The view from the village on the south rim of the canyon.
BoB
What can you say about the Grand Canyon that hasn't been said by millions of others before. Despite the fact that you are prepared for its size and grandeur, it still takes your breath away when you see it for the first time. Magnificent.
Plan A when we decided to go over to see Rohan was to fly to LA and then hire a car and drive to Chicago taking in some of the sights along the way - especially the canyons in Utah. All the advice we got was not to drive across the prairies as we would die of boredom.
So Plan B was to drive to Denver and then fly to Chicago from there. But when I started to plan a suitable route and look at where we may be able to stay, it quickly became obvious that despite quite a bit of research, I had no idea of the best route to take or how to go about seeing the canyons with only limited time. Added to that, when looking at accommodation options, many of the places were booked out. In the end, it all became too difficult so we took the cowards way out and booked onto an 11 day coach tour (in reality only 9 days) that took in all of the major canyons of the south west. The tour started and ended in Las Vegas.
Probably a good decision on your part to do the coach tour to see as much as you can in a short time. The Grand Canyon and the "Fabulous 5" in Utah are must sees in the southwest. We did the same thing in Alice Springs to make sure we got to see as much of the "outback" as we could on a short schedule.
I think I would have gone with the bus tour too.