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Williams

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grand-canyon-no-rail

When we were in Vegas for 5 days, it just seemed right to take a tour of the Grand Canyon for the day. I’ve never been, so we were really eager to go. The downside is that it would be too difficult to get there on our own, so we found Grand Canyon Tours.

For $79.99 per person, we would get:

  • Pick up from our hotel
  • Complimentary morning snack which checking-in for the tour at Miracle Mile Shops
  • Photo Opportunity at the Hoover Dam
  • All you can eat lunch buffet
  • National Park Rim and Village tour
  • Bright Angel Lodge

The tour begins at 6:30am and will return back to Vegas at around 9:30pm. It’s an all day trip as it is still quite far away.

grand-canyon-tour-bus

The bus is pretty standard. It’s clean and the best part is that it has Wifi. As I am constantly needing to be connected to the internet, it was definitely a plus. The seats are 2 by 2 and there’s a washroom in back back.

During the long drives, our driver – Frosty entertained us with great insight into the area, fun facts, and jokes. They will also play a few movies to keep you entertained.

grand-canyon-hoover-dam

The first stop was the Hoover Dam. We got about 20 minutes to look at it and take some pictures. It was beautiful and its amazing hearing how difficult it was to build.

grand-canyon-buffet-wait

Next stop was the lunch buffet at the Grand Depot Cafe in Williams and it was a madhouse with all the other tour buses there. At least 3 or 4 others. You wait to get seated and it didn’t take that long since they seems to have a system to seat everyone in an efficient manner.

The buffet is included in tour price, so if you are feeling nice, you can leave a tip for the servers.

grand-canyon-lunch-buffet-crowd

If you are part of the rush, you will see bodies everywhere. It took me a while to figure out how the lines worked.

grand-canyon-lunch-salad

I grabbed from salad from the salad bar. It’s pretty average, it’s not fancy at all.

grand-canyon-lunch-buffet

The food really wasn’t impressive at all. Lots of Mexican food options.

Grand Depot Cafe on Urbanspoon

grand-canyon-tourist

Once you got off the bus and arrived at the Grand Canyon, you will see this. TONS and TONS of tourists like me. There are 2 areas like this and it gets quite annoying if you want to take amazing pictures from the edge. I would suggest avoiding this area and walk more to the left.

grand-canyon-railless

You will see an unrailed area. It does seem dangerous but just don’t get right near the edge and you will be fine.

grand-canyon-edge

The most I was wiling to do is just sit on some rocks. It really is a beautiful canyon. It amazed me by its vast size.

grand-canyon-crazy

It’s also great for people watching. You can really go to the extreme and get fabulous pictures, but for a person like me, I couldn’t do what these two were doing.

grand-canyon-s

After that section, they take you to Bright Angel Lodge for an alternative view of the canyon.

grand-canyon-sky

Whether you have a smartphone or an SLR, you’ll be able to amazing photos because thats just how amazing the canyon is.

Once we were done at the Grand Canyon, we begin the long trip back to Las Vegas. They make a pit stop at a Convenience store with a Subway if you get hungry. You have the option to be dropped off at the same hotel you were picked up or ask the bus driver to drop you off at another hotel. Instead of returning back to the Aria, we decided to get off at Treasure Island. You get back at 9:30pm, but because of the traffic on the strip and the order of which hotels they go to first, the timing may not be accurate.

Website: http://www.grandcanyontours.com/