Today we had booked a Grand Deluxe Air and Ground tour with Canyon Tours, I’d read online that the South Rim tours were possibly the better choice as this area is owned and looked after by The Grand Canyon National Park and has the more classic views. I’m not sure if this is accurate but the South Rim does certainly seem the popular choice for first time visitors. Although note that if it’s your thing then with the West Rim tour you get the Skywalk included usually. Our tour included hotel pickup, flight to and back from Grand Canyon in a high wing aircraft, guided motorcoach inside the park, a couple of hours free time to explore and a lunch box. We paid $255 each although that was a special offer at the time and at the moment it costs $295.

The hotel pickup was on time and the driver was really friendly. We got dropped off at the local airport.

Here’s our little plane! Unfortunately it had a minor problem so we were about an hour late leaving..  but hey I’d rather them fix it and be a bit late, you don’t get a parachute.

While we are waiting you were wondering what my new converse looked like right that I got the day before? Here they are above in all their white glory. £10!!

We’re about to take off, cheesy pose in front of plane… check, retro headphones.. check. Lets go.

The engines on the plane were reallllly noisy! I think the aircraft was a Dorner 228 for anyone who’s interested. The tight retro headphones were needed to block out the drone.

Before we knew it we were flying over Las Vegas Bay.

Then we were flying over the Hoover Dam.. the views from the Dornier were really good. Very soon after this shot we flew through a load of rain clouds and I sh*t you not, we both thought we were going to die hahaha. We’ve never felt turbulence like it, I think possibly because of the small size of the aircraft it felt a lot worse than it was but I’ve never been so happy to land. But honestly the views were immense.

Landed, alive and carrying two little cute lunch boxes. Happy times. Our coach then took us on to the South Rim where those rain clouds we flew through caught up with us so it was then raining, grey and a bit misty. But a seriously amazing place, and the rain couldn’t spoil it.

We grabbed shots in between the rain showers.

At this point the rain began to ease.. but they moody clouds hung around.

On the left one of the popular viewing areas from a distance and Leigh giving us a wave on the top right photo.

We had a brilliant time at the South Rim it was something we’ll both remember forever, it was breath taking but it was now time to go. We were both a bit worried about the flight back to me honest!

We needn’t have worried the flight back was smooth, the views from the flight on the way back were even better.

Then we were coming in to land.

You can see the strip just in the top right of the photo above.

We got back to a lovely evening with the warm sun beginning to set. I’d highly recommend this trip, we originally looked at coach trips to the Grand Canyon but the brilliant views from the plane and the fact that we got there so much quicker was easily worth the extra spend over a coach.