Arizona and Utah Review

[Diane0977]

Introduction

Hello! After reading as many trip reports as I could before our ABD trip, I decided I should return the favor and do one of my own. This is my first attempt at one, so please forgive any clumsiness!

My family went on the July 30-August 6 ABD Arizona and Utah trip. It was an amazing experience, and one I would recommend for any family looking for an active vacation. At the 2 month pre-trip point, we only had 12 people for our entire trip booked, so imagine our surprise when we arrived and had an almost full tour of 33. I thought it was an excellent trip for families with kids. I’ll get to the introductions in a minute, but we have two daughters, ages 6 and 8, and they fit right in. I don’t recall the exact ages of all of the other kids on the trip, but out of our group of 33, I think 15 of them were kids ranging from age 6 to mid-teens. We really enjoyed having a large group of children on our tour. The kids all seemed to congregate on the back of the bus and at one table for meals, so our children were occupied most of the time. I’m sure some of the adults who sat at the back of the bus might feel differently, but I felt like this gave us some pseudo-adult time on occasion.

This was our first ABD experience and also our first “group tour”; I am happy to say that we absolutely loved it, and now we’re planning on booking the Italy trip for next summer.

I’m going to start the trip report with our pre-ABD days, simply because we started our vacation almost a week prior to the ABD experience starting. We live in the Midwest, so we wanted to take advantage of our time “Out West”. I hope that our experience may encourage others who are considering adding time pre or post ABD to their vacation overall to take advantage of the area.

Now for the introductions. We are a family of four, consisting of myself (age 36), my husband Shawn (age 39), DD1 (age 8) and DD2 (age 6).

This is a picture of us on a previous WDW trip.

The 18 y.o. elected not to join us on this vacation, as she wanted to get settled at college over the summer. This will be an important point later in the review, because originally we had her included in the reservation. As a family of five, we then had two separate reservations, due to constraints in hotel rooms. However, before final payment was due, we removed her from the reservation….but for some reason ABD would not let us change our reservation to one room at that point. So, we ended up being a family of four with two reservations with two people on each. I think there were some pros/cons to this situation, so I’ll talk about that when I discuss each hotel. The cost was the same per person either way, so this is definitely something we’ll consider for future adventures.

Alright, well I'm going to stop here to make sure everything translates as it should once I post. Next, I'll start with our departure day and go from there. Thanks for reading!

 

[carpenta]

Looking forward to your review Diannne. We did this trip a few years ago and it still is one of our favorite. Thanks for taking the time.

 

[Diane0977]

Pre-ABD Days-LA Tour and Grand Californian

I won’t go into too much detail for our pre-ABD days, but I can answer any questions anyone has if they would like more specifics. We flew out of Chicago on a 9:00 p.m. flight on Thursday, July 24th. I was a little worried about taking such a late flight, but it really worked well for our family. The girls both fell asleep within 30 minutes of taking off and slept for the entire flight. We would definitely do a late night flight again, as it allowed the girls to get decent sleep and they weren’t too tired for activities the next day. The flight was fairly uneventful, and it took about 4 ½ hours to get to LAX. We arrived at LAX, got our luggage (thankfully it was all there!), and proceeded out to try to get a taxi to our hotel, the Hilton Airport.

Now, here’s where we messed up. We were tired, the kids were crabby, and we really just wanted to get to the hotel to sleep for the night. The Hilton had a free airport shuttle, but I thought it would be worth it to just get a cab and get there more quickly. Turns out, I was wrong. We watched two shuttles come and go before we were able to get a van cab, since our party of four and luggage was too big for a standard size car. In any case, it took about 30 minutes to get a cab, and less than 5 to actually travel to the hotel. We checked in at the Hilton, got up to our room, and went to bed.

The next morning, we went down for breakfast at about 7:00 a.m. We had booked the bed and breakfast package. The buffet was standard Hilton breakfast fare, but the restaurant was packed with an international group, so it made getting food a bit of a hassle. However, we were finished eating fairly quickly, and went back to our room to get our luggage, as we were meeting a tour guide at 8:00 a.m. Here is where I have my only major complaint…..we literally waited 20 minutes for an elevator. We were on floor 8 or so, and every single elevator that stopped on our floor was full. We ended up being late to meet our tour guide because we were stuck waiting. I guess it was just a busy time, but seriously frustrating.

So, about 4 months prior to our vacation, I started researching tour guides in Los Angeles. We were looking for someone who would come to our hotel, pick us and our luggage up, take us on a quick tour of the high points of L.A., and then drive us to Disneyland. After some research on the internet and verifying on TripAdvisor, we decided to go with Bluesky Tours with Abi. We were able to arrange a private tour for our family, Abi corresponded with me via email in the weeks leading up to our trip to determine what we would like to do. Overall, we were happy with the tour, and it allowed us a chance to see many of the places that we considered important to see during our day in L.A.

Abi was there by 8:00, but we didn’t get moving until around 8:15. First, he took us on a tour of Beverly Hills. He was fantastic about stopping at scenic points to take pictures and let us look around. We drove through Beverly Hills, and he showed us some of the homes on the Hollywood Stars’ Homes tours.

