In Flight Balloon Adventures

The owner, Tom, is a great guy and makes sure his customers are fully satisfied. I opted for the sunset ride. After the ride, there will be snacks and champagne! Five stars!

Floating on a stream of silent air, with nothing to disturb your thoughts but the occasional blast of fire from the torch over your head, floating majestically over the green fields of western NJ — this is a unique, wonderful experience. I’d recommend going elsewhere for it.
There’s a lot of fuss and bother getting the balloons ready, which is part of the experience, I guess, a bit of foreplay. Our group of four was in the air for exactly thirty minutes, and it seemed over before it began. I found that I was just beginning to get into the zone when we were already headed for somebody’s back yard. Then packing up and driving to the original meeting place for a somewhat tacky snack of crackers and cheap bubbly in a weedy restaurant parking lot.
When questioned about the brevity of the «about an hour» flight, the owner-​operator shrugged and said it’s up to the wind. My own impression on that beautiful evening is that he just didn’t want to be bothered. Par for the course, really; I’d been getting plenty of this humorless passive-​aggressive attitude from the first phone call. He told me, to paraphrase, that «I love ballooning but hate dealing with people». Pretty much sums it up.

We had a shared hot air balloon ride. It was fantastic! The pilots were knowledgeable, informative and fun. We met in a parking lot behind a restaurant, and then headed over to a field where the blew up the balloons. Then, we hopped in the basket and up we went. The ascent was smooth and easy. I don’t love heights, but this was so incredibly comfortable and fun. While our flight was all couples, I did hear the pilot tell someone that it’s good for anyone over 8 years old. At the end of the ride we came down in someone’s yard, which was amusing and fun. Then, we headed back to where we parked, and had a little party with champaign, crackers and cheese. Simple but delightful.

It was an awesome experience. It was cool surprise to my wife on her birthday and I enjoyed it too. Tom was great and so was the flight experience… and an awesome after-​party looking at the beautiful sunset with a great champagne. Tree topping was the best experience of all although its hard to rate any segment of the flight separately. simply SUPERB!

I’ve already lost the debate, but I never remembered saying that I wanted to go hot air ballooning. So you could imagine the surprise on my face when I got it as a birthday gift from my gf (I was trying to figure out if it was a gift for me or her… hmm, the plot thickens). =)
She scheduled it for sunrise so we had to wake up at the crack of dawn and drive out to Clinton, NJ (55 – 60 miles from NYC). We got to the meeting area (a field behind the Spain Inn II restaurant) and helped set up. They unfurled the balloon, laid it on the field, and reality set in. Was I really going to go up thousands of feet in the air in a wicker basket, flame thrower, and balloon? We took a few set up pictures, signed a waiver, and hurdled our way into the baskets.
We were up in the air in no time and there wasn’t much room in the basket for 5 people (turning around in place was not an option). You better bring a camera along because you’re going to get some nice shots of the sunrise, the morning fog in the valley, other balloons, the NYC skyline, and as far out as Pennsylvania. People waved to us as we hovered over their house (there is a French tradition of giving a bottle of champagne if you land on someone’s property). We were up in the air for about 45 minutes to an hour, landed on a school’s playing field, and were shuttled back to the starting point for mimosas and danishes.
We met the owner (Tom) after we landed and he was very nice. He showed us his photo album of balloon festivals around the world and his travels with Malcolm Forbes.
Its definitely something to put on your bucket list.