Day 7 Washington DC - City Segways & National Archives

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Welcome to our trip report. I'm Emily & my Husband is Gary - we got married on 5 March 2016 & spent our honeymoon in NYC, Washington DC & Orlando. Our pre-trip report is here if you want to have a look at our plans.

Sunday 13th March

We got up at 8am this morning. My eye was still very red so it was a glasses day. I NEVER wear my glasses out, I’m not used to them at all. I’ve been wearing contact lenses for over 10 years so I was a bit annoyed I’d have my glasses on in the photos. But oh well. We were quite concerned about it but decided to see how the day went.

We left the hotel just before half 9. Gary had gone down to get some of the free hotel breakfast and brought it back to the room. He got me some tea and toast and he had a muffin. There was a taxi sitting outside the hotel so we got in and gave the driver the address of the City Segway Tours office. It was just under $9, I gave him $12.

We got to the Segway office about 9.35 for our 10am tour. After filling in some forms and watching a safety video, we had a practice session outside. I was really nervous about this but the guy was excellent and made sure everyone knew what to do. We were in a group of 8 tourists with the instructor.

Gary having his 1-2-1. He took to it very easily! Note the Go-Pro on his head

After we’d all had a short 1-2-1, we set off. I was quite surprised to find out we’d be zooming along the main roads! It was fine though, traffic wasn’t too busy. I soon got used to controlling the segway and picking up speed. The only thing I wasn’t keen on was going down the bumpy ramps on and off of the pavements!

The tour went like this -

We went to the White house, then headed up Pennsylvania Avenue, stopping outside the J. Edgar Hoover building (FBI) and The Navy Memorial.

The Navy Memorial

We then headed up to the Capitol and stopped there, before zooming down The Mall (crossing the St Patricks Day parade at a few points!).

I was getting confident by this point, taking photos while we were moving! This is some of our group ahead of me

St Patricks Day Parade

Then we stopped off at the Washington Monument, continued down towards the WW2 Memorial and finally to the Lincoln Memorial.

St Patricks Day Parade again

These are the main stops, there were a few more such as the Newseum and we also stopped outside the Trump Hotel. At each point of interest the guide gave us some info, answered questions and offered to take photos for us. It was really informative and such a fun way to move around . The people on the tour with us were very friendly too. There was a gentleman who would never let me be last, he always made sure I was ok which was nice (Gary was having way too much fun zooming about haha !). There was a really nice lady on Spring Break with her son, they were lovely to talk to.

It started to drizzle while we were at the Navy memorial, we both had jackets anyway but there were ponchos in the pouches of our segways which was handy. The rain only lasted a few minutes though!
We got back to the segway office for just after 1, so a 3 hour tour in all. We gave our guide a $10 tip. We would 100% recommend City Segway tours, this was a highlight of the whole trip! We will be segway touring any city we can from now on .

We bought ourselves a City Segway Tours T-shirt each for $10 and headed out. Gary checked out my eye and reported that it was definitely looking a lot less red, so leaving my contacts out was working.

We headed in to the nearest Starbucks for lunch as we were starving! I forgot to take pictures sorry. We shared a turkey panini and a chorizo roll with a vanilla latte for Gary and a smoked butterscotch latte for me.

Suitably refreshed, we headed to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence.



It drizzled again very slightly while we were in the security queue. We waited about 20 minutes for bag check and we were in just before 3pm. The security guards were constantly repeating no photography, no photography, no photography , so please take my word for it that it was a great museum with lots to see!

We headed up to the rotunda to see the world famous documents. There was a very firm security guard there who lined us up like school children (it was quite comical!) and in we went, under her instruction NOT to form a line to move along the documents but to crowd in. It was very odd as they are arranged in a semi circle shape so naturally people form a line to move along and see them .

Once we'd had a look around, we went in to the shop then left at 3.55. We decided we were knackered and would just head to Hard Rock for a drink and early dinner. Although the segways had run us around, we’d still been on our feet for most of the day. The clocks had gone forward that night too, so we’d lost an hour of sleep.

There was a big souvenir shop across from Hard Rock, so we went in and got some souvenirs then went over to hard rock. The greeter said it would be at least 30 minutes, which we said was fine since it was so early anyway and we'd grab a drink in the bar. When we went to the bar area there was a table, so Gary grabbed it and I gave the hostess his buzzer back. It took quite a while to order and get our drinks, but we weren't starving anyway.

The view from our window table

Gary ordered a milkshake and I ordered a Bahama mama. My cocktail came soon enough but Garys milkshake took for-e-ver. We asked to order food and the guy said oh I'm just helping your server out, so said we'd wait for her.



Gary ordered the shrimp platter & I had a Texan sandwich - a bbq pulled pork roll with cheese and crispy fried onions. It was standard Hard Rock grub.



I tried to order a Pepsi and eventually I got up to go and ask for one. We didn't leave a big tip due to the slow service.



When we came out it was a bit wet. We got back to the hotel about 6pm, absolutely exhausted.

On the way back to the hotel

I'd got some eye drops in a chemist so I put them in and we spent the night packing everything in and watching a movie called Max on Tv, about an army dog. I read some US magazines and we enjoyed the ice creams we'd bought the previous night but had been too stuffed to eat.



Gary had a cookie ice cream sandwich and I had a double caramel magnum .

We really enjoyed our short time in DC. I can see how people say to spend longer, it was enough for us to have a taster of it though. We might have gotten more done if our feet weren't so tired from NYC, but you really would need at least a week to properly do all the museums as they close at 5 so you can't fit in evening visits.

The Segway tour was a highlight of the whole trip and an excellent way to see the city. We were lucky we’d decided to go and see everything lit up on our first night, as it was wet on our second night and we were just too tired. We had an early night to recharge our batteries for Orlando in the morning!

Today’s Highlight
- The segway tour. Worth every penny, it was great fun and very informative.

Thanks for reading so far if you’re still with us . I’m so excited to finally be on to the Orlando part of our trip! I’ll get it up soon (since I’m desperate myself to relive our time in the Sunshine state )

We did that Segway and it's amazing isn't it! I'm pretty sure we ended up at the national archives (same weird crowd round thing too) & hard rock the same day too

I'm exactly the same with my glasses and contacts as well - I was reading this thinking how like us it was.

Excellent day off to read more!

I'm sure it was you that recommended it on my pre-trippie, so thank you! We had such a great time .

Haha how strange. I'm glad its not just me with the glasses, Gary thinks I'm mad!

Thanks for reading x

Love Segways. Wish the miserable Government here would let us use them. Great for nipping to the shops.
Love Washington D C but such a pity you can't get to visit inside the White House. So much to see and do though. Looked like you were having a great time.

Oh yes of course! Phew-glad you enjoyed it

We didn't make it inside the White House either - something for next time! X

I never wear my glasses either so I sympathise with you! I had to wear them for a whole day a few weeks ago and hated every minute!

That Segway tour is definitely top of my list if we ever make it to Washington DC! x

The segway tour looks absolutely awesome, great way to sightsee.

I genuinely thought it was just me, good to know others are the same haha!

We can't wait to do another. Gary would love his own segway to go to work but they're a bit expensive here .

It was brilliant, once I worked out how to control it . Thanks for reading x

Another good day with lots done

Joan

Brilliant day, the Segway tour looks fab