People have always yearned to fly; to break the chains of gravity and soar into the clouds. All people, except my son, who yearns with every fiber in his 10 year old being to jump out of plane and blaze a screaming trail through the sky. Never mind that he is terrified of the heights above caverns; the boy wants to skydive! Besides the age restrictions associated with actual skydiving, there are a variety of reasons I don’t think he’s ready for the big plunge. However, I have been secretly looking into indoor skydiving arenas in hopes of letting him scratch the itch while he waits for his chronological age to catch up with his grownup aspirations.
Knowing that we would be traveling through several big cities and states on our 80 day road trip, I knew that there would be a good chance that we would happen upon indoor skydiving at some point. But how to find a city and state on our route? That’s when I happened upon Cloud 9 Living, an experiential gift company that specializes in thrilling and unique offerings. Their website made it easy to choose the experience that most interested me, and then search the cities where I could live the experience.
Once we settled on Orlando and IFly Orlando for indoor skydiving, I bought the experience gift certificate with the understanding that Cloud 9 Living would take care of all the booking details for me. Ever the skeptic, I was worried that I would be paying a greater ticket price for this extra service, so I called IFly Orlando directly and asked about their prices. The prices were exactly the same as those offered by Cloud 9 Living, so I was thrilled to enjoy the extra service for no additional charge.
Our experience at IFly Orlando was nothing short of thrilling, from the instructors and flight school to watching my young daredevils take flight and enjoy the pleasure of the plunge. Although, the hope to quell the desire to skydive seemed to backfire, and only served to fan the flames of skydiving desire. His feet were barely back on solid ground before he was begging to do it again.
The instructors nodded at each other with a glint in their eye, knowing that they had helped to bring another flyer over to the dark side. I knew it was serious though, when he offered to give up all his Christmas presents, and instead just asked to be gifted with more flights. I couldn’t have been more thrilled! As a family who values travel and experiences over buying more stuff to collect dust and take up space in our home, it delights me when my children ask for experience gifts. Those are the things that I know will last a lifetime and I am happy to spend my money on those kind of memories.
Cloud 9 Living is hosting a 9 Days of Christmas Contest and you could win your own experience gift just in time for Christmas. Register to win everything from stock car driving to spa relaxation packages with the grand prize being the gift of being a Fighter Pilot for a Day.
~Cloud 9 Living provided our flights at IFly Orlando. They did not require that I express a particular viewpoint and all opinions are my own.~
[…] age restrictions and his momma’s nerves won’t allow that yet, I steered him towards an indoor skydiving arena for an easy first score. Son #3 fancies himself a miner, and has daydreams about digging into […]