Skydive Balaton is an ex – military airport, situated at the Balaton Lake, and the biggest city nearby is Siofok. Balaton and Siofok are both known for their Balaton music festival in summer, which always attracts a lot of visitors, and it is popular especially among young people. Skydive Balaton is also situated very close to Budapest, the capital of Hungary, which is about an hour of driving away in the eastern direction.
How to get there?
It depends from which country and which direction are you coming from, but as soon as you are arriving closer to Siofok, you will see a lot of signs, advertising the Balaton dropzone, and telling you approximately how far away it is.
Pay attention, because the sign that shows you where you have to turn left to the dropzone, is almost hidden. After you turn, you will reach the dropzone after about four hundred meters.
There are no means of public transport that go close to the dropzone, but do not worry, even if you do not have your own car. When you are booking your date, just tell where are you from and where you can get to, and they will try to arrange that some of the skydivers will pick you up. There are people from all Central European countries, that are usually going to this dropzone, so there will definitely be someone at least close to you. And skydivers are in general very friendly and talkative people, so you do not have to worry about the topi cof the conversation. Well, if you will be doing your first jump, they will probably try to scare you with stories of parachutes that do not open, but do not believe everything they say :)
What facilities can you find at the dropzone?
This place has all the facilities you need, even if you want to spend a few days there and you do not have a car to go to the nearest grocery store. By the way, there is the Tesco store there! This is suitable especially for skydivers, because they often come there to jump from more distant countries, and they spend the whole weekend there, or even a week. In summer, sometimes if the weather is good, you can jump there the whole week, and not just on weekends.
You have bunkhouses for two, four or six people. Well, they call it bunkhouses, but it is more like an apartment, with huge and comfortable beds. The price, of course, depends on how many people will stay, but an average price is twenty to twenty – five Euros per person per night. It is a good idea to book the place to sleep in advance. Well, sometimes you can just show up and there are still beds available, but on busy days there is only a little chance that anything will be available. If you do not want to pay for sleeping, you can camp there for free. You just need your camping equipment – a tent and a sleeping bag. The catch there is, that it almost always rains there at night, and the ground gets wet. And from my own experience I am telling you that it is not funny to try to fix the tent in a downpour when one or more of the screws get loose because of the wet ground :)
Then, there are showers and toilets. If there are many people there on a certain day, five showers can sometimes not be enough and you have to wait for your turn, especially when there are persons that take really long in the shower.
Behind the eight hangars, which are the place where skydivers are packing their parachutes and preparing for the jump, there is a parking space, big enough for about twenty cars.
Manifest is located at the boarding zone, and after this zone, only skydivers have access to it. This is the place where you go when you arrive and sign the papers and pay for the jump, in case you have not paid in advance. It is also a place, where skydivers sign up for their jumps.
There is a bar at the right side of the manifest that also serves some snacks and breakfasts. A 'real' restaurant is situated about two hundred meters away and, besides typical Hungarian food, it serves more traditional dishes too. You can get a decent meal for about twelve Euros. Beer is very cheap, too. In summer nights, I would not advise you to sit outside, because there are a lot of mosquitoes, moths and other insects flying around. They have those bug repellents, but they do not really work.
And, the most important of all, they have a hammock! And it is rarely occupied (because people are jumping). On hot summer days, they usually put a small swimming pool with ice cold water there. Be careful not to get thrown inside :)
When you arrive at the dropzone, whether you are a skydiver or you are doing a tandem jump, you have to go to the manifest first to register and pay a fee, you will also get a card with your name.
If you want to do a tandem jump there ( or basically at any dropzone ), you have to book the date before you arrive. They are usually very occupied in summer, so you may have to wait for your date a week or two
If you are a person, who loves different aircrafts, then this is definitely a place for you, because the aircraft at Skydive Balaton, from which you will jump, is a MI-8 helicopter, which can carry about twenty – eight people! Actually, they own two of them, one is blue and white and one is green, red and white, but they only use both when there is a lot of skydivers. There are always two pilots, controlling the helicopter, and it only needs about twelve minutes to get to 15.000 feet. You can also take just a panoramic helicopter flight and land wth a helicopter. This is a cool thing to do, because you see all the skydivers jumping out right in front of you.
And a good thing for girls – tandem masters and camera flyers are hot young guys :) Well, not good, if you are a guy yourself, but there are only a few women on the whole planet, who are tandem masters.
What about the jump prices?
At the dropzone, you can either pay in Euros, or exchange them to Forints. Skydiving can be a quite expensive sport even in such a cheap country as Hungary. A single jump for skydivers costs twenty – six Euros, and if you want to rent a parachute too, you have to pay an additional eight Euros. It is recommended that you have all the other equipment with you (gloves, jumpsuit, helmet, altimeter) because they only have a few pieces there for rent and they are grabbed quickly. If you are doing a tandem jump, you will have to pay 165 Euros, without the video of your jump. If you want a camera flyer to jump with you, it will cost you additional 35 Euros.
If you are bored after all the jumping (which I doubt), you can take a swim in the Balaton lake, which you just admired from the altutude of four kilometers or more. You can access it from the Siofok village. The only problem is, that every entry is fenced, because those swimming places are meant to be for resort guests that reside there. But we just climbed the fence and nobody said anything. The lake is surprisingly warm and shallow, and very refreshing.
