Normandy private vs group tours

We didn’t pay anything like that for a van tour with 6-7 people. Our hotel arranged it for us and it was excellent. Sorry, I don’t remember the name. Ask your hotel for help.

Many companies offering D-Day tours use 8 passenger minivans. We were happy with the now-defunct BattleBus in 2010. If I were going to Bayeux today, I would use this company:

https://www.overlordtour.com

I totally agree with using Overlord tours. My husband and I stayed in Bayeux last October for 3 nights and booked
the Band of Brothers tour with Overlord. It was incredible. Our guide was Jannick and he was fabulous. He has a college degree in French tourism and specializes in the Normandy area. We were in a passenger van which was very comfortable. We were so lucky in that we were the only paying guests on the tour. Two of the Overlord tour guides also took the tour because they wanted to learn from Jannick. So we ended up with a private tour with 3 guides. (of course that was an oddity as we were the only ones that day signed up for the tour). I was so moved by the tour and the guides love of the history, the stories and the reverence of the area. We were there in mid October which was close to the end of the season. Loved Bayeux. The tapestry is a must!! I would use this tour group above all. Our neighbors used a different tour group and didn't see half of what we saw. Also, Jannick uses a lot of photos from the D Day offensive as well as the weeks following. It was a highlight of our France trip

I was very happy with Overlord last year. Dale Booth also gets positive comments here. A lot of the companies do use vans rather than large buses. My tour had 9 members, I think. I think I saw two different sizes of Overlord vans, ours being the smaller.

One tip if you take the full-day Overlord tour with the US focus: There's a stop for lunch in Sainte-Mere-Eglise. That's also your opportunity to see the Airborne Museum. If you have any interest in the museum at all, you'll have to grab some sort of carry-out lunch. If you're going to do that anyway, it would be better to take something with you and avoid spending any time lining up for sandwiches, etc. That way, you can probably pretty well cover the entire museum during the tour stop. Even grabbing a quick sandwich, I had to really hurry through the museum.

Edited to add: I am not suggesting that you eat lunch in the van. Overlord explicitly prohibits that.

We had Dale Booth when he was a guide for Battlebus tours 10 years ago. He has his own tour company, Dale Booth Tours. He does the small passenger van with 6-8 people. RS Tours used to use Battlebus as their local guides in Normandy and, in checking last summer's reviews, they are using Dale Booth as one of their local guides.

Thank you all for the info. All of the RS recommended private guides (including Dale Booth) are sold out. The two that have availability, want 800 euros and 480 euros for a party of two, hence the topic of my post. It would be the same price for 6 people but I don't have 6!

The small van tours get good reviews. In fact, I don't think I've seen a negative comment about any of them.

Western European labor rates are about the same as ours. A private guide is going to be costly. That's why most of us stick with group tours or the do-it-yourself approach. Given the geography and the historical complexity of the D-Day sites, doing it yourself is not very effective unless a member of your party happens to be an expert on the Normandy invasion and has previously visited the area to map out the best routes to some of the key sites.

Your best bet is probably one of the firms like Overlord Tour. You'll be travelling in about an eight passenger van, so the group size is still reasonable and the cost won't be prohibitive. I would highly recommend reserving a spot as soon as you have your details locked down.

As you'll have your own car, you might also send an E-mail to Chris Emery at Visit DDay Tours and he will ride with you so it will be a more personalized tour.