This tour is billed as an 11 hour tour. It is - from Sedona. From Flagstaff it's about 9 hours since the bus is a mix of both. The bus holds just 14 so it is a nice small group - easy to get the tour guides attention for questions etc. Our guide Ty was very knowledgeable and filled the time with stories and history well. It's a long ride between Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon so they fill it with a few stops. First stop is Sunset Crater and then the very interesting Lava Flow a bit further down the road. The next stop is Wupatki National Monument. I love seeing where and how people lived so this was a great stop. The dwellings and surrounding area were interesting and Ty filled in the blanks. The last stop of the morning was the Cameron Trading Post where we had lunch. This is a restaurant attached to a store selling the usual clothing, jewelry and a lot of local Indian art etc. Lunch is included and the Navajo Taco was delicious. You can eat anything off the menu but I'd suggest the Taco. Then on to the GC. Obviously there are no bad views or places to stop and we stopped at quite a few. The first being the East Rim. Some tours do not stop here - those people are missing the most colorful view. One comment on tours...There is always one person who thinks they are more important than the rest and this tour was no different. Be prepared to wait on a full bus while this person ignores the schedule and is in no hurry to get back to the bus. Its always the one same person and ours showed no remorse that we were all constantly waiting for her.
Loved this tour. . . Mark was an excellent guide. Especially liked the fact that it was a small tour and we were able to go to multiple spots for some fantastic views for photos. Not a lot of walking / hiking, but some -- if you so chose. Lunch was great. Thoroughly enjoyed it and would go again.
This was a pretty decent day. Grand Canyon was beautiful. I gave 3 stars as my guide Christine was very fixated on time and making each stop at the precise time that at some point it just felt like the trip was rushed and somewhat stressful. To give her credit, this situation was made worse when one of the other travelers returned back to the bus 20 minutes after we were supposed to leave a certain stop. I feel there should be some plan for when passengers don't show up on time, as this only added to the stress, that we were running behind. I understand the need to keep on schedule, but when you're fixated on running behind and being on time from the beginning of the day, it just gets worse. In my mind I had signed up for a full day of activities and couldn't understand why we were behind or felt to be rushing all the time. I also think it should be noted that because of the different activities in the morning, which were beautiful, there is less time to be spent touring specific sites at the Grand Canyon. If you are looking to sit and reflect on the beauty of the Grand Canyon then this is not the tour for you. I enjoyed the time at the Cameron Trading Post, but feel we could have spent less time there. We had an hour to spend there, but less than 20 minutes at each Grand Canyon stop.
All in all a good day, its a beautiful sight, but just not as fun of a trip as I thought it would be. I also would have liked more information from the guide at the Wupatki Monument when we were viewing the Pueblos, but she left us to explore on our own. I feel people walking around with self guided tour books were more informed than I was.