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Noura Abdulhadi 15 months ago
It was a terrible experience. My friends and I went on the balloon to celebrate my friend's 50th birthday. I have been on a balloon before and definitely that is not how it is supposed to happen. Before going on the balloon, they mentioned the importance of doing the landing position and that it might be a bit bumpy, but that's the only thing they told us.
We got up and the ride was fine. I would say, the fire was too close to us and it was super hot (with the other one I did it was further away and we did not feel it as much). Anyway, that part was fine. But when it came to the landing, the pilot told us to get into landing position and we did, and to my surprise the landing was super painful and scary. My whole body was hit badly against the basket especially my head. My mobile and my sunglasses flew away from me (thankfully in the basket). The pilot was unable to land it from the first time, so he had to go up and do it again and again the landing was as painful. There were kids with us, and one of the younger ones was crying non stop after the first landing.
After I got out of the balloon, all of us were shaken, scared and hurt in different ways. In addition to my head and neck pain, I found scratches and bruises all over my back.
First of all, my first annoyance that if it was this windy, then why fly up to begin with. They already mentioned that it will be windy, so why go ahead with it. Ok, let us give them benefit of the doubt, they did not know it would be this windy - there should be a proper training before and well a proper warning up in the air since by then the pilot already knew the situation. Similar to the plane, they should of told us please keep your belongings in your bag and if you have kids hold them tight as we go down.
Second of all, it was the way they handled the whole situation, they were very unprofessional. The pilot's first reaction was to laugh and say something in the lines that oh it was super windy. And then the guys who came later to take care of the basket and take us, when we started complaining they got in defensive mood and started saying this is not out fault and we did not know it was this windy, the weather is not in our hands. No one actually told us, "we are very sorry that happened to you! Are you okay? Where does it hurt? Do you need first-aid?". We felt unheard and unseen with no compassion or empathy. I do admit that the guy did come later on to apologize, but that was after around one hour. We asked for compensation and he said he will see what he can do and get back to us, and he did not. My neck was hurting for a day after and sadly now when I get on a normal flight, I get a bit scared when it is landing.