Normandy and D-Day Beaches on Rick Steves Tour

It has been a while since I took this tour (2015) but our guide for the day was Dale Booth, who was superb. I would say he covered Utah, Pointe du Hoc, Omaha, Sainte-Mare-Eglise, Angoville-au-Plain extremely well along with the back story. I've not done a Band of Brothers tour but it covers a lot of the same area as the 101st drop zone was in that area. He also tailored his talk a bit based on whether people on the tour had relatives that landed. One tour member had an uncle that landed on Utah and Dale was able to point out about where he would have come ashore. I was interested in a certain ALG (Advanced Landing Ground) and he was able to point it out although there was no place to stop.

IF you decide to do another day, I'd do the other Allied Beaches (Juno, Gold, Sword), Pegasus Bridge, Arromanches (for the Mulberry Harbor).

I can't remember if we went to Longues-sur-Mer on the RS tour or not. I've been 3 times with 3 different companies and can't remember whether it was with RS or Road Scholar.

I do recommend you watch The Longest Day before you go. Dale indicated he felt like this was the most faithful to what actually happened on DDay. You can find this on Youtube, it's free but has ads.

I wasn't even sure I wanted to go with the tour that day-was really ambivalent about it. Well, it turned out to be one of the best days of all the tours I've taken. We saw so much, learned so much and I was so emotionally affected by what I saw. I'd go back just because I loved the area, too, and would also like to see more of Brittany.

I took the tour and felt the day in Normandy was adequate but superficial. For those very interested in the subject, I would do the band of brothers tour and visit the museums there IMHO

I wouldn't personally think one day would be sufficient to cover the Normandy campaign—particularly if you haven't been before.

We took the tour a little over a decade ago before we moved to France. Our Rick Steves tour retained Dale Booth for the visit and he was horrible. Almost laughably superficial in his commentary. So, no, for that visit it was nowhere near sufficient.

The Normandie campaign had several parts. From an American perspective, the landings on D-Day (including its airborne element) and the subsequent decision in late July to launch Operation Cobra to push through the bocage of Normandie while the German defenses were partially drawn away by British and Canadian attacks around Caen are two of the most important.

I know some people praise Mr. Booth as a guide, but he was nearly useless to us. For what he shared on our visit, one would have to have had almost zero understanding of the events of D-Day to have found his input of use.