sky drifters

Two days before my sister's birthday I decided to take her on a hot air balloon ride. I called the company and made a reservation for the six members of my family, they were extremely accommodating. All of us were blown away by the spectacular views of our town at sunrise. After the ride, they offered champagne (and cider for non-alcohol drinkers) as the pilot told us the story of hot air ballooning. I would recommend this company to anyone who wants to have a laugh and see something spectacular.

Everything about our hot air balloon adventure was absolutely top rate. With our friends coming all the way from United Arab Emirates there were challenging schedule issues that Sky Drifters accommodated. The preflight briefing was thorough and made us all very comfortable with the high level of safety they maintain. The balloon basket itself was a great size for us. Not too crowded but not immense like a cattle car. A bonus was the swinging door that allowed us to walk in rather than having to climb over the rail. The flight itself was spectacular. Watching the sun rise over the Sierra Nevada was a postcard perfect moment. Then we flew over some of California's most beautiful oak grasslands. Except for no lions or hippos it felt like we could have been over Africa's Serengeti Plain (which is way beyond our budget). The owner and his wife personally ensured that this was a trip of a lifetime. Jonas Minton

I just had a horrible customer relations experience with this company. My wife and I purchased a $195 Groupon for a balloon ride which Sky Drifters now says that won't honor, even though the coupon does not expire for more than two months (December 31, 2014). If you are paying full face value for a ride, then perhaps Sky Drifters treats you well. But I just wanted to make sure that other potential customers were aware of how they might be treated. Strongly suggest looking elsewhere if you want a pleasant experience.

After seeing some of the other complaints about this business here, I thought I'd chime in on my recent experience.I bought a Groupon as a gift a couple of years ago. The recipient recently returned it to me, saying that they would likely not use it because they weren't comfortable riding in a balloon. I thought, "Great, I'll use it".I checked their website for availability, and there seemed to be plenty of slots to book on-line. However, "coupon" reservations were only accepted by e-mail. Interesting... This is the response I got:"Thanks for submitting your booking. We wish we could help however all of our coupon offers come to a close this season and it seems that a ton of folks waited until the last month of season to try to book. Wish we could help but we are simply out of available spots through the 2014 season. We do not extend coupon expiration dates under any circumstances unless you were previously scheduled and lost your spot due to a weather cancellation. Should we decide to extend a coupon; Dates available will be solely at Sky Drifters discretion and subject to cancellation or rescheduling at any time, up to and including the day prior to the flight. The promotional value of the coupon does not ever expire and you can apply the purchase price of your coupon to a regularly priced ride. Please do not ask us to refund the amount of your coupons as we did not get paid what the vendor got paid and as such do not issue refunds directly. All refunds are solely at the discretion of the vendor from whom the coupon was purchased and Sky Drifters Ballooning can not effect the outcome of a coupon refund request with any of the resellers.Please note we were the only balloon company to ever require the major vendors to extend the coupon to three years. We feel this was more than an adequate amount of time to get a flight scheduled in all cases but those with no flexibility.Also note: We will not be doing any future offers with Groupon or Living Social."I get that the Groupons expire, but after seeing other reviews, this sounds like they enjoyed the income from the sale of vouchers, and 2 years later regret it and now don't want to accept them. I certainly have no intention of dumping more money into this in order to not lose the Groupon credit.

I have no idea how this company has ANY bad reviews. I was given the balloon ride as a Christmas gift from my husband last year. The booking was fairly easy - you email, they write back with some dates and you choose an available date. When you arrive in the morning, the crew was right on time (Erin, Tim, crew). Erin is such a peach and makes everything on that day spectacular. She takes photos for you, has a positive attitude and makes you feel very comfortable, especially as a first timer. Tim (the pilot) is just as nice and explains the ins and outs of the ride. He is very knowledgeable with the history of hot air-balloons as well. We could not be happier with our experience. I really am surprised to see any negative reviews on here at all. We are definitely going up with them again!

Our flight with Dan was wonderful! The sunrise was great and balloons were beautiful. As we were landing, Dan flew the balloon about a foot off the ground for about 30 feet. It was amazing.

Was a little worried due to the other reviews however I was extremely surprised when I met Dan the balloon man instead of Tim everyone else talks about. Dan was a awesome pilot and they did a great morning flight with us. We went up to about a 1000 feet. The whole thing lasts about three hours from the moment you arrive till you are leaving.

We had a wonderful trip..... No scales and no Tim!! Our pilot was Dan and he did a great job. He was courteous and had a great sense of humor! I would do it again. If you have the chance don't miss this experience.

worst ever experience in life time. not able to get appointment for group-on which I had bought 1.5 years back.

