Saturday, December 04, 2010

Is Cloud Nine dead?

Back in mid-November I saw a notice that the Cloud 9 tethered balloon attraction was offering $10 ride with the donation of a can of food for a local food bank. Today was the last day of the special--so of course I waited until today. The web site suggests calling for reservations. I tried three times, and just got a recording. So I just went out there. It was overcast but warm, and I thought I might get some nice photos of the city. Saturday hours are supposed to be 10:00 a.m. to midnight, and nothing on the web site indicated anything was amiss.

It was dead. The balloon was there, but nobody was around. The parking lot was empty. The office (labeled "Flight Center") was dark and locked, with a bundle of pamphlets outside the door that hadn't been taken in.

I get the distinct feeling that the whole business quietly went belly-up sometime very recently, though I have seen no such announcement anywhere. A Google news search finds no announcement.

I wish I knew what had happened. I was looking forward to a nice ride.

3 comments:

Minton said...

I saw it up in the air when I was driving to work the other day, I don't know if they are running limited hours, or only on really nice days right now, but it hasn't been flying as much since it got destroyed by the winds

Anonymous said...

Probably not a good idea to take a ride on a bankrupt balloon company. Could be a bad beat in the making.

CRM114FGD135 said...

I was just in Vegas staying at the Luxor. Room was facing the airport/balloon. It looks like they were deflating it Saturday and then on Sunday or Monday when I looked again, it was completely gone.