We love Segway tours and had high hopes for this experience. The Segways themselves were fine. However, this tour is advertised as “roughly 2 1/2 hours,” and the tour is advertised to begin at 2pm. I would conclude that it ends at 430pm. However, we were back at our starting point by 4pm on the dot. We were asked to check in 30 min early for orientation. Apparently, watching a video and waiting for 1:1 newbie riders orientation consumed 30 minutes of our tour. I felt this was false advertising. I expected 2 1/2 hours of touring, not 2 hours of touring and 30 minutes of orientation. There were plenty of places we could have stopped at longer to stretch the tour to its advertised 2.5 hours. We were rushed at all of the sites and only really stopped more than 4 minutes at one single site (lincoln memorial/vietnam memorial), and there we were given only 15 minutes. So we ran up the stairs, took pics, ran down the stairs, ran over to the Vietnam monument, power walked 1/3 of the wall and power walked back to get there in exactly 15 minutes. There were monuments that were obviously important that he did cover but said, “it’s crowded so we’re not stopping there.” How about parking the segways and asking us if we want to stop. It’s obviously crowded there for a reason, maybe we can park and walk over. Segway instruction was subpar. I don’t know why they didn’t use the area just outside the store to let everyone practice riding instead of the 8 feet radius inside the store. One man almost flew off his bike (onto my daughter, who had to jump off her bike to avoid him) on the first curb m. He did this for almost every curb, trying to pop a wheelie instead of leaning forward. The tour guide never noticed this, and he wobbled every sidewalk for the 2 hours. There was also a woman who joined the tour with bike instead of a Segway (because she didn’t feel secure enough) who didn’t understand the concept of a a “single file line” and kept trying to cut everyone off in line as if it was some type of competition. Otherwise, she would be side by side with her husband, which was a safety issue especially with the other tourists. Again, this was not noticed by the tour guide. I also really found the tour guide’s repeated mention of Ariana Grande during the tour really tacky and disrespectful. Apparently, she took the same tour, fell, left her Segway, and ran to her hotel crying. He mentioned her at least 7 times if not more- the hotel she was staying at, the actual curb she tripped on, and finally congratulated us on making it farther on the tour without an accident than Ariana Grande. Falls on Segways can be serious and should not be used as a butt of jokes. In fact, the owner of Segway, Jimi Heselden, DIED in a Segway accident. Fortunately, we had previously taken a Segway tour and well-oriented on its use and limitations. Our small group of 7ish was sometimes wobbly enough that I took the rear just to make sure everyone was safe, only to be caught powering through red lights praying not to be hit. The tour guide asked if we were okay but did not pay attention to these types of details at every intersection, which is important. We did get photo ops at most places. We didn’t get close enough to the WW2 memorial or Korean memorial for any decent pics. Mixed feelings about this tour. I really like to support small businesses. Everyone was nice and I tipped generously. However, this misses the mark for general safety and false advertising for a 2.5 hour tour which was actually only 2 hours.
Great job all around. Taught us how to ride, kept us safe, and showed us a great chunk of the key sites with great facts, insider info, and humor! Well done.