“What can we expect when we take a flight with Adventure Balloon’s?” many of our customers ask when they call our office; and it’s not hard to find the answer with us! Our website has all the information you could need from our company history, details on our balloons, customer comments, flight videos and photographs, an explanation as to what weather conditions we need, the history of balloons and how a hot air balloon works, an FAQ and even a News facility. In fact not only will our website allow you to find all the information you need and want to know about us and ballooning, but it will also allow you to check date availability against the location you have chosen, and then book the flight‼ That’s not to say however that you cannot phone us for information and bookings, as of course we’re always happy to take your calls – 01252 844222.

So what can you expect from you flight? Let me tell you…

Well, after joining in fully with the real sense of ballooning by helping to inflate the balloon, you will of course embark upon a truly magical adventure! In fact, there really is no other experience quite like it! You’ll find there’s no sensation of movement, no sensation of rising at all, you’ll just look down and see the world dropping away, it’s quite surreal! You’ll look up and see the inside of the balloons envelope, the burners and feel the heat on your face, then look across in any direction and enjoy panoramic 360 degree views of the world around you! The fields will appear like a patchwork quilt and buildings and famous monuments will look like toys on the ground below. You’ll be flying with the birds, no movement of air, as you’ll be moving with the wind.

During your hours flight you could see heights of up to 3’000 feet! The exact height will depend on the wind however as the balloon rises and falls to find the appropriate wind path. During morning flights you’ll be lucky enough to see the world untouched by human hands, wildlife enjoying the world all to themselves. With the use of rotation vents, the pilot can rotate the balloon to provide you with a complete (and quite literal) birds-eye view, which in turns enables you to take the best possible photographs! Having said this however, the pilot will take an in flight photograph of you in the balloon which you can purchase after the flight.

After your flight and when you’re likely to be quiet speechless (and even feeling a little euphoric some have described), you can enjoy the experience to its max by seeing it through to its real end and helping your pilot to pack the balloon away. The pilot will then present you with a flight certificate which of course is followed by the mandatory (and celebratory!) glass of champagne (or orange juice if you prefer) to toast your very own magical mystery balloon tour.

It really is all that you’ve dreamed of and more and at the cost of just £89 per person, it’s a treat you might just be able to justify! Enjoy and Bon Voyage!

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!

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/

If you’re reading this then I’m guessing you’re toying with the idea of hot air ballooning. Many people purchase a hot air ballooning trip for themselves as a sort ‘life ambition gift’. Most of us dream of hot air ballooning one day and sadly a great deal of those will never actually fulfil the goal; it gets put off and put off until frankly, it’s just too late. Those of us who take the leap and join the world of ballooning then realise just why so many of us Brits dream of taking to the skies in this way. It is an experience like no other, exhilarating, breathtaking, relaxing, inspirational, euphoric, tranquil and emotional even. Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?

Ballooning is also a gift given to others. This could be as a birthday present, anniversary surprise, congratulations or reward gift, a romantic gesture, a Christmas present; for many their doesn’t have to be a reason! To receive those ‘golden’ tickets that will allow you the life time chance of taking to the skies in a hot air balloon, is in itself an exciting thing. Just picture the look on their face when they realise what’s in store for them!

At Adventure Balloons we cover various flight locations across Britain, for example Oxford, Reading, Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Watford, Tring, London, Basingstoke, Hartley Wintney, Guildford, Farnham, Godalming, West Meon, Alton, Winchester, Kent, Sussex and Essex.

Our south Hampshire area is one of our most popular spots. Flying from Anstey Park in Alton, from West Meon, from Micheldever near the railway station and from the City of Winchester, there’s plenty of ‘flight paths’ to choose from. However do bear in mind, the exact course you end up taking is completely wind dependent! Our customers commonly see the impressive Winchester Cathedral and are in awe of its staggering beauty from above! Be seduced by the rolling Hampshire countryside, the River Test, the pretty little villages such as Laverstoke, Whitchurch, and the Candovers. You can often see the large estates of Leckford on the River Test where Waitrose produce a lot of their food, the Mid Hants Steam Railway that runs from Alton to Alresford, and many a time we’ve had the rather unusual experience of seeing a glider circling around Lasham airfield, or microlights flying from Popham airfield.

Book your chance to fly in a hot air balloon with Adventure Balloons and you will receieve a 12 month voucher which will entitle you to select your date from anytime (depending on which voucher you buy) over the 12 months following purchase! Book online or call 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.

Thanks to a beautiful mini ‘Indian Summer’ this September the British public were left with less of a sense that summer had once again passed us by. Just when we thought it was all over, there it was again; the glorious sunshine, the basking heat and the lazy hazy sunny afternoons. Sadly however, in just the blink of an eye, there is suddenly talk of snow; my how unpredictable our climate is!

Adventure Balloons however did not let the last chapter of summer pass them by without enjoying it, using it to its full potential and wringing it dry. With so many perfect opportunities to fly, we fulfilled more balloon rides than we would normally expect at this time of year and enabled many passengers to enjoy the ‘peak’ in weather better than they ever expected too; up in the sky in a hot air balloon – magic!

We’ve taken advantage of the conditions for hot air balloon rides from locations as far apart as Yorkshire, Hampshire and Berkshire and what a sights it’s been! Picture the summer sun, the warm breeze and the smell that comes with it all, combined with the changes that autumn had already began to change; the changing trees, crispy leaves, autumn mists on the ground and a freshness in the air. Combined we have a rather complex and serene effect that you just couldn’t imagine, particularly from 3’000 foot in the air drifting in a hot air balloon!

Maybe you’d like to book a flight yourself for this year or next? We take bookings online as well as by phone; simply call us on 01252 844222.

