Opinions Loire Valley Chateau Tour, Odyssee tours, and Amboise vs. Cheverny

Amboise is interesting - the royal castle there is much larger than Cheverny and spans a longer time frame. It was built as a fortress, whereas Cheverny was/is a palace that is well furnished and still inhabited. The Chateau d'Amboise does have some furnished rooms of various periods up into the 19th century. Amboise the town also includes da Vinci's house, Clos Luce, which we enjoyed a lot; would that be part of the Paris City Vision tour?

Another option would be to take the train to Tours and do a tour with Acco Dispo ; I've heard very good things about their tours and it looks as if they do Chenonceau/Amboise/Chambord/Cheverny on their all-day tours every Mon, Weds, and Fri.

Sorry I don't know anything about Odyssee. Whatever you decide, have a great trip!

Thanks so much for your replies. I would love to see Da Vinci's home - hopefully it would be on the tour. So would I be missing much to go to Amboise instead of Cheverny or would that actually be better combined with Chambord, and Chenonceau?

I need to convince my hubby :)

I think Amboise is great, and recommend it. the Castle is fascinating, and the town below it is lovely.
I took the Paris City Vision 2-day tour of the Loire. We went to Chambord, Cheverny, Chenonceau, Clos Luce, Amboise, and Vilandry.
I loved it.

We did the tour with Acco Dispo that went to Chenonceau, Cheverny, Chambord and Amboise. We really enjoyed our time. I posted a full review earlier on the forum. Enjoy your trip!

Thank You So Much for your replies - it really helps!

I would LOVE to do 2 or 3 days there but we only have 1 so I would like to see as much as possible.

The all day tour with Acco Dispo sounds great!

Do they charge extra for the entrance tickets to the chateaux?

Do they have a tour guide that takes you through the Chateaux or are you on your own?

Is it pretty easy to take a train there from the Louvre area in Paris?

Thanks again for all your help and suggestions!

We are going with my daughter and her husband to celebrate their 15th anniversary so I'm trying to find extra special things for them. :)

Are you thinking of Odysseys Unlimited?

They have an option where everything is included, including entrance tickets, and they also have an option where you just pay for the transportation and then buy your tickets separately. We did the all included part, and I think it was around 133 euros each, which included lunch. Our driver taught us about the region as we drove, but there was no guided portion in the chateaux. We got around 1.5 hours in each place. It was easy to take the train to Tours. We took it from Gare Montparnasse. I'm not sure how close that is to the Louvre. It is a fast paced trip, but we saw a lot and enjoyed it.

Is a Loire Valley tour doable/advisable as a day trip from Paris?