k12lima

My husband and I are taking 2 18 year olds to Las Vegas for spring break. We will be in Vegas for 6 nights. We plan to see some shows and are looking into making some side trips.

We are thinking about going to see the Grand Canyon and Hollywood. Should we consider buying tours or renting a car and exploring these areas on our own?

If we book tours, which company would you recommend? If we explore on our own, how hard is it to get to these locations, to park, and to site-see on our own?

SiteC_er

Hollywood is more than a day trip. However, the Hoover Dam should be on your list.

bookhall

Valley of Fire is an easy day trip, and well-worth your time.

MorganRey

If you have a car a day trip up to Utah Cedar Breaks might be fun.

Marginal

Hollywood- as in Los Angeles? That is not a day trip. In my opinion, 6 nights is too long in Las Vegas. If you really put a priority on seeing Hollywood, I would fly to LA and stay a night in the LA-Santa Monica area.

spirobulldog

Two great ways to see the Canyon. There is a tour package that is Airplane/Helicopter/Float Tour of the canyon. The float is just a calm 30 minutes.

If you choose to drive to the Canyon, consider doing a helicopter tour, hiking however much down into the canyon you desire. I would spend the night there at least one night if I was going to drive there.

k12lima

For the helicopter tour, is there a certain company that you would recommend?

Sara

I second a trip to Valley of Fire, it's really fascinating. We rented a car and went ourselves - I know you can take bus tours from LV, but I think it would be more fun to go on your own and take things at your own pace - and with four of you, probably more economical. Are you committed to staying the whole time in Las Vegas and only doing day trips? If so, unless you are willing to shell out big bucks for either a helicopter tour or a small plane flight, I don't think Grand Canyon is feasible- it's about a five hour drive from LV to there - depending on when spring break is, if it's in mid-March you'll have about 12 hours of daylight, and a very long day of driving back and forth, not a lot of time to see much of the canyon - if you can stay overnight it could be worthwhile. Or you might consider a trip to Zion Canyon in Utah, which is spectacular - it's a three hour drive from Las Vegas. I'd still recommend an overnight there to fully appreciate it, but at least it's a shorter drive.

Here's another suggestion, a half day raft trip on the Colorado River starting just below Hoover Dam (which you should also visit). I haven't done this, but it sounds like fun, and I have it on my list if I ever get back to Las Vegas (DH goes to a conference there every few years). Here's the web site:

http://foreverlodging.com/lodging.cfm?PropertyKey=130

k12lima

Well.. we have a timeshare rental for 6 nights in Vegas, so we are pretty much committed to using that as our home base and making day trips.

I did see a tour company that does a day trip from Vegas to Hollywood, and there are several tour companies that offer day trips to the Grand Canyon. We live in Ohio, and I would love to see the GC, so the long day trip doesn't seem like that much of a big deal to me.

We could certainly rent a car instead of doing the tour companies, though... would that be cheaper? And, it sounds like the raft trip would be lots of fun, as well as the valley of fire. So we would have at least 3 destinations that we could use the rental car.

As far as Hollywood, I think that would be really hard to try to navigate on our own. I would love to see the sites that the tour company offers, and that's why I am considering doing that tour. http://www.qtlv.com/tours.php?q=38

I guess we c-o-u-l-d spend the night at the GC, but we would have the timeshare that night as well, so it would be a double lodging expense.

springtime00

wow 6 nights in vegas...could get expensiveee

k12lima

well... we are planning to see a few shows. We already have Phantom of the Opera tickets for one evening, and are likely to book tickets for Ka and maybe also Blue Man Group. Wayne Brady isn't there the week we are (April 4-11), which is disappointing, but I would love to have recommendations for another good comedy show. My husband and I aren't gamblers (and the 18 year olds aren't old enough), so we won't spend any money on that.

Flights are booked ($230 each round trip, which includes all fees), and room is paid for (since it's a timeshare), but I know things will continue to add up. But, it is the boys' last spring break as high schoolers, and I don't know how their college spring breaks will work out with my high school daughter's schedule in future years. (By the way, our daughter is not coming along on this trip because she has plans to go to NYC with a friend.)