Washington DC: Segs in the City (May 2012)

We chose Segs in the City for our Private Monumental Tour in May of 2012. A regular tour runs about $70 per person, and a private tour costs $110 per person (plus gratuity in both cases). Space is limited on the public/group tours (it looked like 12 to 15 guests per tour, with 2 guides), so be sure to make a reservation if you must attend a specific date and time. The company was having some issues on the day of our tour – no Internet access created problems in looking up reservations and taking credit card payments. Even though we took a private tour, we were still required to wait until all the people on the group tour were outfitted with segways, helmets, and headsets and trained to use the segways before we could depart, because our private guide was helping to train the members of the group. I’m not sure if it is always this way, or the company was just “in the weeds” because of the internet issues. Also, at our particular tour time, the company had overbooked a large group of approximately 9 people; unfortunately, that group of 9 people was told to return later in the day because there was not enough equipment for them to go at their scheduled time (the 15+ segways that this company owns were already being used by us, the guides, and the group tour). We had some serious issues with the headsets that they provided for us, despite changing headsets, earpieces, and batteries several times. Even upon leaving the “storefront” area, only one of our headsets ever worked – the second person was forced to hear the information second-hand, but I guess our guide felt that enough time had been wasted in readying everyone else to go and she wasn’t making any headway in finding equipment that worked. That was more than a little disappointing for an excursion for which we paid $220+. We were quoted $110 per person for the private tour, but when our credit card statement arrived, we were charged $120 per person (because of their internet issues that day, they couldn’t swipe our card right in front of us to produce a receipt, so we didn’t know until later how much we were charged; we should have called the company about the discrepancy but it seemed that too much time had passed between the tour and our phone call. The private tour was supposed to last 2.5 hours, but we lost close to 45 minutes with all the set-up issues, and this was compounded by the fact that we were told to arrive 15 minutes prior to our scheduled tour time. This was our second segway tour (we took our first tour in Chicago in August of 2011), and it was easier the second time around - the first time, we kept our legs too tense, especially when standing in place and viewing sights; this time, we relaxed our legs and were much more comfortable. Visiting the Mall attractions by segway is the way to go! We could never have covered so much ground on our own walking. We saw the Washington, Jefferson, FDR, MLK, Vietnam, WWII, and Lincoln Monuments. You can’t actually take the segways too close or inside (obviously!) the monuments, so our guide stayed with the equipment while we walked inside. (This makes sense from a theft standpoint, however, we missed the commentary on the monuments because we were guide-less.) We would recommend a segway tour, and especially a private tour over a public tour; however, be sure to get a headset that works, and hope that everyone from the group tour shows up early so that you don’t waste 45 minutes of your valuable tour time getting everyone outfitted!