Gather around intrepid sightseers and let me tell you a little story about Papillion Grand Canyon tours. \n\nIt all began at the buttcrack of dawn one tepid Thursday in October as a grotesquely obese bus driver beckoned us into her flatulent world before accosting bewildered tourists from all over the Las Vegas strip with the importance of common sense bus protocols. We were also warned a grand total of 7 times in 25 minutes not to get comfortable because we would be changing buses again shortly which was ironic because the seats appeared to be made from repurposed potato sacks and were every bit as itchy.\n\nWith warm water bottle in hand and mild rash on leg, we were corralled into a stark labyrinth of a building where instruction on how the people with green stickers should enter the green line and people with red stickers should enter the red line lasted inordinately long. Because it was clear that some of the group spoke no English, we were then subjected to that feeble and oft insulting tactic where we were spoken to as if we might be near deaf imbeciles. As if speaking slowly at high volume and dumbing down ones vocabulary and sentence structure has somehow ever caused a person to spontaneously comprehend English or has ever bridged any language barrier at all.\n\nAfter a lot of bad noise, we were given a generic juice box, a rubbery danish and access to a foul cauldron of coffee-like fluid. We then boarded another bus where we were entertained by the musings of a large man named Walter as we made the long trek to the Grand Canyon... museum. \n\nUpon arrival at this pitiful tourist trap we noticed sheriffs and other authorities were swarming the area due to a fistfight that had just been broken up. After seeing the interior of this \""museum\"" I would share a profound empathy for the violent men that preceded me. The museum consisted of a dozen or so framed pictures of the Grand Canyon followed by an appalling restroom with backed up plumbing, a stuffed mountain lion type beast and two large piles of overpriced Doritos.\n\nWith that nonsense behind us, we traversed the remaining dirt road to the helipad of awesomeness where a blond chopper pilot (who was pretty easy on the eyes I'll have you know) swooped and wove us through the picturesque hole in the ground we came so far to see. However, no sooner had this thrilling ride concluded did we realize what was in store for us at the bottom of the canyon.\n\nAs altitude and standards began to plummet in perfect synchronicity, it was time to forge the Colorado River on a guided pontoon tour that's worthlessness cannot be overstated. As far as our tour guide, it wasn't so much that English wasn't his second or third language that pissed me off, it was that English wasn't a language at all for him. He briefly became useful when it became apparent that our boat was going to stall every 8 or 9 seconds of the tour. On the plus side, he did save quite a bit of fuel by allowing us to helplessly drift backwards for the vast majority of the tour while jabbering incoherently and demanding to take pictures of us with our own cameras. At this point it was obvious that we were not going to travel more than 100 yards in either direction from the dock. Because the other pontoon tour companies zooming past us down the river were not able to create a wake large enough to mercifully capsize our boat, we had to wait out this infuriating charade.\n\nOur return helicopter ride did much to ease the lingering anger and despair. This time around we had a new helicopter with a squeaky clean bald head and a beard that inspired the kind of confidence you'd need if he were flying you on a black ops mission in Beirut. \n\nHe brought us safely back to the top of the west rim where we were given a ticket to get a free (and I use the term loosely) lunch. It was less alarming that we were served prison food for lunch than the fact that we were served by what appeared to be actual inmates. Although I remained nauseous and slipped in and out of consciousness the rest of our souvenir saturated trip, I do remember getting a solid two and a half hours of life coaching and financial advice from our bus driver that included evidence that he continues to fall victim to the Gambler's Fallacy even after losing his meager life savings time and time again, as well as numerous thinly veiled requests for a tip. Hopefully all of that was just the food causing me to hallucinate but we may never know for certain.\n\nAll in all I cannot recommend this tour company. While the helicopter tour was a huge ramekin of awesomesauce, it is admittedly something that is hard to screw up providing you don't crash and die a fiery death (in which case we should assume yours would have been only a 1 star review). But that dreadful excuse for a pontoon tour of the Colorado River was burnt into my memory like a brand and ultimately sunk this otherwise semi-buoyant excursion.