Utah's Mighty Five - The Plan

I'm not sure how this trip came to be since it took place many moons ago, June/July 2020 to be exact, wow that's actually only last year but feels like forever ago.  I remember seeing beautiful pictures of Utah's Mighty Five on Instagram and Facebook, a Facebook friend had recently visited Utah, which probably lead to the planning of this trip. I was in the beginning research stages when Delta Vacations announced a new promotion. The promotion was that every Delta Mile was worth 2 cents if you booked a flight, car rental and 2 night hotels. I already had 77,000 Delta miles and over 100,000 American Express Membership Reward points, at that time I didn't have plans for those miles and points. I like to accumulate a variety of points and miles, you'll never know when you'll need them. 

The original Delta Vacations package:
4 round trip tickets from Tulsa to Salt Lake City June 25,2020 to July 04, 2020
9 day Jeep Wrangler rental
2 nights in Salt Lake City - arrival and departure days - we weren't going to use the hotels so I picket the cheapest hotels I could find. 

Our package "cost" $3,142.34 or 157,117 SkyMiles.

This was our original trip

But then COVID-19 happened. We actually benefited from COVID-19. We missed out on visiting Antelope Canyon (closed due to COVID) in Arizona, but were able to make changes to our trip that resulted in $1,575 Delta Vacations Travel voucher. We ended up changing our return flight to July 5th, adding another day to our rental car and cancelling the 2 hotel nights, which resulted in the $1,575 credit. The price of our flights and rental car dropped which made the credit so large and we weren't charged any change fees, thanks #COVID19.

The Final Plan: 

Arrive at Salt Lake City Airport at 3PM, pick up rental car, drive to In-n-Out for an early dinner (I always research In-n-Out locations), grocery pick-up at Wal-Mart then drive 3 hours to our first "hotel," Broken Spur Inn & Steakhouse to visit the first of the five National Parks in Utah, Capitol Reef National Park.  

A couple days later we would drive 2 hours to Bryce Canyon National Park to spend one night at Best Western Ruby's Inn. 

After just 24 hours in the BCNP area we would spend 2 nights in Zion National Park at the Zion NP Cabins. 

My original plan was to drive from Zion to the Lake Powell area for one night to visit Antelope Canyon, but the Navajo Nations which owns Antelope Canyon was hit hard with COVID, therefore it was closed (just opened 7/12/2021 after being closed for 1.5 years). 

Then we would cross the state and drive 5 hours to Moab to visit the last two of the Mighty Five. Staying 4 nights at the Hyatt Place Moab, and visiting Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park. 

The final Delta Vacations package:
4 round trip tickets from Tulsa to Salt Lake City June 25,2020 to July 05, 2020
10 day Jeep Wrangler rental
$1,575 Delta Vacation Voucher  

This was our itinerary, I will go in details in future posts.

Utah's Mighty 5
6/25/2020	Thursday	3PM Arrival at SLC
6/26/2020	Friday	Capitol Reef
6/27/2020	Saturday	CRNP/ Bryce Canyon
6/28/2020	Sunday	BYNP/Zion
6/29/2020	Monday	Zion
6/30/2020	Tuesday	Zion/Moab
7/1/2020	Wednesday	Arches
7/2/2020	Thursday	Arches
7/3/2020	Friday	Canyonlands
7/4/2020	Saturday	Arches
7/5/2020	Sunday	2PM Departure SLC

As I recap and plan trips you will notice a common theme on our travel dates, I like to book trips that include holidays because it's a free vacation day.