The Hoover Dam Tour Scam

There is a lot to do in the Las Vegas area from casino to shows, but did you know that just outside of Las Vegas is one of the world's most astonishing modern marvels, The Hoover Dam. The Hoover Dam was built during the Great Depression and has since been considered a great modern structure. They have been giving tours of the dam since 1937 but is this just another way to milk money out of tourist?

The Hoover Dam stands 726.4 feet from foundation rock to the roadway above. This is part of its grandeur. The inside houses huge turbines that supplies power to California, Arizona, and Nevada. This is amazing, all this information I was able to learn off of the Internet from the Bureau of Reclamations. I even learned that the majority of the power from the Hoover Dam goes to California, which to me is strange since it borders Nevada and Arizona. Nevada and Arizona only receives a small portion of this electric energy. All this information was amazing to a person that is interested in history and facts. So I had decided that this would be a great educational lesson for my kids as well as my husband and I.

We headed up to the Dam it took about 45 minutes to get there from our hotel. This was an enjoyable ride to see the outskirts of Las Vegas. There was even a gorgeous view of Lake Mead on the way to the dam. We headed around the curvy road and ended at the dam. There was our first choice we could take the tour of the inside of the dam or drive across it and enter into Arizona. We decided that we would take the tour see what the Hoover Dam was like inside.

We thought that it would be a great educational trip for the kids. I had not only my small children that were 6months and three at the time but also nieces and a nephew whose ages ranged from ten to two. We parked in the parking garage that was $7 just to park. Then we purchased our tickets to take the tour of the dam, which said it was wheel chair accessible. The cost of the tour is $11 per adult and $6 per child 6 and up. The little ones are free under 6 years of age.

When you enter into the dam there is a little museum like area with information on the building of the dam and the power related industry. This was interesting and mostly the same information I was able to learn from the Bureau of Reclamation website. You then enter into a room for a brief video on the building of the dam and a little history lesson. This was a nice touch as well. We then stand in line for quite a long time to enter into an over crowded elevator. The tour guides were not very friendly or accommodating with children. The website says that they are wheel chair accessible but this must not apply for strollers. We were only able to get into certain parts of the tour because the other rooms were either too small for the strollers or had steps. This I would say is not wheel chair accessible. We paid $11 per person to not be able to see the majority of the tour. The only area we were really able to see was the large area with the turbines and the cave like hall ways.

Our trip was a big disappointment from the rude tour guide to the inaccessible areas of the tour. The over priced tour to the outrageous parking fees we did not come away happy visitors to the Hoover Dam. We decided afterwards that our trip would have been a whole lot nicer if we had just drove across the bridge and got the aerial view of the outside of the dam. Then at least we could have claimed to have been in Arizona as well.