Next, we drove to Rodeo Drive. This was nice because it was still early and no one was really out yet. Abi gave us about 20 minutes to walk around, and we decided to walk into the Beverly Wilshire to use the restroom…very cool. We then headed to the beaches and spent some time at both Venice Beach and the Santa Monica Pier. After having lunch at the Santa Monica Pier, we went to Hollywood Boulevard where we visited the Hollywood Walk of Fame. We finished up our tour with a trip to some scenic views and pics of the Hollywood sign.

Finally, after some whirlwhind touring, we were off to Disneyland. We did end up getting stuck in some traffic, and it took us about 90 minutes to get there. We arrived at Disneyland and checked into the Grand Californian. We are DVC members, but were unable to book a Grand Californian Villa by the time we made plans to go to Disneyland, so we used our points to stay in a normal hotel room. The room was nice, very similar to the Wilderness Lodge at Disney World in my opinion. We had a room with a view of DCA, and it was cool to see the park from our room. I didn't take any pics of the room, unfortunately, sorry about that.

We went to our room, unpacked a little bit, then headed to dinner at the Storyteller Café in the Grand Californian. Dinner was good, and it was nice to be close to our hotel room. After dinner, we did a little bit of exploring in Downtown Disney as well as some shopping. We went to bed pretty early that night, as we had a big day coming up.

 

[AZMermaid]

I'm reading!

 

[Diane0977]

Pre-ABD Days--Disneyland

We spent the next two days at Disneyland. This was probably the part of the trip that I planned most intensely. You see, we are WDW veterans, but we had never before been to Disneyland. We really wanted to make sure we would get to do everything we could at Disneyland…..but we were going over a weekend…in July. So, after going through all of the attractions at the two parks with my family and compiling a list of our “must do’s” and “really want to do’s”, we decided to splurge on a VIP tour for one of our days. I won’t go too much into detail about our time with the tour guide unless someone has some further questions, but essentially they allow you to go through the FastPass lane for all rides that offer it, and they give you front of the line access to many other attractions. Additionally, you have guaranteed seating/viewing at many shows and/or parades offered during the day.

On Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early. It was Extra Magic Hour day at Disneyland, which meant that the park opened up at 7:00 a.m. for certain guests. Luckily, the three hour time change worked in our favor, and it felt to us like we actually slept in. We had picked up some breakfast to eat in our hotel room at Downtown Disney the day before, so we ate in our room and headed to the main gates. I really enjoyed the ease of getting around at Disneyland as compared to Disney World. We were literally standing in line to get into the park within 7 minutes of walking out of our hotel room. As we weren’t meeting our tour guide until 10:00 a.m., I had used TouringPlans to generate a strategy to ride most of the rides in Fantasyland before starting our tour. This worked great! We were able to ride Alice in Wonderland, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Snow White, Pinocchio, the Carousel, the Tea Cups, and the Matterhorn all before the park opened to the General Public at 8:00 a.m. Then, at 8:00, we rode the Storybook Land Canal Boats and It’s a Small World. Having accomplished everything we wanted to before our tour started, we decided to go take a spin on the Monorail. We waited for a second train so we could ride in the front “cone” car, and it was well worth it! Excellent view and a lot of fun. Finally, we headed back towards Main Street for a quick snack before we were to meet up with our tour guide.

At the appointed time, I headed to Town Hall to pick up our tour guide, Krystina. The girls didn’t know what the plan was, so I brought her back to the family and she introduced herself. We discussed a list of the attractions we wanted to accomplish for the day, and we were off! We headed to DCA first, and rode Monsters Inc, Radiator Springs Racers, California Screamin, Toy Story Midway Mania, California Screamin (again!), Soarin’, and then watched a viewing of Aladdin. Next, we headed to Disneyland, where Krystina used her clout to help us avoid the Dole Whip line, and then we got back to touring. We rode Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion (and a viewing of the "secret" pet graveyard in the back), Big Thunder Mountain (twice), Splash Mountain, Space Mountain (twice), Buzz Lightyear (5 times, they just let us stay on), and Autopia….all of this was accomplished by 6:00! At 6:00, we had reservations at Big Thunder Barbeque. The food was good, the service was extraordinarily slow, and we didn’t get out until after 8:00. Then, we headed back to DCA for a final ride on California Screamin and Radiator Springs Racers before ending our day at the World of Color. It was an amazing day, but boy were we exhausted. Luckily, there was an entrance to our hotel right there in the park, and we were in bed within 30 minutes of the ending of World of Color.

