Hello -
Do any of you have recommendations for a private tour guide for the D-day beaches? We only have one day there, and will have a group of 9 (2 adults and 7 children... teenage-2 years old). We are trying to get the most from our time - taking a day trip from Paris. I did try one recommendation that I found on this list serve, but he was booked. Do any of you know anyone who could do a private tour? Thank you so much for any help and have a great day!
Jen
lJen: we did not get a private tour, but used a tour through the hotel with the British name (Churchill, I think). they were very good, and their van could accommodate 9 people. So if they have availability, I would recommend them. Peter
www.toursbylocals.com can hook you up with local qualified guides all over the world. We've used them all over Europe...including the D-Day beaches. You can read about the guides, read about their tours. Most will tailor a trip just for you if you tell them what you are looking for. You can also read what their previous customers said about them.
I highly recommend Tours By Locals
On my RS Paris and Heart of France tour we had Dale Booth as our guide. As far as I could tell everyone really enjoyed him. Knowledge, personable, he really takes you back in time. Not inexpensive for a private tour.
We used this company in 2016 and they were great...normandy44-tours.com. I recommended them to someone else on this site and they wrote a wonderful review for them. It is a husband and wife team who used to work with a large tour company called Overlord tours. They now have their own company. They will customize your tour if you have something special you want to see. I used another company in 2012 and they were so much better. Highly recommend them.
We used Sean Claxton and he was great and very reasonable as far as private guides go. Highly recommend. Have heard that Dale Booth is one of the best, if not the best, but he books out very far in advance so I'd inquire with him ASAP if you're interested.
We booked an all day tour through Viator.com.
They are a consolidator, so we were actually on an all day tour with Overlord.
large new van for the 8 of us.
It was excellent. We stayed at a hotel in Bayeux and the driver picked us up at the hotel after breakfast and we really loved the tour.
It was the D-Day beaches (time to walk on a few of them) the small towns in Normandy with interesting history of the D-Day landing, nice lunch in a small town and ended at the cemeteries.
If you can arrange to be at the American Cemetery at about 4:00pm for the lowering of the flags and playing the national anthem it is a wonderful experience.
Hi Jen,
We used a Tour Guide and a minibus from the lovely B+B we stayed at Le Manoir De Herouville just outside Bayeux www.manoirdeherouville.com
It was a fantastic day out and I highly recommend it.
We'd visited Normandy a few years back with my parents and took the overlord tour departing from Bayeux. next to the Churchhill Hotel,we found it very manufactured and you clearly got the impression the tour guide was just doing a job and was reading from a prepared script and a set route.
This year we booked our tour guide from Le Manoir de Herouvilles and the experience could not have been more different.
We started the Tour off Talking about the D-day sites we will be visiting during the day over a Coffee and a bit about the 6th of June Landings.During the tour we were able to stop to take picture and visit lost places not on the tour map.We even had a wonderful pic nic at a isolated spot over looking the Sea.The high light of the tour was a visit to a remote church that was used as a first aid station set up by two Soldiers from Easy company.You could even see the damage in the floor from a mortar.This is something we would never have seen on a Standard tour.For me this one was one of our best days in Normandy and a must do.Maybe contact Catherine for more Help.I have put her email below and she speaks perfect English.
manoirdeherouville@gmail.com
We can second the recommendation on Bertrand Saudrais. He does have his own vehicle, a roomy SUV in our case (2 adults). I suspect he would make appropriate arrangements to accommodate your group in a suitable vehicle. Since he charges by the day (recommended) or half-day -- not per person -- his tour would probably be something of a bargain for you. His mixture of scholarly information, helpful visual aids (photos; maps; graphs), and charming humor might suit your family well. He stays busy, so inquire soon if you are interested in his availability.
Thank you SO MUCH everyone for your great recommendations. I have reached out to all those you recommended. Hopefully we can find something and get it booked asap. I love this forum!
Too late? We used normandy44-tours, our guide "Oliver" worked in US for many years at Disney and was quite entertaining and good with our kid.