After reading the reviews on here I can't help but notice a recurring theme and I must agree with all of the other people on here who have said that the owner of this business, Tim, seriously needs to work on his people skills. I was so excited when I saw the deal they had posted on living social for a hot air balloon ride and immediately bought it with plans to surprise my girlfriend. Like many others on here I too thought that he was quite abrupt on the phone while I tried to schedule a ride. But I figured that that was a minor problem to put up with to get to ride in a hot air balloon. And I also didn't mind having to schedule the ride months in advance. It's easy to understand why many people would want to take this online deal and that it would result in a crowded schedule. I waited for two months with great anticipation for the day of the ride and I purposely did not tell my girlfriend what we were doing because she loves surprises like this. When we drove up to the launch spot and she finally realized what we were doing she got so excited we literally danced in the street. Then TIm arrived and had everyone in the group of 8 or 10 people stand on a scale. When I stood on it Tim immediately said that I was over the limit and then loudly announced in front of everyone that my girlfriend and I were over the weight limit and could not go on the balloon. He then added that all of the other couples had been exactly at the weight they had given him over the phone and that we weighed more than what I had told him, as though I had purposely tried to deceive him about my weight. I was mortified. Everyone stared at us as we had to slowly walk back to our car and drive off of the field. I had been waiting for this for months, I had gotten up at 5 in the morning to pick up my girlfriend and drive out to this place. I had been so excited to be having this bucket list experience. Then at the last moment, while standing right next to the balloon, Tim told us that we had to leave because our combined weight was 8 or 9 pounds over the 360 weight limit. I honestly can't remember the last time I have ever been so insulted. Even after being made to feel terribly hurt and insulted, as I drove away I still thought that the reason for being turned away had to do with safety. Perhaps an extra 10 pounds on a hot air balloon really is a safety issue. But then I got on to yelp and started reading the reviews. A few others also ran into this issue and the explanation Tim gave them is that he has to pay more in fuel and basket maintenance for more weight. So it would seem that an extra 10 pounds really isn't a big safety issue, Tim just didn't want to pay for the extra fuel. I have also read here how he apparently treats all of his living social or Groupon customers. I guess I didn't pay enough money for Tim to treat me like a human being. If you read these reviews and still decide that you want to deal with Tim then you had better be sure that you come in under the weight limit. Because if you are even a few pounds over he will cruelly announce in front of everyone that you are too fat to go on his balloon.

Do not schedule with this company. After our flight was cancelled several times, I asked him to give me some future dates. He became rude and hostile and stated he would never ever take me flying. I bought our trip on living social. He refered to me as a half off person. He then redeemed my voucher after not rendering a service. This is fraud!!!!!! Do not pay this company any money.

This business doesn't deserve the ONE star that yelp demands as a minimum.It is painfully obvious for anyone reading these reviews that the owner of this business has no desire to accommodate the customers of Living Social or Groupon. I wish we had read these customer reviews before we purchased and ATTEMPTED to book a flight with this business.My wife purchased one of these vouchers through Living Social back in November of 2012 as a surprise for my birthday in April of 2013. She booked 5 months in advance and followed all of the rules of the Living Social agreement. As with most every other customer who has written a review, our flight was cancelled. After MANY attempts to reach someone by telephone, she was told that there were no weekend flights available between April and October. So, we scheduled our flight for a Tuesday and both took the day off of work, only to have this flight cancelled as well. At this time the owner stated that we could fly on Monday if we could commit by 2:00 pm on that same day. So, we contacted our employers and moved our vacation days to Monday only to have this flight cancelled because the owner couldn't get confirmation from another customer. NO WHERE ON THE VOUCHER DOES IT STATE ANYTHING ABOUT HAVING TO CONFIRM WITH ANOTHER CUSTOMER IN ORDER TO FLY IN A HOT AIR BALLOON. It became very obvious at this point that the owner was simply trying to maximize his profits, by making sure that every flight is full. I point this out because the first two cancellations were due to wind. This third cancellation (which WE bent over backwards to accommodate) had nothing to do with weather at all. Regardless of the frustration we had already experienced, we went ahead and scheduled again for tomorrow, the 13th of May. On Saturday afternoon, we received an email stating our flight had been cancelled again (I know... what a SHOCKER!!! Right?). However, they had room for us on Sunday, which was Mother's day. We wrote back immediately asking what time we needed to be there, and how long the flight was expected to be. By 8:30 Saturday night, we hadn't received any confirmation, so we didn't make plans to go. Later that evening, we received an email stating that Monday could potentially still happen, so “let's see what the weather brings”.I realize that this is long winded...I am sorry, but people need to know how things go when dealing with sky drifters (notice the lower case letters... they represent my absolute lack of respect for the business owner). Today we received yet another cancellation for tomorrow, at which time my wife wrote back and asked for the next 4 or 5 available weekend dates regardless of how far out they are, as we had already schedule 3 different days off of work in the last 3 weeks and flying on a week day no longer seemed feasible. The owner responded with "Hi Tracy we do not have control over the weather. Due to our Groupon experience we are tempted to have people show up despite the fact we will get blown out With Groupon it seems the only way people actually see that we can't fly is seeing it first hand... I can say yup looks great have you drive out and then see it is too windy for your self or I can simply say it's too windy tomorrow and have you understand that we would love to fly but there is a 90% chance of being blown out.”With no further response from my wife, he wrote another email referring to us as “half off folks” and proceeded to state that “weather is weather, this is not a carnival ride”. He repeatedly emailed my wife and acted as though she had somehow complained about the cancellation due to weather. She merely asked for the next 4 or 5 available weekend dates. Yelp will only let me post 5001 characters, so I can’t go on to copy and paste all of the emails, but I would love to. My wife went on to let him know that if he couldn’t provide us with available dates that we intended to request a refund from Living Social. This apparently spun balloon boy out of control. He then started sending harassing emails stating that he would no longer deal with anyone from Groupon or Living Social, and that he will “never take us flying”. At this time, we let him know that since we have the day off tomorrow, and we won’t be flying, we will spend the day posting reviews. He then spun further out of control stating “I have already told Living Social that I won’t authorize a refund”. By this time my wife had stopped responding, and had begun writing to Living Social to explain our situation. However, he apparently decided it was time to have another drink. He then wrote stating “you got your way. I have decided to fly tomorrow. Be there @ 5:45”. Seriously? Like we would get into a balloon with this guy now. He then went ahead and redeemed our coupon, when we haven’t flown, nor do we have a scheduled flight.Please, please, please don’t deal with sky drifters. The owner has absolutely ZERO PEOPLE SKILLS.

A great attraction in the Sacramento area. There are four to five people per basket per balloon. When you approach the site, the balloons are not inflated yet so you get to observe that process as part of the experience and it's pretty exciting. The views were great and the landing was gentle and easy. I'm so glad I finally took the time to schedule a hot air ballon ride!