The next morning, we slept in! We had accomplished most of what we wanted to in the parks the day before, so we took advantage of the chance to sleep a little longer. We woke up and went to the Grand Californian quick service location for breakfast. Then, we headed to Downtown Disney to stock up on some Disneyland Pins and other goodies. At 10:00, we headed over to Disneyland where we did some more shopping on Main Street and then headed to Blue Bayou for lunch. We had an 11:00 a.m. reservation at Blue Bayou, which allowed us to snag a waterfront table. The food was excellent, and the Monte Cristo sandwich is all it is fabled to be. It was seriously good! After lunch, we rode Pirates of the Caribbean again, and then took a family vote….Mickey and the Magical Map or back to the hotel for swimming. I lost, so back to the hotel it was. We took a quick dip in the pool and then went back to the room for a break before our nighttime activities. At 6:00 we had dinner at Naples Ristorante in Downtown Disney, headed back to Disneyland for a final ride on Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, and then we found a spot in front of the castle for fireworks viewing. We were lucky to find a bench right at the circle, as a group of teens got up, and we had a great view. I love the Tinkerbell and Dumbo portions of the show, but find that Wishes at the Magic Kingdom remains my favorite. We had reservations for the Fantasmic Dessert Package for the second showing, so we headed in that direction after the fireworks were over. At some point between the Haunted Mansion and Pirates, we checked in to pick our seats for the Fantasmic Dessert Package, but we didn’t have to wait to do that and it took less than 5 minutes. The second seating was not full at all, and we ended up with front row seats without much effort to get to check in early. I do have to say that Disneyland has crowd control under soooo much better control than the Magic Kingdom. I recall telling my husband that it was going to be so difficult to make our way back to Fantasmic, and it was such a breeze. We actually arrived for the Dessert Package early, and had to wait for a few minutes before being seated.

The Dessert Package was definitely worth it. We didn’t really eat much from our trays before or during the show, as we were still feeling full from dinner. They were a great late-night snack on subsequent days of our vacation though. There was a great variety of cheeses, crackers, and desserts in each tray. Our girls were persuaded to try some hot chocolate before Fantasmic started, and they absolutely loved it. My husband and I drank water and soda. The seats were great, as we actually had chairs, and we were able to see the show without any obstructions.

After Fantasmic was over, we headed back to our room. We ate some of our desserts before calling it a night and going to bed.

 

[Cousin Orville]

Sounds great! I'm looking forward to reading your trip report. I've never heard of the pet graveyard in DL. Is it viewable from the main queue or do you have to have special access to see it?

 

[Diane0977]

The pet graveyard was around the back side, and we had to get permission from a HM castmember to go there.....but I don't know if they would let someone not on a tour go back or not.

 

[Diane0977]

Pre-ABD Days—Travel to Arizona and Day in Scottsdale
Monday was our day to travel to Arizona. We had arranged to rent a car through Alamo, which was located at the Marriott Convention Center in Anaheim. I had hoped to use Hertz right there in Downtown Disney, but Alamo offered a price $400 less for a full size SUV, so we decided the inconvenience was probably worth it. We got up early and started our day with breakfast at Storyteller Cafe in the Grand Californian. This was a character breakfast with Chip and Dale, Brother Bear, and Pluto. We really enjoyed this meal; we were one of maybe 10 families in the entire restaurant and the characters really took their time with us…..a completely different experience than we are used to at Disney World.

After breakfast, my husband caught a cab to go to Alamo, as he couldn’t get through on the phone for a pick up. The girls and I went back to our room to finish packing. It took him about an hour before he made it back to the hotel, but then we were on our way. Our plan was to take Highway 10 all the way to Phoenix, with a possible stop at Joshua Tree National Park, depending on how the girls were doing. Our original plan was to take 62 north before Palm Springs in order to enter the park at the north entrance and then travel through the park south to come back out on 10. However, the kids were being crabby, and we thought we would just stay on 10 and drive into the park from the south entrance a little bit to see a Joshua Tree and leave…..big mistake. You see, Joshua Trees are only located in the north part of the park, so we learned when we entered the park from the Cottonwood Springs Road entrance. Our 8 y.o. was determined to see a Joshua Tree, so we decided to go ahead and drive through the entire park.

So, we entered Joshua Tree National Park from the south, which is in the Colorado Desert. The landscape in this area was beautiful, with mountains and not much in the way of vegetation. We stopped at the Cottonwood Visitors Center. We didn’t know ahead of time, but if you go here before the Arizona and Utah ABD tour and have kids…buy the National Parks Passport. This is a book that kids can fill with stamps and/or stickers from the national parks you visit during your trip. We ended up getting one on the first day of our ABD tour, but were disappointed that we didn’t get a chance to get a stamp for our Joshua Tree Day. We stopped for a few minutes at the Cholla cactus garden and to look at Pinto Mountain. Here are some pictures from the south part of the park.

As we continued north in the park, we drove into the Mojave Desert, and eventually saw our first Joshua Tree. The further north we drove, the more interesting the landscape got. We didn’t expect to see all of the rock formations, and people out and climbing all over them. We ended up stopping at Jumbo Rocks and Skull Rock and climbing around a little bit, and then drove up to Keys View for a really nice view of the Salton Sea and Coachella Valley. Finally, on our way out, we stopped to climb and look around at Split Rock. Here are some pictures of the north side of the park.

We left the park from Park Boulevard and ended up in the town of TwentyNine Palms where we stopped for a late lunch and a gas fill up. I would say that we were in the park for about 4-5 hours, and we thought it was well worth the stop. The park was amazing, and it was very interesting to see the completely different ecosystems as we moved from south to north. Unfortunately, since we came in on the south side of the park, we then had to go back to highway 10…..that little detour took us approximately an extra hour and a half. Eventually, we made it back to 10 and continued towards Phoenix/Scottsdale. It was about 10:00 p.m. when we finally made it to our hotel in Scottsdale, the Canyon Suites at the Phoenician Resort.

