My gliding experience consists of one short flight, at an "experience" evening for members of a power flying club. All good fun, but it pretty well lived up to the stereotype of an hour hanging around on the ground for each minute or two in the air.
What I wasn't expecting was that the cost - in terms of £ per minute in the air - was going to be pretty similar to power flying, rather than the several times cheaper that I had somehow expected after reading discussions like this one.
But, like I said, all good fun.