Hot air ballooning is all about the weather! Being a completely weather dependent activity, specific date bookings can never be guaranteed. So where many of our balloon ride passengers fly on their first attempt, you’ll also find that equally as many will first undergo a few attempts. You will need to have a certain degree of patience when it comes to taking your flight; the more bookings you make the quicker you will get your chance, but worry not, we can safely say that the experience is always worth the wait.

As the UK is positioned on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean it means that traditionally we have low pressure weather systems in the winter and more high pressure systems in the summer. Higher pressure weather normally brings blue skies, light winds and little rain, where as the lower pressure systems tend to bring storms, rain and strong winds. For this reason, hot air ballooning seasons run from April to October and it is thought that the best time to fly is between July and August.

Flights tend to take place at sunrise or sunset as this is when the wind can be a little lighter. For the flight to go ahead, winds must be less than 10 miles an hour during the hour after dawn or before dusk and so careful monitoring is always required! Don’t panic however; we always let our passengers know well in advance. We use forecasts and rely on this information to be able to make the decision to call the flight on, however sometimes this information can be incorrect and so on rare occasions we have to cancel at the launch site.

It is actually very simple to predict if the wind is going to be very light or too strong and often it can be seen some days ahead as high or low pressure weather systems approach. If suitable conditions can be seen ahead, we will text passengers of available spaces and sometimes even put on additional flights.

Visibility is the trickiest to predict and is certainly the main culprit in terms of error in weather forecasts. With various weather conditions such as mist, fog or low cloud being rather subtle and varying from mile to mile, our balloon pilot’s always ensure they access the most up to date information and even rely on local knowledge.

Ballooning in the rain is frankly not an option. When you consider that the top of the balloon reaches nearly 100 degrees Centigrade (the boiling point of water), it will come as no surprise that when the rain falls on the balloon, its cooling effect is sure to have a consequence! If the balloon cools it will descend rapidly and so the pilot has to put in extra heat from the burners to compensate for the heat loss. The whole ordeal is bad for the balloon fabric and makes the balloon much harder to control; what’s more, packing the balloon away while it’s wet is not the greatest idea! So it is basically a case of watching the weather radar closely to see where the showers are forming, where they are tracking and if they are beginning to die away.

As I’m sure you can now gather, there are plenty of weather conditions to be mindful of, so if you’re booking your balloon flight, remember, if it’s cancelled, it’s for your own safety! However your patients will always be rewarded when it comes to hot air ballooning – Adventure Balloons will certainly guarantee you one of the most magical experiences you could ever have.

As our London flights are drawing to an end we can no longer take any bookings for flights over the Capital this year, or the next for that matter! Air Traffic restrictions mean that London flights are available on weekday mornings from late April to mid August, so you’ll now have to wait until 2013 before you can fly over this destination! Due to the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics and the Queens Diamond Jubilee Celebrations, Department of Transport have made it clear that security arrangements both at our launch sites and in London’s airspace mean that our flights will preclude in Central London for all of the 2012 season.

So as our London Balloon Flights season has come to a close, passengers Amanda Ferry and her husband Stephen enjoyed a beautiful morning ride with Adventure Balloons captured beautifully in the above picture of the sunrise. The flight took off from our central London ballooning site and as pilot Kim Hull was a little too busy (as weather conditions were quite tight), the balloon ride went ahead with a line of light showers just 20 miles behind! “Without the help of the team at the National Air Traffic Services centre at Swanick who kept us updated of the progress of the rain showers we would not have had the confidence that the flight could go ahead. About 30 minutes after landing at Grange Hill, yes next to the school of the TV series we just managed to pack the balloon away in the bag before the showers caught us up”.

Mandy and Stephen thoroughly enjoyed the flight and the thrill of running from the weather; “Thank you to Kim and the crew for trying so hard and giving us a fantastic experience, including pulling on the balloon rope”.

Take a close look at the photograph where you will see that the sun reflected off the Shard illuminating the flight over London – beautiful.

To book a flight for London 2013 or to make a booking sooner in another location, simply contact us online or by phone on 01252 844222.

Today’s blog brings you the latest at Adventure Balloons and you wouldn’t believe the sights we get to see here. Yes, we know that you know all about the beautiful rolling landscapes (although you couldn’t possibly image how breathtaking they are from the Sky), the historic castles, tranquil rivers and patchwork fields; what we’re talking about is something rather different indeed!

Do you like to watch the ‘behind the scenes’ chapters on your DVD’s? Maybe you watch the ‘in the making’ documentary’s of your favourite films? I’ve even known people apply to be an ‘extra’ just so that they can watch their favourite book be made into an epic film! Madness I think, but we’re all different, very different!

Well what if I told you that some lucky passengers of ours didn’t have to do any of the above? They didn’t have to see it happen from a TV screen and didn’t have to apply to be in it just to get close, oh no, all our passengers had to do was glide overhead in one of our balloons! Our flights in Surrey often take passengers over Bourne Woods near Farnham which is famous for having been used in many different film sets due to its staggering beauty! For example the Russell Crowe epic Gladiator was filmed in Bourne Woods along with a recent Maid Marion film! Well lucky passenger Dean Collins kindly sent us in the featured picture of what he saw on the day of his balloon flight over the dramatic Bourne Woods.

At Adventure Balloons we’ve even spotted nearby Waverly Abbey whilst filming its period costume dramas, using it’s backdrop for film work! Why not book your own flight over Surrey in our hot air balloons and you may be just as lucky, as you can see on our Surrey Balloon Rides location page! http://www.adventureballoons.co.uk/newsPages/period-costume-drama.html