Originally my wife and I were thinking about a trip to the grand canyon on a helicopter but decided against it on this trip because of cost and time. When we saw the ad for this company in the in flight magazine I thought it would be a decent replacement. \n\nI was wrong.\n\nWe took a cab to the terminal which was dark and quiet. The office, looks like the waiting room at my mechanic's shop. There were about 30 plastic glasses filled (2 oz) with champagne. Restrooms were out the door, over the curb divider into the other building.  The safety video warned us of the dangers of walking into the prop and not pre ordering a DVD of our soon to come \"amazing\" experience. \n\nAfter a fairly long wait (20 mins) we were the third of four groups loaded into a van to go to the helicopter. When our group go there, we were told to get on another van (the waiting van) where we saw folks from the first two groups to leave the \"shop\". A funny Canadian summed it up best when he said \"whatever buzz I had when I got here is now gone\"!\n\n Seeing the strip at night is pretty cool but the trip is very short about 8 mins and you are literally crammed in with 5 others including the pilot. The pilot has a shtick he goes through as if he has said it a thousand times before. When we got off the helicopter, we were given a courtesy shuttle out to the south strip where we were let off in the dark back area of a casino and told to walk through the doors and keep going to a cab stand. \n\nAll of this being said, what I think did it for me was pushing for gratuities. I am a decent tipper and was planning on tipping the pilot after the trip but I get really turned off when gratuities are asked for on a sign in the shop, in the safety video, on a little sign on the dash of the helicopter, on the way out to the tarmac etc. Very tacky in my mind. If you have to ask for tips, isn't that similar to begging?