Bryce Canyon National Park Travel Review.
Andy and I went to Bryce Canyon National Park for the 4th of July. We wanted to go on one last road trip before we leave Las Vegas (read about it here) and we decided this was the perfect 24 hour vacation destination. The hoodoos (those tall, thin rock formations) are not like anything we’ve seen. And we’ve seen a lot of rocks since moving to Las Vegas (Read my Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon and Red Rock Canyon Review.)
Bryce is just under a 4 hour drive from Las Vegas, it’s a little closer than the Grand Canyon National Park and about an hour and a half further from Zion National Park. You actually have to drive through Zion to get to Bryce, which was a really cool experience (I’ll have a separate travel review on Zion later.)
Here’s how we spent our 24 hours there:
-We got in before noon. We ate lunch at the pizza shop next to the lodge. I would NOT recommend this. Bring food or eat before you hit Zion because there’s not much in between Zion and Bryce.
-We checked into the Lodge inside Bryce. We had a cabin and it was great! The cabin was updated, clean and well decorated. The bathroom could have used some updating, but that’s just being picky. It was a short walk to the lodge and to the canyon’s rim.
-We did part of the rim trail. The full rim trail is 11 miles….we just stayed on the paved part so that we could use the stroller. Here are some pictures from the rim trail: 
(we got the stroller out after walking around a bit!)
After going back to our cabin (again a very short walk from the rim) we rested up a bit so that we could hike down into the canyon.
– We did Queen’s Garden Hike. It’s the easiest hike down into the canyons. Pretty easy to get down…not so easy to get back up when you are already tired and in your first trimester of pregnancy! (Read about the pregnancy here.) But, it was worth it. What makes Bryce so different from the other parks we’ve been to, is that you can very easily hike down into the canyon. It was amazing being up close to the hoodoos.
I was trying to show off what little of a bump that I have!
-After our hike we had dinner inside the lodge’s main dining room. I have mixed feelings on this. The atmosphere was nice. Our waiter was great. But the food was overpriced and not very good.
-We got dessert to go, got a game from the front desk, put the baby down and shortly called it a night after that. Unfortunately something disagreed with Violet and we stayed up most of the night cleaning up vomit. It was a “welcome to parenthood” kind of night. She woke up feeling fine though, thank goodness!
-The next morning we went back to the lodge for breakfast, again, it was just okay. I would recommend going to the coffee shop located right next to the lodge instead.
-We walked around the rim again before heading home.
Overall thoughts: I really, really enjoyed Bryce. It was great being at a National Park on the 4th, too. The scenery was very unique and maybe my favorite out of all of the places we’ve seen. The lodge should get a new cooking staff. The restaurant couldn’t hold a candle to El Tovar’s dining room at the Grand Canyon. But what it lacked in food, it make up for in scenery!
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