We were exhausted, starving, and dirty by the time we got to the Phoenician, so we ordered room service for pre-bed snacks, took showers and went to bed. The plan was to relax the next day so we would be recharged and ready to begin our ABD tour on Wednesday.

On Tuesday morning, we were amazed at the view that greeted us from our hotel room. It was dark when we had arrived the night before, so we didn’t appreciate how beautiful the resort truly was. Here are some pictures from our hotel.

I would definitely recommend the Canyon Suites for anyone looking for a pre-ABD resort. This is a smaller section located within the Phoenician Resort, and the service was excellent. They emailed us about a week prior to our arrival to make any necessary arrangements, and I was surprised by that extra touch. We booked a one bedroom suite (I didn’t take any pictures, sorry), that had a dining room area, a full living room that was large enough for a pull out couch as well as a rollaway bed for our two children, and two bathrooms. The Canyon Suites have their own pool, but you have access to the larger resort pools at the Phoenician as well. We had a large balcony overlooking the golf course, and the entire resort was simply relaxing.

We got up and walked to the Phoenician (about a 5 minute walk up the hill) to eat breakfast at the main restaurant for the resort. We ate outside, and it was very good. There were some pesky birds in the area, but they actually had hotel staff working to shoo away birds that got too close. After breakfast, we walked around a bit to see the pool areas at the big hotel, and then we went back to our room. We had to make a quick trip to a local Walmart to find arm floaties for our youngest, and then we went back to the resort. We elected to stay at the Canyon Suites to swim, and we headed down to the pool. Service here was amazing! The pool attendants brought around frozen grapes to snack on while we were down there, and drinks were delivered to the ledge of the pool, to the delight of our kids. By mid-afternoon, we were hot, and decided to cool off with some ice cream at the Phoenician. Then, it was back to the room for a late afternoon nap for the whole family. For the evening, we decided again to take advantage of room service, and then we rented a pay per view movie for the kids to watch while the adults got everything packed and ready to embark on our ABD tour the next morning.

It was an early night for us, we were in bed before nine, and we were excited to move on to start our group tour. And finally, the next part of this review will be what you all have been waiting for…..our experiences on the ABD Arizona and Utah tour.

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Really enjoying your trip report! Looking forward to reading more.

 

[Diane0977]

Arizona and Utah Day 1: Montezuma Castle and Sedona

Finally, we made it to day one of our ABD tour! We left the Phoenician Hotel around 10:30 a.m. to drop off our rental car and meet our group at the airport. The car rental drop off process was unbelievably easy. It took about 30 minutes total to drop off the rental car and make our way into the main terminal. We knew we were early, but wanted to make sure we were in the right place, so we headed towards the Starbucks. We made it about halfway there when we were flagged down by two individuals holding Adventures by Disney paddles….it was our tour guides Mike and Kim! After some introductions, they told us we had about an hour until we would be ready to go. They took our luggage for us, and then told us we had time to get some lunch in the airport. Mike and Kim gave us a brief rundown of the options available to us, and we went on our way. We decided to eat at Chelsea’s Kitchen, mainly because it was a sit-down restaurant, and we figured we had some time to waste. We really didn’t enjoy our meals at all, however, and I wouldn’t recommend it. My husband’s chicken sandwich was raw, and I didn’t find the roast beef sandwich to be very good either.

After lunch, we went back down to the Starbucks where our group was starting to come together. We waited approximately a half an hour for the last of our group to arrive, and during that time Kim worked to get the kids introduced to each other. This was a really nice gesture, as the kids got to know each other pretty early on in the trip, and were already asking to ride together by the time we got on the bus. We adults introduced ourselves as well and started to get to know one another. As I mentioned earlier, we had a total of 33 on our tour (two of our group ended up joining us the next day because their flight was delayed). At about 1:00 p.m., we headed out to the pick-up area where we waited for about 10 minutes for our bus. I think this was out of the ordinary, as Mike and Kim were calling the bus driver to figure out where he was. However, soon enough we were boarding our bus on our way to Sedona.

Once we boarded the bus, Kim started with a brief introduction of the bus and how the tour would work. She also would point out interesting sights as we drove. She had a lot of information during this drive about cacti and the ecosystem in the Phoenix, Arizona area. We stopped at an exit off of the highway to look at a saguaro cactus and take pictures. One thing that we particularly enjoyed is that both of our guides carry a camera and take pictures of each of the families wherever you go. You get access to those photos once you return from your adventure. They will also take pictures with your own cameras, so we got plenty of shots to choose from at each spot we visited. Below is a picture of the cactus. This was a very quick stop, perhaps 15 minutes total just to take pictures of each family, and then we got right back on the bus.

