Jesson House, TF3 3BD, Telford, Shropshire, GB
Virgin Balloon Flights is the largest commercial hot air balloon rides company in the UK and has been taking passengers up, up and away on the airborne experience of a lifetime since 1994.
Brilliant from start to finish. The team were friendly, helpful and informative. The whole experience was wonderful. Highly recommend.
Wow! My daughter & I went on our hot air balloon ride yesterday (3rd attempt at booking) with Peter & his team from the Hanging Houghton launch site and my god, what an experience!! The views were amazing & the journey was really smooth. Our pilot Peter was brilliant & made us feel at ease straight away. There was never a point at which I felt unsafe. Even the landing was good! We were also able to help pack the balloon away afterwards which added more fun to the experience. I’d 100% recommend this to anyone thinking about it. Can’t thank Peter, Adam & Steve enough!
Thank you for the amazing balloon ride from Hanging Houghton. Peter, Keith, Tim and Matilda made the whole experience enjoyable.
So, to find out if you are okay to go on your flight, you phone a hotline the night before. This is a good idea, as you surely do not wish to end up having some sort of “Enduring Love” type experience. So we phoned, last night, at eleven o’clock, and our pilot was there telling us how he understands how frustrating it is to have your experience cancelled, but he was cancelling it nonetheless, due to the unsafe, blustery conditions. You could hear the wind behind him as he spoke; it couldn’t have sounded more windy if he’d recorded his message in a wind tunnel. Which was interesting, as we’re staying about a quarter of a mile from the take-off site, and there was no wind at all last night, there’s no wind at all today when we should have flown, and no wind was ever forecast. So, I imagine he had some personal reason why he couldn’t fly today, but he probably couldn’t contractually tell us about that because it would be difficult, morally, for Virgin to refuse to give us a refund on the grounds of such a circumstance, and so it’s up to us to rebook. Not too bad, I suppose, only another day’s holiday off work to burn (except I don’t have any left this year), another two hour journey with associated fuel costs, another £100 hotel stay, etc., to budget for. I am comforted by the fact that at least the pilot understands the frustration. Although, to be fair, it was SO WINDY wherever the heck he was, that I might have just misheard him, Thomas Hook.
Absolutely loved the experience. Fantastic views and great pilot! Would 100% recommend and will love to do it again!
Allie our pilot was lovely and I had complete confidence in her ability to pilot the balloon. She was entertaining and informative and put us all at our ease and encouraged us to be part of the whole flight start to finish. I would recommend taking the opportunity to fly with Allie if you can. The flight itself was peaceful and exciting at the same time and a unique way to travel - lovely to see familiar landscapes from a new perspective.
Our first flight was cancelled due to weather but we were happy they did as it made us feel more secure knowing that they are professionals and have high safety standards. We rebooked for 2 weeks later and had a fantastic flight.
The crew were so friendly and kind. They explained everything to make us feel safe but still kept the experience fun. The local knowledge was super, Dave kept pointing out interesting buildings etc. The experience couldn’t have been any better.
William wood, the pilot, was professional,efficent and effective. We enjoyed sharing the activities to set up and collapse the balloon at the end. Ideal conditions of a warm and calm day enabled us to see the clear views over Essex countryside. Certificates and glasses of Prosecco were distributed and a timely taxi ride back to our alighting point was organised. A delightful way to spend a morning!
The most incredible experience to celebrate my Dad’s 70th birthday over the York skies during sunrise! Simply amazing!
We had an amazing experience with Virgin Balloon Flights. It took a while to get booked (due to wind cancellations which are unavoidable) but we were delighted when we finally found out the flight was going ahead. The pilot, Woody, was brilliant and got us involved in setting up the balloon and explained everything very clearly. We felt very confident and safe flying with him. The flight itself was an amazing experience I would highly recommend. The excellent photographs available and bubbly on landing made a perfect end to the morning. A big thank you to Woody and the team for a great experience.
This is our fourth attempt at booking a hot air balloon ride but it was worth the wait! It was a 6am start but we promptly got into the balloon and caught sunrise- it was absolutely beautiful! The pilot told us about some of the things we could see (we set off from a back up site so didn’t know the area). We were in the air for about 40 mins then landed, helped pack away and got some bubbles before getting a lift back to the site. We had such a wonderful experience! The pilot and his crew were really nice and helpful. I want to do it again!
What a fantastic gift for a 70 year old, thanks to Peter, Keith and Tim for looking after us the whole time,sadly 1 hour wasn’t long enough for me,I would have loved to stay up longer, the views over rugby were brilliant and it is so peaceful and quiet while you are up there,totally recommend it to everyone.
Absolutely horrendous. Total waste of a lot of money. Worst gift I ever bought for anyone. Took so long to get a flight, then the confirmation line said it was cancelled, then customer services not only refused to honour the gift but wanted to charge me extra to rebook. Am so upset Update following reply: thank you for your reply. However I have contacted customer services three times asking for help. Each time I have been told you won’t honour the gift unless I pay an additional £80 fee. I could escalate this as a complaint but customer service told me this wouldn’t be looked at for at least 28days. Extremely disappointing customer service
Fantastic balloon ride perfect from start to finish enjoyed every minute
Great customer service, thank you for your time Lynn.
Swift and friendly reply and support in regards to my hot air balloon experience
If you buy a hot air balloon experience be prepared to wait years before you can go up. The conditions have to be just right. Virgin will keep extending it until you can go up so just remember to keep booking so it doesn’t expire. We finally got to go up and it was well worth the wait. Such an incredible experience. It’s so peaceful and quiet when you’re up that high. We had a perfect view as far as we could see. We went up near Towcester and went over Silverstone, Brackley etc. Our pilot, Peter, was great. Very experienced and knowledgeable. We asked him lots of questions and he was happy to answer and would point out the villages and towns we were flying over etc. His team also included Tim and Keith and they were also brilliant, super friendly and soon had the Prosecco flowing on landing. We had lots of laughs. I would do it all again in a heartbeat!
Quick response to my query, and very helpful offer to extend and make our vouchers more flexible following numerous weather-related cancellations.
Our Virgin air balloon experience was absolutely sensational from start to finish. The whole team were friendly, playful and professional and our pilot Chris was clearly extremely talented and experienced at what he does. Having watched balloons go up before, I have to say the whole operation was way slicker than anticipated and we felt in good hands throughout. The balloon was sturdy and comfortable and we could never have anticipated the smoothness of the landing. If I'd have closed my eyes, I wouldn't have realised it had happened. Standing inside the balloon at the end was a lovely little bonus as was a lovely glass of bubbles with the group. Cannot recommend highly enough!
