Grand Canyon Helicopters — Local services in Paradise

This has to be the worst customer experience I have had in years in the travel industry. We booked a helicopter tour with Grand Canyon Helicopters which is also Papillon Helicopters via our concierge at our hotel in Vegas. As we could not get onto a helicopter tour on the day we initially requested we decided to change our flights back to Washington DC so as not to miss out on this experience. So after spending over $1000 to change our flights and extending our hotel booking we were all set to go in two days time and received our confirmation number. Having gone to all this trouble I then phoned Grand Canyon Helicopters on the morning of our flight to confirm that all was still on track at approximately 10:00 and was given the assurance everything was fine. We waited for their bus to collect us at our hotel (The Mandalay Bay) and as we stepped onto the bus, the driver from Grand Canyon Helicopters informed me that our helicopter flight was cancelled. To say that I was gutted and annoyed would be an understatement. I bottled my frustration and asked to be taken to the helipad in the (naive) belief that there must be some mistake. The bus driver then made an incredible statement by saying he was most embarrassed especially as this happens a lot with this company! There were at least 6 other people on the bus. Well upon arrival at the helipad I approached one of their staff at the front desk and was told sorry and there was nothing they could do and they refused to give me a reason as to why our trip was cancelled. I then explained that we had flown from DC specially for this trip and had traveled over 10 000 miles from home (we left last year in January 2022 and sailed our yacht to Annapolis in the Chesapeake Bay via the Caribbean from South Africa) I also mentioned that I had spent an additional $1000 to get on this helicopter flight. All I got in return was one word ….. sorry! So I pleaded for them to make a plan and asked them if they could contact another Helicopter company. Their response was that they don’t do that and we’re not prepared to find an alternative, offer any compensation or drive me to the other helicopter tour company (even though it was just down the road) or return us to our hotel I then asked to speak to the manager as this young ladies attitude was just down right obnoxious and rude given that I had personally confirmed our flight two hours previously. The manager’s attitude and approach was even worse than her assistant! I then left their building while my wife waited inside and contacted Maverick Helicopters myself to see if there were any spaces available on their helicopters. There was not! However their tone and attitude was the polar opposite of Papillon helicopters and they had huge empathy for our predicament.

I still have no answer as to why our trip was cancelled without any warning( the driver was radioed in the bus while on his way to pick us up at the hotel) Given their total lack of transparency, it’s probably because they could not fill the flight we were on. It definitely was not a weather issue as the other passengers on the bus got to go on their trip and surely if it was a mechanical issue they would have disclosed that and I understand these things can happen.

I did get one of their bus drivers to return us to our hotel about 20 minutes later when I explained our predicament to him. So in a nutshell avoid GRAND CANYON HELICOPTERS at all costs, unless you would like a repeat of our experience and others. There are other reviews on the web where others have suffered a similar experience to me and my wife. Some of them were lucky enough that they could reschedule for another day. We did not have that luxury of time.

Upon further research Maverick Helicopters is a superior and way more professional operator than than Papillon Helicopters. This was confirmed to me by three different concierges at two different hotels. The Mandalay Bay hotel felt so bad about our situation they gave us a complimentary meal even though all they had done was...

The experience itself was awesome. We did the Vegas strip tour which was very short but was a lot of fun. The Vegas Strip tour departs from their Las Vegas location which is considered their “VIP” location, which means they pick up passengers in a limo, it’s a nice and cozy location.

A real special shoutout to Nathalie who helped us check in and walked us through the whole experience, she was very professional but she knew how to have fun while maintaining and upholding a high standard for the passengers. She was extremely friendly and welcoming and made us feel valued as customers and we felt incredibly honoured to have met her, she was real great! We would come back just for her!

The only downside of the whole experience which was actually a very big deal, was the fact that you are not able to take pictures with the helicopters or outside on airside. The reason is because the company takes your picture for you before your ride, on a very old looking digital camera that seemed to take worse pictures than our cellphones, to sell to you at the end of the ride for a pricey $20. Honestly, the price is not a big deal, it’s the fact that it’s so expensive for such a rushed and grainy terrible quality picture. My girlfriend loves to take pictures but we got yelled out multiple times for attempting to take nicer pictures with the helicopters, even though we watched other people take photos with the helicopters and even the pilots, it was super frustrating and incredibly unfair. It ruined the whole experience for us, the inconsistency of that “no photo” rule. Something definitely needs to be done about this because we weren’t the only ones upset and disappointed about it watching others take photos while we sat on the bus and waited because we got yelled at earlier.

All in all a very nice tour and experience just wish we didn’t get yelled out for trying to take photos and remember the moment to show friends and family. I don’t want to recommend this place to people who like to store memories through photos because you will not have anything to look back on except being yelled at, or a crappy quality photo that you paid $20-$30 for. If it wasn’t for Nathalie’s awesome customer service this rating would be lower, thanks Nathalie for...

We booked a "King of Canyons" tour with Grand Canyon Helicopters from Las Vegas based on the reviews here on Trip Advisor. My wife talked with them to find out what day/time would be best, and they had us pre-pay for everything. When the day of our tour arrived, they picked us up in a limousine, but while on the way to the airport, they told our driver that our trip was cancelled. Yes, you read that right, they didn't even have the courtesy to call us themselves to tell us -- they had the driver do it. They did not want to give us a refund and tried to insist that we rebook for another day, but after the way they already stiffed us (and ruined our entire day since our trip was scheduled for 12:30pm), we wanted nothing else to do with this company. If I ran my business the way they ran theirs, I would be out of business. Shame on them. Save yourself a headache and book with another company -- so that you'll actually get to go...