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| - After reading through a few of the other reviews here, my experience was not much different, though it does at least sound like Airbridge is at least *trying* to make things better.
First things first: I booked my tour through Viator.com, which actually does not name the company you'll be doing the tour with. The price ended up being less than $72, which was half of what I later learned Airbridge charges if you buy directly from them. As per Viator's directions, I called the day before the tour to find out when I would be picked up--I found out that I would need to walk from my hotel (Palms Place) to the valet at the Golden Nugget, a 10-minute walk, to meet the bus at 6 AM.
The bus was nearly 15 minutes late, made several other stops at a number of other random hotels, and we were deposited at the Airbridge Terminal. I don't think any of us knew where we were, or why we had stopped; we were offered no explanation, honestly. All I knew was that we were at a random industrial park for no apparent reason. We sat on the bus for nearly 10 minutes, watching our bus driver smoke and chat with other drivers, again with no explanation given as to where we were or what we were doing there.
Finally we were let off the bus and into a room in the "terminal" where we were shouted at by some random gentleman who basically just tried to upsell us on a variety of other things (e.g., helicopter tour, skywalk, etc.). From there we were sent into an adjoining room to "check in," where we were asked for another $10 for no apparent reason and given a couple of random slips of paper and a flimsy bracelet, and told where to go to reach our buses.
I headed outside to the bus and settled into a seat, but was rather randomly and rudely told to move next to a gentleman who would not close his legs or keep his elbows to himself, so I was essentially jammed involuntarily into a smaller-than-usual seat for the entire ride. Joy.
The driver did her best, but... well... bless her heart, whoever told her that she should be a public speaker for a living should be slapped silly. She had a terrible command of the English language, and many of her sentences (almost all of which contained the phrases "now listen," "you guys," "you know," and "OK then," usually multiple times each) were so tortured and nonsensical as to be incomprehensible. For example, as we began our drive, she told us that she'd be our tour guide as well as "your best friend if you want, and your bridesmaid if you need." WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN. When there wasn't an automated recording playing, chattering away factoids about the passing landscape, this lady would pipe up, telling us barely comprehensible stories about--things. I know she said "Ragtown" about fifty times, but I couldn't tell you what Ragtown even is to save my life.
We made a quick stop at the Hoover Dam bypass which was kind of cool, though the driver chastised us for not all being on the bus seven minutes earlier than scheduled. We made one additional stop for a "bathroom break" at a random McDonald's in Kingman, Arizona, before continuing the rest of the way to the South Rim.
I suppose I was lucky; I was meeting a friend at the NatGeo visitor's center who had driven there separately, and I was not going to return to Las Vegas with the rest of the tour group. I informed the driver, who seemed offended that I would even say such a thing. (Not exactly the reaction I anticipated.) I'm not sure what affiliation, if any, Skybridge has with NatGeo, but the visitor's center is nothing but an overpriced tourist trap with a horrible lunchroom that wouldn't have been so bad if they had had more than ONE PERSON working the entire line for the entire group. We did each get a lunch ticket for a free sandwich/"rice bowl"/pizza/soup & salad, but the driver seemed weirdly delighted that none of us knew that we would be getting this ticket upon arrival, actually taunting an Australian couple who dared ask when they would be getting the lunch ticket. It was, in a word, bizarre.
I was slightly wary of the concept of a bus tour in the first place--at least I know now to avoid them at all costs in the future. This was not a great experience and I will not be seeking out anything similar from this or any other company for the foreseeable future.
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