We booked a sunrise balloon ride with Aerogelic Ballooning for November 6, 2018 in Phoenix, AZ. We gave our credit card number and were sent two confirmation emails that we needed to be at the Starbucks in Phoenix at 6:15 a.m. for our transport to where we would take off. We arrived at 6:00 a.m. and waited outside for someone to show up to pick us up. It was starting to get light outside, so my cousin called at 6:30 a.m. to find out what the hold up was as far as them picking us up. Tara said they had nobody scheduled for a sunrise balloon ride for November 6th and started laughing saying I don't know how this could have happened after my cousin told her that she (Tara) was the one who scheduled it for us and we had given her our credit card number. She offered us a later balloon ride and said the afternoon rides are significantly more expensive, but that she would give it to us at the same price. My cousin said you would have to do better then that as they had just inconvenienced us by having us up at 4:00 a.m. to leave by 5:00 a.m. so we could make it there in time (we were an hour away from there) and that we had to drive an hour there, an hour back and then drive an hour there and back again so she asked to speak with the owner. We had been looking forward to this our whole trip and left very disappointed to head back to our place to pack our things as we were heading back home the next day. Shane (the owner) did call my cousin back to apologize, however he said you realize you wokeTara up and she was the best office manager he had and couldn't believe she was laughing on the phone or would do this...said he could understand if it was one of the other girls in the office, but never had an issue with Tara. My cousin was very calm and politely told him that we had already booked sunset ride with competitor (Rainbow Ryders) and that she told him that things can only go up for his company from this point...how much worse could it possibly get.
After reading the reviews on Aerogelic when we returned, we were so glad that they didn't come to pick us up. We've read multiple reviews that said the transport van smells like smoke and the pilot smokes in the hot air balloon while you're up there. This would have been horrible for us, as two of us going were severely asthmatic.
The competitor was a much better experience! Lesson learned...do your homework/research before booking excursions!!!