I took a hot air balloon ride with Unicorn Balloon at sunrise on a Saturday morning. The experience was really cool and I especially enjoyed it since it was my first ballooning experience. My group had purchased Groupons for this trip and we had no trouble redeeming them. The process is pretty easy- you meet them and they drive you in a van to the launch location, and you're dropped off in the same place they picked you up. The entire trip lasts about 4 hours, with one hour of flight time. I thought this was the perfect amount of time as I was ready to come down by the end.
The desert scenery was beautiful and our pilot, Captain Bubba, seemed very experienced and was entertaining. Although the basket seemed small to fit 12 people, this ended up not being an issue and the ride was comfortable.
My only concern was our landing- apparently the people who were supposed to follow us and help us land were filling out our ballooning certificates so they were late. We pretty much crashed into the ground, bounced up and crashed back down a few times. Luckily everyone was okay but this should not have happened.
You are also provided with a champagne breakfast after landing.