Which D-Day Beach Tour from Overlord Would You Recommend? Or other tour company?

I can't help you with the tours -- the only one I've taken (as part of a larger tour before I moved to France) was with Dale Booth and he was a disaster. Couldn't recommend him at all.

As for your trip south to the Loire Valley, I would suggest stopping in Le Mans. It has a nice old town center (Cité Plantagenêt) with remnants of Gallo-Roman walls and interesting structures. On summer evenings La Nuit des Chimères involves music and colorful light shows projected on the walls of buildings. On the tip of an island in La Sarthe, the river flowing south through Le Mans, is a statue to the Wright Brothers that your son may like to learn about. In 1908, Wilbur Wright demonstrated the Wright Flyer to incredulous Europeans at the Hunaudières race course outside Le Mans. Maybe have him check out a copy of The Wright Brothers by David McCullough from the King County Library to learn about what a big deal that was.

And of course there's le Musée des 24 Heures du Mans if you guys are interested in auto racing. Not my interest, but some people like it.

Hi

My buddy and I took a private, full day tour with Overlord in November, 2023 and we based it off of Tour # 2. Our tour guide was Antoine Muriel and he was fantastic. Because it was just the two of us in the van, he was able to take a few side trips for us.
Here's a link to the review I wrote on this website: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/over-lord-tours-normandy-review

I would absolutely make a point to see the Baeaux Tapestry Museum while there. Also, the Museum of the Battle of Normandy and the British Cemetery are both a 15 minute walk from the Cathedral and are very good, but not "musts" if you're taking the Overlord Tours. We had about 2-3 hours to kill one day walked from the Cathedral to them.

Good luck

We toured with Sylvain Kast and he was terrific. Great communication beforehand, and he was willing to personalize the tour to our interests. https://normandyguides.com/guide/sylvain-kast/

You may want to check with them to see what tours are available for your dates. I booked our tour with Overlord for September over a month ago. I wanted tour #2 but it was not available, so ended up with tour #3.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/normandy-to-loire-help

You need to book a D-Day tour for next month immediately, I believe. Are there any still available?

I agree that Overlord may be fully booked at this point. If not, is your son familiar with the Band of Brothers TV series? If not, the focus on those sites may and characters may not be as relevant as the Omaha/Utah Beach tour. I did that tour last fall -excellent. It included the Airborne Museum in St-Mere-Elise.

Bayeux Tapestry Museum as recommended above. They are closing soon for multiple years. https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/

There are several various very recent discussions of Normandy Museums that you might search for.

Had Dale Booth for a day and he was outstanding….probably too late to hire him now. We had a day tour with Overlord a few years before hiring Dale for the day and it was good……there were 8 others with us in a van for the day to the American beaches. Visit the English cemetery in Bayeux where each grave is personalized……very different from Normandy. Love the Loire Valley……stayed in Amboise and visited the nearby chateaus. Lovely area!

Your family might enjoy Overlord's Tour #4 - the British and Canadian Sectors tour. Juno, Gold, and Sword Beaches, plus Pegasus Bridge. I found it absolutely fascinating, with many sites that would appeal to an 11 year old history buff.

Here is a recent museum discussion. Pharmerphil's summary part way down the thread is excellent:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/normandy-museums-3646f510-9a52-4dd3-9005-6cfa585f99a0

We used HQCompany tours 9/23 and family used them this April. We all thought it was fantastic day touring the Normandy beaches. We both had Yannick as our guide and he was exceptional. He would be great with your son as he added sound effects and great enthusiasm to everything. Good luck.. .

My husband and I are taking Bradley's Tour which is two days due to special interest in the 101st since my grandpa served in that division in WW2.

We took the Overlord tour in late May, Thierry was our guide. We opted for the Utah/Omaha Beach tour and it gave us a wonderful perspective on DDay. You will be in a comfortable van. We had 8 people on our tour. Thierry gave us plenty of time in each site to take pictures and explore.

Try Gold Beach Tours. Had excellent results on a tour of Canadian Battlefields. All the tours are fun but ultimately all the tours go to the same places and the stories vary only by how each guide crafts their lectures. OP bear in mind that Deauville is a bit of a drive and will require an early start to meet most start times in Bayeux.

The immensity of D-Day means that you’ll see a little and miss a whole lot in a one day tour.

We booked tour #2, but they ended up combining it with tour#3. It was mid-October and likely they didn’t have enough customers to run both tours. We had never seen Band of Brothers but that didn’t matter. The tour was great and we learned a lot. I would happily book another tour with Overlord. We had a car and another day we went to Pegasus Bridge and a well done museum focused on the British part of the invasion.

I preface this by saying I have never taken an organized tour of Normandy. But I go there every other year, and consider myself somewhat of an amateur historian on the Battle of Normandy. Keep in mind that the "Band of Brothers" were simply one of many, many units fighting in this battle. Not to take anything away from them, but if it weren't for Stephen Ambrose and Steven Spielberg, most would never have heard of them. There were many units of all types, including many airborne units fighting to liberate Normandy. Unless you are primarily a fan of the HBO series, I would encourage you to broaden your interests and visits to include many other things. As for the U.S. Airborne operations specifically, I think the contributions of the 82nd Airborne in places like the La Fiére causeway and downtown Sainte-Mère-Église are particularly significant. These would likely be included in a tour that targets Utah Beach.