We drove for about an hour to Montezuma National Monument. On the way, Mike and Kim both talked about the scenery we passed and the history of the National Monument. Also nice is that they always had snacks and water available whenever we were on the bus, which was helpful for the kids who were always hungry. Once we arrived at the National Monument, Mike and Kim led us around the area and told us about this history of the Sinagua Indians and how we think they lived in these dwellings. After we walked around to look at the dwellings built into the cliffs, we all sat down in an amphitheater-like area where they spoke a bit more about Sinagua culture and took any questions. The kids in the group had some really good questions, and Mike and Kim were phenomenal in making sure everyone stayed engaged. We walked around the area a bit more, went into the gift shop to purchase some Passport books for the kids, and then we got back on the road.

Once we left Montezuma Castle, it was about a 45 minute drive to the Enchantment Resort in Sedona. The scenery was beautiful, and it didn’t seem like it took long at all. We drove through downtown Sedona on our way to the resort, and Kim reviewed some of our options for our time the next day. They also pointed out various rock formations in the cliffs throughout our drive.

The Enchantment Resort was stunning. It is located in the Boynton Canyon, and the views were beautiful. As we drove in, we saw multiple mule deer feeding along the road. Our coach pulled up to the meeting area of the resort, and one member of each family went inside to complete the check in process. This involved providing a credit card for any incidentals, and then picking up the hotel information packet and room keys. They had multiple golf carts waiting for us once we were checked in, and we were driven to our casita. I will say that the Enchantment Resort was one hotel where we benefitted from having two rooms. The casitas at the resort are set up with essentially 3 rooms per building, and we had two of them to ourselves. We had a regular room with two queen beds, and then an adjoining “junior suite” with a queen bed, full living room, fireplace, and kitchenette. This was an amazing set up for our family, and the rooms were just beautiful. In addition, each room had a private balcony with a grill on it and plenty of comfortable deck furniture. I apologize for not getting any pictures, but the hotel website is a good representation. As soon as we got to the room, our luggage was on the porch, and this was the case for the remainder of our hotels as we traveled.

We explored our rooms for a bit, did a little unpacking, and then decided to spend the hour we had before our welcome dinner exploring the resort. The resort is large, with many casitas over the entire property. It was about a 10-15 minute hilly walk from one end of the resort to the other. At any time, we had the option to call for a golf cart to transport us from place to place, but we wanted to explore and decided to walk this time. We walked to the main lobby, explored the gift shop, and checked out the pool area during this time. Here are some pictures from the resort.

Around 6:00, we headed back to the area where we checked in for our Welcome Dinner. This was held in a courtyard type area, and we first checked in and picked up our ABD welcome packet. This included a list of everyone on our tour, our lanyards, and our welcome pins. We then enjoyed some beverages while everyone came in and got acquainted with each other. After some conversation, we sat down to dinner. Mike and Kim gave a talk about what to expect with the tour overall, and then each family introduced themselves and talked about any other ABD tours they had done. Those families that had been on an ABD tour received their pins at this time. Then, we were released to go to the buffet to eat our dinner. I can’t remember everything that was on the buffet, but some of the items that stick out to me include a prickly pear cactus salad, buffalo, corn cakes, some type of fish, macaroni and cheese, and a few choices for dessert. I recall that I enjoyed dinner, but I really cannot recall anything that stood out as excellent.

As we finished up our dinner, there was a Native American that came and played music and told stories from his tribe. The children were invited up to play various instruments and help him with his singing. He then passed out the pins for the day and we left the dinner area to meet with 2 astronomers who had telescopes set up for us to do some star gazing. This was an unbelievably interesting experience, as we could see Saturn and its ring as well as a nice view of Mars and many stars. We stayed out here looking at the stars for about 30 minutes before we hailed a golf cart and went back to our rooms. We could have walked, but the resort is fairly dark and we had a bit of a walk, so we decided to take advantage of the transportation. We were in bed by 10:00 that night, after a full day of travel and meeting our fellow adventurers.

 

[disneycrazycatlady]

I'm So excited to read your trip report. We just signed up to take this tour in May of 2015.

 

[Diane0977]

Arizona and Utah Day 2: Sedona

The next morning we woke up early….around 5:00 a.m. for an optional hike. We were excited the evening before when Mike and Kim mentioned that they would meet anyone who was interested in the morning for a hike to watch the sunrise and hot air balloons flying over the area. Although it was tough getting up so early, I would say this was one of the best activities of the trip. I’m not sure how often this is offered; I got the impression that Mike and Kim just decided to do it, but if you are on this tour and it is a possibility, I would definitely recommend it. We decided to call for a golf cart to take us to the meeting point since we were running a little late and it was still fairly dark when it was time to go. On the way over the the Mii Amo Spa (our meeting place), we saw several mule deer drinking in the creek. Once we reached the Spa, we waited about 10-15 minutes for the rest of our group to arrive. Kim spent this time answering the girls’ questions about the deer and various plants we saw in the area. She even took out a desert field guide that had pictures of plants and flowers and helped the girls to figure out some of the flowers planted outside of the spa. By about 6:10-6:15, we were ready to go. Interestingly, there is a fence with a gate located just behind the spa, and from here there is access to two different hiking trails: the Vista Trail and the Boynton Canyon Trail. We were taking the Vista Trail that morning.

