hibiscuthouse,

I see you have decided against trying to do Las Vegas, S. Rim and N. Rim in one day. It's a good thing, because it's almost 500 miles and 11 hours of driving time so you wouldn't have much time for siteseeing.

Utahtea

You can cancel without penalty 48 hours prior to arrival. Sounds like a good idea ! Good luck !

ttt

Thank you for your help. Yes, we are staying at the south rim, then meandering our way north to Utah the next afternoon. I made a couple of reservations at the Thunderbird this afternoon, as El Tovar is booked. We have one rim front room, queen size bed with a pull-out reserved for my parents, and one of my kids can stay with them. Then a two queen bed, street side room reserved for the rest of us (2 adults, 2 children), on the same floor. Might just be happy with that arrangement, since we will still be privy to a rim view window in my parents room. So I may not continue a quest for an additional rim view room for ourselves. We'll only be there the one night, and will have access for the rim view in my parents room, so.......what the heck....we'll leave the rim views to the other folks.
Now, on to find a one night hotel in Las Vegas =-O....Oh My! Where do I begin?
Thanks for your help thus far.

I have found that the hotel's web sites provide the best deals. You can get an overview of the hotels and buffets at cheapovegas.com or this site has hotel info and also 'free things to do and see' in LV ! http://www.lasvegas.com/hotel/hotel_landing.htm

The Sahara has recently been renovated and is very cheap - I have a room in June for $39. It is at the north end of the strip but they have a monorail stop which will make it convenient to get to the other casinos/attractions further down the strip for $3 !!