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Normandy D-Day Tour Recommendation: Bertrand Saudrais at bertrand@executived-daytours.com

We had the distinct pleasure of booking Bertrand Saudrais at bertrand@executived-daytours.com for our family's personal Normandy D-Day Tour on May 27th, 2023. We could not sing enough of Bertrand's praises, from his personal style to his wealth of knowledge about D-Day, to his at-ease personality that fit us perfectly.

To start, we found Bertrand by looking at his website (executived-daytours.com). He was very prompt in getting back to us, and immediately gave us suggestions for things to read and watch in preparation for our tour. This recommendation was extremely helpful because it got our kids involved in the tour before we even arrived. He continued to work with us to tailor the tour to what we wanted to see, bringing us to important locations for the 101st and 1st ID at our request. His tour is not canned; he will ensure that he meets your needs across the entire D-Day front. He even took us to the Normandy American Cemetery for the flag-lowering, for which we were immensely grateful.

Bertrand's deep knowledge of June 6th, 1944, as well as the events that preceded it and happened because of it, was amazing. It was obvious that Bertrand is well-read on the landings, able to pull data from numerous different books and interviews off the top of his head having to do with whatever topic we were discussing at each location he took us to. He was able to take us off the beaten path to different locations we would not even have thought of (1LT Meehan's of E/2/506 plane crash location, for example). He had an answer for all the questions we asked, and even had props to show us, such as old pictures, maps, and quotations. We could not have asked for a better person to deep dive the landings for us.

The last reason that we would recommend Bertrand to anyone (large family, small family, or individual) is his personality. He immediately put us at ease when we met him in St. Mere Eglise. He was not overbearing, was very respectful, and was extremely patient. We have a lot of young kids who could be distractions, but he engaged each one of them, and was patient with us whenever one would start acting up. Bertrand was extremely professional and nice throughout the 9-hour tour. It was a long and eventful day that Bertrand made better.

We cannot recommend Bertrand Saudrais enough to our friends and family for personal D-Day tours in Normandy. We plan on going back to Normandy again, and when we do, we will ensure that we coordinate with Bertrand so he can be our personal guide. He is the best there is!

Posted by
945 posts

Thank you for your recommendation. We are planning to visit next year and were looking for a private tour guide. Bertrand sounds amazing.

Posted by
1647 posts

His tour is not canned; he will ensure that he meets your needs across the entire D-Day front.

How would a first time customer know whether or not the tour was "canned". They have never heard it before!!!

Posted by
3 posts

The tour is not "canned" because I didn't mention to him that I had served in 1ID until we met up, and he offered to take us to the 1ID memorial, and then down to the beach from that causeway. Then we went back to the cemetery, watched the flag lowering, and then back to the beach again (well past the time the tour was supposed to end). He did that after we asked him to explore the beach a little more. He also showed us multiple different museums that we could explore on our last day.

Bertrand is well worth the money. I stand by my comments.

Posted by
14811 posts

In the past few weeks, there have been lots of recommendations of this guy. All by first time posters.

????????

Posted by
3218 posts

In the past few weeks, there have been lots of recommendations of this guy. All by first time posters. ????????

My guess is that BS has started asking his clients to post a review on this forum. Personally, I'm not a fan of the "one and done" posters on any forum. But it is what it is. I think these reviews would play better on Trip Advisor.

Posted by
1647 posts

You have to admire the effort though. Who doesn't want free advertising? Apparently the webmaster doesn't have an issue.

Posted by
3 posts

What Would Rick Steves Do?

I do not understand all this talking around my post like I did something that Rick Steves' himself found wrong and decided to release the wolves (all with multiple posts). We had a good time with Bertrand, and are fans of Rick Steves' books since we are stationed in Europe and can travel to all these cool places. We thought it would be good to share our thoughts with other travelers in case they were in Normandy and wanted to get a private tour guide who could deep dive on the actions of June 6, 1944.

Rick Steves himself has provided recommendations for tour guides/groups, such as in his Prague book (which we tried to book but were unsuccessful, so we had to walk the Jewish Quarter ourselves using his walking tour).

In my estimation, it is very difficult to truly visualize and appreciate what happened on those beaches, on the drop zones, on the landing zones, without someone there to talk with you about it who is themselves extremely familiar with the terrain and the activities surrounding D-Day. We feel passionately about this, and that is why we recommended Bertrand.

In order for me to get to 1406 posts I had to start somewhere. This is where I started.

Posted by
14811 posts

You have to understand we are wary of first time posters who include rave reviews and links. We get too many that are fake.

Posted by
1647 posts

As Frank stated, spammers are numerous on this forum. History is another. As was pointed out, in a few short months first time posters left the same type of review for this company. That is odd for a first timer on this site. Also, all the posts mentioning this company over the history of this forum are quite similar in nature. Same phrases, same type of links and in some cases the same person, etc.

