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| - I love, love, LOVED this tour of the Grand Canyon! I had been researching various Grand Canyon tours for nearly 2 years when I found this new tour that was being offered by Papillon, and jumped on it!
First off, I had read that some tours can get cancelled due to weather conditions and turbulance later in the day, as well as the fact that I'd read the colors of the canyon are deeper in the morning hours. For these reasons, Hubby and I opted for the earliest trip possible, meaning that we were picked up at our hotel at 3:55 am! Ouch to the time, but we scheduled it to be the second day we were there (our hometime is 3 hours behind), so it really felt like we were getting up at 6 am rather than 3 am. :P Pickup was uneventful, friendly but unobtrusive driver. We were the first pickup of the morning because we were staying at Encore.
From there, we headed to Boulder City Municipal Airport, which took about an hour with all the other pickups (again, we were first pickup, so our ride was longer). We then boarded a small craft airplane, and happily every single person on the plane had a view. :D There are about 5 inner seats, but these seats can easily see through the huge windows that are provided. I did notice a couple queasy girls that opted for these seats.
There is a taped audio provided during the trip that had pleasant music as well as info on everything that you were looking at (hoover damn, lake mead, etc etc).
The airplane ride to the Canyon took approximately 50 mins, and loved every moment of it. The ride was smooth, again, it was early in the morning, I don't know what that has to do with it, but have largely read that turbulance gets worse later in the day (very true, our ride back was VERY VERY VERY bumpy and had the queasy girls practically with their heads in their laps). -- I do think that some of their theatrics were for the benefits of their boyfriends to 'rescue' them.
After this, we were treated to our "complimentary buffet" that was included in the cost, it was just an ordinary buffet, but were were hungry by this time and it was very nice. If you go, please remember to tip your waitress even though it is a buffet, they work hard too :) I noticed that there were alot of people just leaving without a tip (europeans do not realise this, I guess).
Anyway, from there we boarded another bus which took us to Papillon Helicopter Pad for boarding. Seat assignment is based on weight. I was assigned to a window seat, right hand side, forward facing. Hubby was assigned to the seat across from me, facing me. There is one seat available next to the captain, and one seat that is in the middle. That seat went to the smallest person on the helicopter during our flight (the middle seat). It was probably just as well, because she was scared during the flight, but eased up once she saw how much fun we were all having. Again, taped info and music is played during the flight, in various languages. The problem is, well, you have to listen to all the languages info before you get to yours, and our captain did not program any English into our tour (he picks the languages).
As a matter of fact, of the hundreds of people that we saw during our tour, we did not come across a single American. We found this rather sad, having one of the 7 wonders of the world right in our own back yard and the only ones coming to visit during our day tour from Vegas were all foreigners.
In any case, the helicopter ride was WORTH EVERY CENT we paid for it ($614 for 2, using a 10% discount code offered when you sign up for Papillon's emails). Going off that edge in the heli is a great memory :D I won't say to much, I will let the pictures do the talking.
After this, we boarded a tour bus that took us to 2 different famous lookout points on the canyon, for pictures and souvenirs. That was alot of fun too, but there are some spots that do not have guard rails and quite a few people just stood there on the edge (with their small children next to them and not even holding their hands, ouch). I am not that brave. :P
After that, it was back to the airport to board our plane back to vegas. The plane takes a different route back, so there is opportunity for different pictures. This was around noon-1pm and it was a BUMPY ride back. The tour operator apologised for the conditions, and we were no worse for the wear, having thoroughly enjoyed our amazing day at the canyon. We got back to our hotel by around 1-2? not sure, but didn't care, it was great!
Btw, all the people that we encountered at Papillon were courteous, friendly, and helpful. Everything was well organised. Thank you for an Amazing trip!
p.s. FOR THOSE THAT THINK THEY CANNOT DO THE HELICOPTER OR PLANE: still do go on the bus tour, there were equally amazing views on that tour and it was worth every second of it. I almost rather enjoyed walking around and seeing things on our own.
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