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Grand Canyon Holiday
Helicopter Tours to the National Park
The holiday season will soon be here. That's a great time to take a winter trip and tour the Grand Canyon by helicopter, and if you plan to do that, you better book your tour now. Helicopter tours are always popular, but even more so over the holidays, so the sell out quickly.
Helicopter tours are available from Las Vegas in Nevada and from the airport by the South Rim in Arizona, and you can take a tour every day of the year except on Christmas Day.
Flight Departures
Las Vegas helicopter tours tend to fill up the quickest simply because a lot of people are in Vegas over the holidays.
Still, the South Rim is busy too. Tourists pick up in Phoenix and Sedona, and many of them decide to visit the Grand Canyon since it is fairly close.
That's why you need to book your tour as soon as you can. At the very least, try to book your tour at least two weeks in advance. If for some reason, you can't get seats on a helicopter, then try to book an airplane tour out of Vegas instead.
Christmas Tours
You won't be able to take one of the airplane tours on Christmas Day either. The airplanes are bigger, so they carry 19 passengers on each flight, and for this reason, it is easier to get a seat on these tours as long as you book early. The airplanes have to fly at a higher altitude than helicopters, so the view isn't as good, but the tours are cheaper, and another thing to keep in mind is the airplanes do not fly down to the canyon floor.
You pick from two options on the chopper tours. One is the air only tour and the other is the landing tour. You can choose from these types of tours no matter which rim you go to. But you can only land on the canyon floor at the West Rim. The South Rim landing package comes with a helicopter tour of the rim and a 3-hour Jeep excursion through the canyon.
Flights out of Vegas do not have to land on the canyon floor, they can land on top of the rim too. That's a great option if you want to see the Skywalk when you visit the canyon. All the aircraft that depart from Vegas take a flight path that goes over Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam, so you get fantastic aerial views of them as well.
South Rim Tours
If you are interested in the beauty of nature, touring the South Rim by air is an excellent choice. You'll get a bird's eye view of almost all of the million plus acres in the National Park. There is a thirty-minute flight that flies over to the North Rim and circles back. Then there is a 50-minute tour that goes to the North Rim and the eastern edge of the park before coming back to the South Rim.
You also want to watch out for price hikes during the holiday season. The price of a Grand Canyon tour can climb as much as 15 percent. You'll likely be hit by these higher prices if you buy your seats 72 hours before takeoff, or worse, at the last minute.
Also, you can pick from two tours on these aircraft. You can choose the basic tour, or you can upgrade to the deluxe version. Opt for the deluxe tour if you will be departing from Vegas, it is worth it. When you take a deluxe tour, you are transported to your chopper in a limousine. The benefits included in the deluxe air tour makes that a great value for your money.
Wrapping Up
Helicopter tours of the Grand Canyon sell out quickly during the winter holiday season. Be sure to book your tour as soon as you can, do it at least two weeks ahead of time. Buy your tour online too, that is where you'll find some great discounts. Just go ahead and pay for your tickets on the tour company's site, and that way, you can qualify for the low Internet rate and save bundle, especially if you're buying tickets for your whole family.
Fly Grand Canyon. Travel writer Lea Fallon recommends these Canyon helicopter tours that can be purchased at a discount using these offers:
http://www.grandcanyonhelicopter.org/grand-canyon-helicopter-tour-coupons.html |