As we started hiking, it continued to get lighter, although we hadn’t seen the sun yet. It took about 25 minutes for our group to get to the top, which was below the Kachina Woman rock formation. This was a mild/moderate hike in terms of difficulty in my opinion. The very end included some climbing to get to the vista point, but we were able to do it without much problem. Once we got to the top, we took some pictures and watched the sun rise. There were hot air balloons in the distance over the Sedona area, and we had some great views of the resort overall. It was just beautiful. Below are some pictures from that hike.

We stayed at the vista for about 30 minutes and then headed back down to the resort as a group. It took us about 15 minutes to get back to the spa. It was about 7:30 at this time, and it breakfast was being served in the hotel and we had worked up an appetite. Breakfast is provided with the adventure, and was served at one of the hotel’s two restaurants, Che-Ah-Chi. We were given the option of dining inside or outside, and we elected to eat outside with the beautiful view and still mild temperatures. They knew we were with the ABD group, and told us we could choose whatever we wanted to off of the menu. This was an amazing breakfast. The girls each got smoothies as well as a full children’s breakfast; the smoothies were delicious. I got the waffles with a side of breakfast potatoes….also amazing. I cannot recall what my husband got, but he was impressed with it as well.

The below picture was our view from breakfast, and it shows where we hiked to earlier in the morning. The taller spire is the Kachina Woman, and we climbed onto the smaller dome just to the right.

After breakfast, we had about 45 minutes until we were to meet the group for our offroad tour. We went back to the room and got our bags packed for the day, and then headed back to the main hotel lobby area to look at the gift shop before we left. About 15 minutes before it was time for the group to meet, we found our guide Kim outside of the hotel lobby organizing a hula hoop competition for the kids. This was a fun activity and all of the adults got into it cheering the kids on and giving them different things to try to do while hula hooping. As this was going on, the pink jeeps arrived. ABD contracts with Pink Jeep Tours to do this particular excursion for the day. Kim and Mike had divided everyone up and told us which jeep we were assigned to. We were with another family with a young daughter, and it was a perfect match for us. Below are some pictures from the jeep tour.

This tour was definitely a hit with our family. Some of the group didn’t really like it, and complained that it was too bumpy, but not us! This tour was about 2 hours in total, and took us on the Diamondback Trail and into the Diamondback Gulch. It was amazing to see the drops and hills we drove over, and more than once I didn’t think our jeep was going to make it. Our driver was hilarious, and joked around with the kids as they screamed and yelled each time we encountered particularly rough terrain. He kept up conversation throughout the entire tour, and taught us a lot about the vegetation and rock formations that we passed. The only piece of advice I have here is to use the blankets he offers you when you get in to put on the seats. By the time we reached our halfway point and go out for pictures, my shorts were soaked with sweat and it looked like I had an unfortunate accident….somewhat embarrassing. For the ride back, I used the blanket beneath us, and all was good by the time we reached lunch.

Lunch was as a group at the Barking Frog. The name of the restaurant encouraged many jokes about other barking things including spiders, if you get my drift. We had an entire section of the restaurant to ourselves, and a buffet was set up for our enjoyment. They brought around cactus fries to each table as an appetizer, and these were surprisingly good. Our kids were excited to try them so they could tell our friends and family back home that they ate cactus. The buffet was good, and included salad, fixings to make tacos (pork and chicken I think), beans, rice, and cheese quesadillas. Dessert was available too, and included carrot cake and a chocolate cake.

After lunch, we got back on our bus for the group to go to downtown Sedona. There were two stops, and we could get off at either. The first stop was Tlaquepaque, which was an area with stores selling regional art; only one person and our guide Mike elected to get off of the bus here. The rest of us went to the more central downtown Sedona. We were given about an hour and a half to explore town and then to meet back at the bus. The guides recommended a place for prickly pear ice cream, but we were still pretty full from lunch, so we elected to walk around and shop. We enjoyed the town, and made a stop at the Sedona Chocolate Factory to appease the kids with a treat to enjoy later in the day. We got back on the bus and went back to the resort. As we pulled up to the main lobby area, it started to thunderstorm….this was an unfortunate theme for the remainder of our adventure….if I knew about monsoon season when we scheduled this tour, we definitely would have chosen a different month to go. Mike and Kim escorted us to a covered area and then worked with the resort staff to coordinate golf cart escorts back to everyone’s casitas. We got pretty soaked during this process, and were glad to get back to our room.

The remainder of the day was on our own time. Originally, we planned to let the kids enjoy the pool, but this was not going to happen due to the thunderstorm. There were plenty of activities offered by the resort, but they were all outdoors. We were all pretty tired from our early and active morning, so we decided to take naps. It was very relaxing to fall asleep with our patio door (not the screen) open and listening to the falling rain. We napped for about two hours, and when we woke up the rain had finished, and it was almost time for dinner. I forgot to mention it on the first day’s review, but when we arrived for our Welcome Dinner on night one, there was a sign up available for reservations at either of the hotel’s two restaurants for dinner on night two. This was on our own dining, but they assisted us with reservations if we elected to stay at the resort for it. We decided to go with the more casual restaurant, Tii Gavo. We were seated right at our reservation time, and it would have been a beautiful view if not for the weather. We found dinner to be just okay. It was expensive, but what you would expect for a resort of the Enchantment’s caliber. Both myself and my husband got the highly recommended Prickly Pear Margarita, but we really didn’t like it. We got the Poblano Mac n Cheese and Chips and Salsa as appetizers, and I would say the Mac n Cheese was the best part of the entire meal. I got the highly-recommended prime rib street tacos, which were bland and stringy in my opinion, and my husband got Jorge’s chicken sandwich, which was just okay according to him. We decided to skip dessert so we could eat our treats from the Chocolate Shop in Sedona from earlier.

