Balloons Unlimited

I wanted to do a private sunset flight for my girlfriend and I on her birthday (Aug 11^th). I had initially called another company, which couldn’t take my reservation due to prior obligations they had, so I was referred by them to Balloons Unlimited. I was a little regretful at first because with the research I’d done, I really wanted to go with my first choice company, but I did some research on BU and they seemed legit. So, I made my reservation, and they instructed me to call back the day of the flight at 1pm to check and see if everything was still set and where I would meet them to go to the launch site. Watching the weather all week, it was still iffy the day of and was a chance of thunderstorms in the area. I thought for sure it would be cancelled, but when I called at 1pm on the 11^th, the pilot assured me that although there was a 20% chance of showers that we’d still be ok to fly and if there was a storm, it wouldn’t be that bad and wouldn’t affect us much. Needless to say, this is not what I wanted to hear, and made me a little nervous about the impending flight.
But, as I left work early for the day, the sky was blue and beautiful and my hopes were high. We met them (the pilot and his wife) at a Shell station in Berryville, where we jumped in his rig and took us to the supposed launch site, about 15 mins away from the gas station. Let it also be noted that we were coming from Fairfax, so we’d already driven an hour and fifteen minutes to get there. He kept an eye on the radar and weather activity on his iPad, iPhone, and Garmin radar — all of which showed a large storm cell very near the flight area. Red on dopplar radar = not good for hot air balloon flights. So, our experience was post-​poned. I understand how unpredictable weather is, but I was still disappointed to go all the way out there (a total of 3 hours driving to-​and-​fro) and not get to go.
We ended up re-​scheduling for a couple weeks later when there was a zero percent chance of precipitation, and everything went off without a hitch. The owner/​pilot has a small crew consisting of him, his wife, and another guy called Tommy (who was only there on the landing, not the launch), so you’ve got to do some work. I quite enjoyed it, and my girlfriend was a great sport about it as well. But, just keep in mind if you’re with someone not as willing to put a little elbow grease in, then it may be a little rough.
This is one of those reviews where I’m trying to rate the actual company, and not the hot air balloon experience itself — because that part was amazing.
So, I guess to put it all into perspective, the pilot has tons of experience and really knows what he’s doing, even when on the surface it doesn’t seem like it. He’s not a people person, so don’t take it too harshly if he’s not even the least bit polite on the phone. Or in person. But, just relax, crack a few jokes, get him to open up his personality a little, maybe tell some stories about his experiences, and you’ll feel much better about it all.