On Monday, August 17, 2015 at 4:28:28 PM UTC+3, Dan Marotta wrote:
Every place I've flown in the USA has offered the stick to the
customer.* In my experience the term, "sleigh ride", refers to
flights when there is no lift available.* In that case we suggest a
different time or day for the flight.

Of course guaranteeing lift is not compatible with taking bookings for a fixed future day and time, so we encourage people to take the 4000 ft tow option to ensure a reasonable flight length.

Anyway it's not a good idea to fight too hard to exploit marginal lift (thermals, certainly) with a 1st timer aboard. Even if it's a thermal day, I'll generally only demonstrate a climb of 200 or 300 ft before exiting the thermal, just to give them a taste.

Of course if it's big fat thermals that work with well under 30 degrees of bank, or even only part of the turn in the thermal, then it's a different matter.