The Characters in Flight balloon is the world’s largest tethered gas balloon. The 72 feet in diameter balloon is filled with 210,000 cubic feet of a lighter-than-air gas. The gondola is 19 feet in diameter and can hold up to 29 guests plus the pilot.

I was very excited when I saw on my Florida Mom Blogger’s Mixer itinerary that we would be riding Characters in Flight, weather permitting. I have wanted to fly in a hot-air balloon for years and I figured this ride would be a good test to see if I was comfortable “floating” in the air.

Saturday morning was rather windy and when our group of 13 arrived we were told they could only take 4 of us at a time. So, we took 2 groups of 4 and our hosts (aka the chickens) chose not to ride. The view was magnificent! When you are 400 feet up in the air you can see for about 10 miles. You can easily see The Contemporary Resort, Spaceship Earth, Expedition Everest, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Typhoon Lagoon as well as the downtown Orlando skyline.

The entire ride took about 9 minutes. I would love to do it again, but this time at night. I can only imagine how beautiful it would look with all of the lights twinkling in the evening sky. Tickets for Characters in Flight cost $16 for adults ages 10+ and $10 for children ages 3-9. Everyone under age 12 must be accompanied by an adult. Characters in Flight is wheelchair accessible; guests in ECVs must be able to transfer to the gondola, which does not have seats. There is no smoking, eating or drinking allowed on the ride and they do not allow strollers or baggage.

Safety is key and the weather restictions for this attractions are very strict.

• Winds 3 mph or less they can take 20 passengers at a time
• Winds 3-12 mph they can take 10-20 passengers
• Winds 12-22 mph they can take up to 10 passengers at a time
• Winds above 22 mph or in stormy conditions they do not run

I don’t know what the wind speed was when we rode but we had 5 guests plus the pilot on my trip. On the video you can hear when I turned into the wind, it gets very loud. I felt very safe and secure despite the wind.

What do you think? Would you like to ride Characters in Flight on your next trip to Walt Disney World and Downtown Disney? Leave me a comment and let me know.

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First, I need you to answer some questions about your family’s travel habits.

1. How many full vacation days will you be spending at the Walt Disney World Resort (don’t include travel days-unless you will be arriving early in the morning or leaving late at night)
2. Is this your first visit to Walt Disney World, have you visited before but still consider yourself a newbie, or are you a veteran Disney guest?
3. Which parks are you planning on visiting on this trip?
4. Do you plan on visiting either of the Disney Water Parks or Disney Quest?
5. Do you like to jump from park to park or do you prefer to stay in one park all day?

Now that you have that information let’s move forward.**All prices quoted here are valid for non-Florida residents and is updated with the August 2009 price increase. Florida residents prices vary and are lower than non-resident prices. For current pricing go to DisneyWorld.com**

The Magic Your Way base ticket is a one day one park pass. You add how many park days you want to purchase to that to create your base ticket. Disney does reward you for longer visits. Per day ticket prices decrease dramatically when you purchase tickets for 4 or more days. To simplify things I am only quoting prices here for adult tickets, which is everyone ages 10+ (children under 3 get in free).

Magic Your Way Base Ticket Price (including tax)

These tickets expire 14 days from 1st use.

1 Day   $84.10

2 Day  $166.14 ($83.07/day)

3 Day  $233.24 ($77.74/day)

4 Day  $239.63 ($59.91/day)

5 Day $242.82 ($48.56/day)

6 Day  $246.02 ($41.01/day)

7 Day $249.21 ($35.60/day)

8 Day $252.41 ($31.55/day)

9 Day $255.60 ($28.40/day)

10 Day $258.80 ($25.88/day)

If this is your first trip to Disney World, you don’t plan to visit more than 1 park per day and you don’t plan on visiting the water parks or Disney Quest then this ticket is for you.

Now to the add-ons. If you want the flexibility to visit more than one park on any given day, you need to add the parkhopper option. This is a great value for multi-day tickets because it is a flat fee of $52+tax whether you have a 2 day ticket or a 10 day ticket.

The other add-on is the water parks and more option. This gives you “options”, which equal days you can spend at Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach, Disney Quest, Disney’s Wide World of Sports or golfing one round at Disney’s Oak Trail 9-hole golf course. The number of options is based on the number of days that your base ticket is for. A 1 or 2 day base ticket gets 2 options and 3-10 day gets the same number of options as you have days on your base ticket. This is a very inexpensive way to extend your vacation. You could get a 4 day base ticket with waterpark options for $239.63 + $52+tax and for less than $300 you can have 8 days of activities in the waterparks, theme parks and Disney Quest.

The final add-on is the non-expiring add-on. This eliminates the 14 days from first use rule and allows the ticket to be good forever, by the person whose biometric scan is attached to it.  The price on this varies between $18.00-$209.00 depending on the number of days on your base ticket. You would really have to do some serious math to prove this option worth it for most people.

It is very difficult to find any deeply discounted tickets to Walt Disney World. Do not buy used tickets with days left over on them. You can often find them on eBay, Craigslist or other sites but many, many people have gotten to the park with a useless ticket in hand. There are a few reasons for this, first-there is no way to know how many days are left on a Walt Disney World ticket without taking it to a ticket window, so you can never be sure if there are days left. Second, Disney has been using the biomtric finger scan to tag a ticket to a specific person since 1996. It is not worth the savings of buying a partially used tcket to find out that you cannot use it.

I hope I was able to simplify the Magic Your Way ticket choices for you. If you have a question about ticketing that I didn’t address please feel free to leave it in the comments or e-mail me at Cindy at themommaven dot com. I love comments and am more than happy to help you plan your Disney vacation.

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