If you are a legitimate first time forum member...welcome and thanks for the information. If you are Bertrand or his designate, please understand the caution we all must take because this type of spamming clutters the forum. If you are as good as the post says, I would contact the Rick Steves office and ask them to give you a review the next time their staff is in Bayeux. That would be a win-win for all.

No hard feelings either way.

Posted by
1 posts

We can't say enough about Bertrand Saudrais!

We were lucky enough to travel with Bert on Memorial Day, 2023, and what a day it was, capped off by watching the American flag lowered at the cemetary. Bert is thorough, customizes the tour to your interests and is incredibly knowledgeable. Best of all -- he has a great sense of humor and command of language!

Bertrand is a professionally trained tour guide, specifically for the D-Day invasion. He is a great driver (we never felt unsafe); looks after you for lunch, liquids, and breaks; stops along the way if you have questions, and keeps the energy up all along. We had a great time teaching him some American slang to teach to his daughter, who corrects his English accent. We all had a good time with that! I mean, can you even?

There are movie recommendations prior to his tour (The Longest Day); I watch the first part, and then fell asleep; my husband did not watch. Well, when you're in Sainte-Mere-Eglise, you'll understand why you should watch it. We went back to our Airbnb that night and watched, and it all locked in. It's just truly amazing so much of what you see in the movie still stands.

Unless you're an expert, or have been there before, don't try to do Normandy as a self-guided tour -- there is simply too much to see. Bertrand can help you focus on the most important things to you, while making sure you don't miss key elements that pull it all together . . . such as the metal fencing the Americans put down for the landing strip on our temporary base, and how you see it all over the area now, being repurposed . . . or the narrow roads of hedges that remain as they were . . . the farm house at Utah beach that stood during the invasion and stands today, rife with veteran's signatures on the walls.

Reach out to Bertrand and get yourself scheduled. It is worth every penny and will be a day you'll remember for the rest of your life, enhanced by Bert's wit, grace and knowledge. bertrand@executived-daytours.com

Posted by
14811 posts

The strange thing is this post will probably hurt the D-Day tour guide rather than help him. People will be wary.

Posted by
3218 posts

The strange thing is this post will probably hurt the D-Day tour guide rather than help him. People will be wary.

So true! I feel that way about the much-ballyhooed Gaetano of Pompeii fame as well.

Posted by
1647 posts

I guess you can't blame Bertrand for trying to drum up business and what better place than an RS forum. I looked at his website and while there certainly is a site, the cost of the tour is way too much. Most of the competition is 25% of his cost of a full day tour.

Posted by
6231 posts

I was wondering about that. I didn't compare prices but it seemed that €580 is a lot to pay for a one day tour.

Posted by
924 posts

Hey folks, this sort of thing has always been a challenge in our forum. I've removed a few posts here just to keep it copacetic. First off, W S, you're in fine standing and no need to be defensive. It's not about you.

And it's a good thing if additional reviews are making their way into a thread reviewing the guide. Preferably, all reviews for a guide would be in one thread, though I can appreciate that would not be easy for members in this forum given the setup, especially new members.

The people posting such reviews are frequently legit, but it's on the side of being a misuse of the forum on the part of the guide if s/he is directing people to post here. It's a form of using our website for promotion -- a guideline violation -- but we don't have access to the promoter to block it. While we welcome the occasional unsolicited review in general, Trip Advisor and a few other forums are literally designed for this. Ours is not. In our largely Q&A setup, it can look like spam when 5 people start new threads over a short period of time to glow about one guide. That doesn't serve this forum, the guide, or the people spending their time sharing their experience.

I'm presently grappling with how best to handle this as I need to formalize our approach. It has come up before, but it seems to be happening with more frequency. Thanks for your patience with me here.

Posted by
14811 posts

Why is it that the people that come here to promote this guide never post anything else?

Posted by
549 posts

What I've noticed about these posts, no matter who the guide is who is being recommended, is the flowery, almost over-the-top style in which they are written, with familiar references to "deep" knowledge and "immediately putting at ease", the complex sentences, dense paragraphs, and overall completeness of the posting. They all seem to have been written by the same person, with a great deal of care. My conclusion is this is just advertising.

Posted by
1647 posts

Unfortunately I am a first time poster, but I have been visiting the site for over 10 years.

Never had a question in 10 years and the first post is a recommendation of a guide which keeps popping up lately as a first time poster. Not one recommendation about a restaurant or a hotel or a back door all throughout Europe. I was born at night Bertrand, but it wasn't last night. I still admire your efforts though.

Posted by
891 posts

Interesting thread! Gotta wonder about the original post and the one by boatbrown1!

Posted by
14811 posts

And now I see the latest one has been deleted. I wonder if this guide is offering some type of "incentive" to people to post for him?

Posted by
6231 posts

Frank, that's my guess. And they're not only here but I've seen them on TA as well.

Posted by
891 posts

I wonder if this guide is offering some type of "incentive" to people to post for him?

Frank, it looks like he even writes the recommendation for them!