthday Balloon flying over the river as it winds its way to the Mill at Elstead, you’ll see an uncanny likeness of the picture (below) taken by company pilot Kim Hull when flying in Kenya over 15 years ago!

If you’d like the opportunity to see England from the same perspective, why not book your own surrey balloon flight adventure? You can enjoy the breath taking views and enjoy the sheer thrill of Britain’s most dreamed about past time; hot air ballooning. Book online or call us on 01252 844222.

Did we ever tell you about our BBC interview on the local radio station in the Oxford area? Adventure Balloons enjoyed yet another claim to fame via the radio waves where our very own Kim Hull appeared on the Malcolm Boyden’s breakfast show, giving the show the little extra lift (e’hem) they were looking for! But this wasn’t the first, Kim’s has acquired himself quite a repertoire of radio experiences having also taken part in interviews with Chris Evans on Radio 2 and Ellie Harrison on BBC 1!

Kim says;

“I thought Malcolm would want information about our ballooning predecessors such as local Oxford man James Sadler, who was the first Englishman to fly from this country n 4th October 1784 from Christchurch Meadows but he was more interested in the modern day experience of flying in a hot air balloon from Oxford. We were the first company to offer passenger balloon flights from Oxford’s city parks in 1995, persuading the council that it would be a good thing for tourists and locals alike. After the interview Malcolm asked listeners to call in to tell him about their ballooning experiences – ballooning is so reliant on the wind on the day that there is always a story to tell!”

The interview was rounded off with Kim’s usual mug gesture, where Malcolm was presented with one of the company’s giant balloon coffee mugs, perfect for a radio presenter! “We give these to landowners after we land” said Kim “They always go down well”.

Check out the above mug shot

Adventure Balloons enjoys some of the most beautiful areas Britain has to offer. With their pick of launch sites in locations such as Oxford, Reading, Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Watford, Tring, London, Basingstoke, Hartley Wintney, Guildford, Farnham, Godalming, West Meon, Micheldever, Alton, Winchester, Kent, Sussex and Essex, it crystal clear why Adventure Balloons are one of the top choices of Balloon Flight Operators in the UK.

Our Surrey balloon rides however seem to be the pick of the bunch; you can choose from launch sites in Farnham, Godalming and Guildford which offer some of the South’s most stunning historical buildings and rolling countryside.

We launch from sites in Shalford Park Guildford, next to the beautiful St Catherines Chapel and from the Burys in Godalming next to the tranquil River Wey. Also launching from Farnham Park, next to the enchanting Farnham Castle which amazingly still retains its multitude of architectural styles built over the centuries, our Surrey rides are a clear winner!

But what else can you expect to enjoy this unique, birds-eye-view over? During your balloon ride you may float gracefully over the stunning Guildford Cathedral, Frensham Ponds (where many of us can say we’ve held treasured memories), Loseley House and Alice Holt Forest. In fact, you may even glide over the small villages of Churt and Puttenham or the ruins of Waverley Abbey. Many passengers have been lucky enough to sight Black Lake where we are told A.A. Milne was inspired to write Winnie the Pooh.

If all this sounds like a dream for you, why not make it reality? It’s very simple, you can either book online which is fast and easy, or you can phone us for more information where we will also be happy to answer any of your questions and make bookings for you – 01252 844222.