A rainbow we saw on our way to dinner, during a break in the raining.

After dinner, we went back to our casita for the evening. We enjoyed our patios and let the girls watch television for a while. It was an early night, as we had another busy day planned.

 

[sayhello]

So glad to read your report! This was the first ABD I did, and it still remains my favorite. I know I'll do it again some day, but there are so many new places to explore...

Rain seems to be a theme in a lot of the Reports I've read this year.

The Enchantment sounds much nicer than the resort we stayed at in Sedona. The rooms were nice, but the resort itself was oddly configured.

Sayhello

 

[AZMermaid]

Did they pick that saguaro cactus to tell about how many animals use it as their homes? I was showing this to my husband and he said "Wow- that's an ugly cactus!" We live in Scottsdale though, so we don't even notice cactus. Show me a forest and I am like WOW!

I am loving your report! I did Pink Jeep a few years ago and loved it. I hope to take my kids when they get a bit older!

 

[Diane0977]

We thought that particular cactus was looking pretty sad too. I think it was more convenient than anything. They did mention that animals can live in them, but didn't point that out with this cactus. It was literally on the ramp to the highway, so I think that is the reason they chose that particular one.

 

[Bobo912]

We thought that particular cactus was looking pretty sad too. I think it was more convenient than anything. They did mention that animals can live in them, but didn't point that out with this cactus. It was literally on the ramp to the highway, so I think that is the reason they chose that particular one.

We stopped for photos at that same cactus in 2011.

 

[Diane0977]

Arizona and Utah Day 3: Travel to the Grand Canyon

The next morning, it was off to the Grand Canyon. I don’t recall exactly what time we were scheduled to leave, but it was around 8 or 9 a.m. We got up early and got our luggage packed and set it outside our door. Then, we walked down to the hotel area to eat breakfast. This morning, there was a buffet available in Che Ah Chii for breakfast, so we decided to go with that as it would be quick. The buffet had standard breakfast fare, nothing too exciting, but it was good. After breakfast, we walked back to our casita for a final check to make sure we had everything, then we walked back to the meeting area to get on the bus.

On our way out of Sedona, we stopped for a few minutes at one of the vortex areas, Airport Mesa. We didn’t do anything really vortex-related, but had an opportunity to appreciate the beautiful view and get some pictures. We were there for about 15-20 minutes total.

We drove for about an hour, through an area with beautiful landscaping. The road was extremely winding, and I unfortunately got a bit carsick, so I don’t have all of the details down about this part of the drive. We stopped at a park of some sort; in looking at the map now, I wonder if it was Kachina Village, but I really don’t know. We had about a half an hour here, and the area had many Native American booths set up selling jewelry and such. This was also our kids’ first experience with “long drop” toilets, which was hilarious, as many of the kids refused to use “long drops” for the remainder of the trip. Here is a picture from that area.

As we left the park, we had a fairly straight drive, so my carsickness abated. That is definitely something I will remember for any future ABD tours….bring medication for myself and my oldest daughter for potential carsickness. I never got too bad, just nauseated enough to have to close my eyes for long periods of time, and moving to the front of the bus usually helped my daughter. So, advice from me, is to consider bringing something if you are prone to carsickness. Next, we drove through the area surrounding Flagstaff and the guides pointed out Humphrey’s Peak. After about an hour or so, we were pulling into Williams, AZ. Williams is known for Route 66, and we found it to be a pretty big tourist trap. However, the kids enjoyed the opportunity to get off of the bus and walk around for about an hour. There was a big store at one end of the road, and the majority of our group ended up shopping here. Mike, our guide, used the opportunity to dress the kids in the store up as cowboys and robbers, and we took some pictures. Here is a picture from the main street (Route 66) in Williams:

Soon enough, it was time to get back on the bus and head to the Grand Canyon. We drove for another hour or so, and arrived in Tusayan, AZ. Here, we are lunch at a place called We Cook. A side room of the restaurant had been reserved for our group, and tables were set up with a pizza buffet. The meal consisted of salad, chicken wings, pizza, and fried ice cream for dessert. It was good, but not great. We were here for about an hour total, and then got back in the bus to drive across the main street to go to the National Geographic Grand Canyon Visitor’s Center. We had about 20 minutes to shop before we went into the IMAX theater to watch a movie about the discovery of the Grand Canyon. The movie was about a half an hour long, and it was pretty good. The kids were engaged with the movie, and it gave a nice history of the discovery of the canyon.

