Walt Disney World offers two Segway tours, The Around the World at Epcot and the Wilderness Back Trail Adventure Segway Tour which is held at the Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground. My husband and I have had the privilege of going on both tours, but today I will talk about the Wilderness Back Trail Adventure tour. Talk about fun! It was one of the highlights of our trip!
There are two guides that accompany you on this tour. You spend the first half hour or so learning to guide and drive the Segway. Safety is a number one concern and the guides want to make sure that you are comfortable on the machine. The driving of the Segway is not difficult. With your weight centered over the machine you then either lean slightly to the left or to the right to turn. To stop you lean back a little with your heels. Leaning forward on your toes allows you to move forward. The wheels on this Segway has the rugged all-terrain wheels. They allow you to go up hill and down, over bumps and even pine cones safely. You are given a safety helmet to wear and a set of ear plugs that plug into what reminds me of a walkie talkie devise that hangs around your neck. This devise allows you to hear what the tour guild is saying along the whole tour. Just a little side note here, I wished I had brought the ear plugs that I use for my ipod. My ears are small and it was very hard to get the ones that were provided into my ears comfortably, but not missing a word that our guild said was wonderful!
The scenic two hour tour takes place at the Fort Wilderness Campground. We rode up to Bay Lake and paused to listen to our guild explain some of Walt Disney World's history, fun facts and to just enjoy the scenery. If you look closely you will see the Contemporary Resort in the background.
This is a bird sanctuary area and the wild life was abundant.
We made a few stops along the way and one was at the Disney Stables. This is where they house all of the horses that are used in the parks for the parades and of course for Cinderella's Coach. One of the draft horses was being groomed at the time. The groomer answered all of our questions and allowed us to pet the horse. I felt very small next to that draft horse!
One thing that I didn't expect was deer along our pathway. For some reason, the deer do not fear the Segways at all. It is like they think you are not a danger because you are not walking on two feet. They just look up and then ignore you. The guides allowed us to stop for photos and to just enjoy the wildlife. Of course Disney can't guarantee you that there will be deer on every tour but you never know...you might see some too!
For most of the tour we were on a paved pathway, but we were also given plenty of time to go up and down small hills and around trees. If you were not comfortable with the terrain then you could stay on the paved pathway. We enjoyed the freedom that the Segway had to offer and loved weaving in among the trees.
The Magnolia Trees were in bloom that day. Beautiful! One of the tour guides gave me a blossom. I had never seen a bloom up close like that before, let alone smelled one. That was just one of the little touches that made this tour special.
This was truly a magical memory!
