This was a fun trip. They picked us up at the lovely hour 5 am. I guess they need to do the trip early in the morning because of the mild winds. So we are driven to the meeting place on a hill. I am thinking, " this is where we are taking off from?" No, this is just the place to sign the wavers and everyone else that will join us on the ride. So , now we are back on the van and the guides are looking for a good taking off point. They do this by filling a small ballon with helium and letting it go. I never thought there was a science to ballon rides, but there is , They find a nice location and I thought we would stand around for and hour waiting for this thing to inflate, but it was inflated in 15 minutes!! Pretty cool to watch. 6 of us pi;e into the balloon and we are off. I have always heard that it is loud , because of the air pressure release into the ballon, but let me tell you, NO. It is very relaxing and beautiful. They can skirt inches above the orange trees or miles above the ground. We could see for miles and miles. These pilots are just that. They have their pilots license !!! They have to go to flight school to pilot balloons so your really are safe. It is not at all boring and you meet great people. When we were down they drove us back to the meeting place and fed us a good breakfast. I plan to do it agin , hopefully for longer than an hour.