Once the movie was over, we got back on the bus and headed into the Grand Canyon National Park itself. We came into the park and stopped at the Visitor’s Center, where our guides gave us a brief safety speech, focusing on the children. Then, we all got in line, closed our eyes, and let our guides walk us to the edge of the canyon. At the count of three, we all opened our eyes and saw the canyon for the first time. It was pretty amazing. After some obligatory family pictures, we had a few minutes to enjoy the remainder of the area of Mather Point. Honestly, this was the most crowded we saw the entire park, and it was frustrating at that time to try to get around to see much. I remember feeling like the entire time at the Grand Canyon was going to be that crowded, but luckily that wasn’t the case.

Then, we were back on the bus and heading further into the park to the Grand Canyon Village. We would be spending our next two nights at the Thunderbird Lodge. We received our room keys and headed into the hotel. Our group all had ground floor rooms, and half of them looked out over the canyon. This was the only hotel where I felt that being in separate rooms was a disadvantage for our family. There are no connecting rooms at the Thunderbird Lodge, so we were in rooms across from each other. I stayed in one room with one of the girls, and my husband stayed in the other with the other girl. It ended up being fine, but a bit of an inconvenience. I suppose we could have stayed all in one room, but we liked the extra space. I got the room with the view, so that was nice. We were disappointed to see that they had removed all of the grassy areas around the hotels at the Grand Canyon Village. We had read in some trip reports that elk would graze on the lawns at dusk, and our kids were looking forward to seeing that….unfortunately, it seems the elk were a bit aggressive so the grass was removed altogether. All of the kids in the group were a bit stir-crazy from being on the bus most of the day, so some of us parents went outside and chatted while the kids ran around trying to catch grasshoppers and playing tag.

After a while, we decided to walk down to the Bright Angel Lodge to look around, and then headed the other direction to the El Tovar Hotel. Then, we headed back to our rooms to clean up and head to dinner. Dinner was served on the upper level of the Thunderbird Lodge, and there was a nice deck that looked out over the canyon. It was beautiful to be up there looking over the magnificent view, and we were even treated to a view of some California Condors towards the end of dinner….I was sad that I didn’t have my camera to get a picture, but it was cool to see. Dinner consisted of either chicken or steak cooked on the grill (our orders were taken by Mike on the bus earlier in the day), cheeseburgers or hot dogs for the kids, corn on the cob, salad, cornbread, and some other things I don’t remember. Dessert was available, but we didn’t have any. At the end of the dinner, a group of performers from the Navajo Nation entertained us with some impressive music and dancing.

After dinner, we headed back to our rooms, and we went to bed fairly early. The hotel was basic, but met our needs. I do know there were some in our group who were not happy with the hotel, but we had a magnificent view and a pillow for our heads. I would consider it on-par with a Holiday Inn. Nothing fancy, but nothing horrible either. We were prepared for it, since I had read several trip reports prior to our trip. In any case, if you are going on this trip, just be prepared for it to be less luxurious than the other accommodations for sure. Next up, our day at the Grand Canyon.

 

[sayhello]

Switching to the Thunderbird Hotel, in my opinion, is one of the biggest improvements made to the itinerary since I took it. Remember that town of Tusayan, way outside the Park? That's where we stayed, at the Grand Hotel. It was probably a bit nicer than the Thunderbird, but not enough to warrant *not* staying actually on the rim of the Grand Canyon! And the Thunderbird is way more convenient, and cuts a lot of travel time out of your time at the Canyon. And that pizza parlor is where we ate dinner on our "time on your own" (there wasn't much choice in Tusayan). I'm sure people grumbled on your trip (they grumbled about the hotel in Tusayan, asking why we weren't staying in the Park...) but I think it was a really good choice, and the best ABD could have made.

Which Mike is your Guide? Mike Hage was a Shadow Guide on my trip, and I really liked him!

Great pics!

Sayhello

 

[alagille]

We had the same ensemble of native Americans in their outfits- can't say costumes! We most enjoyed the hoop dance. I spoke with the girls afterward and found out they were junior and senior high school students. Quite impressive. I'd be interested to hear, did you feel the speaker was somewhat, how do I politely say this, lecturing in his tone? It was palpable on our trip. It got a few looks from the table mates.
As for the hotel, I could not WAIT to get out of there. Yes, I did enjoy going out to the rim at sunrise, though. I looked forward to the last bus and train leaving with the day guests so the area in the evening was calm too. I get why they chose this and Doug and Pamm (our guides this year) did warn us on the way there. For what we paid, I hated sweating for a couple hours once we got into the room to get the temp down from 80 to 75. The A/C left a lot to be desired in Kachina lodge. I would not work at all unless someone was in the room, so upon arrival, it was quite hot.
El Tovar breakfasts included with the trip were quite good. My son wandered around the lobby photographing all the interesting animals and artifacts while waiting for breakfast to open. We did see an elk grazing one morning between El Tovar and the (can't think of the name) place we got our passports stamped.
The one thing our trip did leave out was the stop after Williams and before getting to Tusayan.

 

[carpenta]

I thought the hotel was adequate and the view made up for any short comings. I am glad we stayed there. The El Tovar did have very good food IMO. The pizza place ......ehhh......it was passable.