Updated: Jan 12th 2020 – Happy New Year!
NormandyONtour.com
Overlord-Neptune
We opened shop in 2019 with fresh ideas for well-paced, enjoyable Private D-Day Tours, (riding in luxury 9-seat Mercedes Tourers – leather interiors, tinted windows, reclining seats, wifi, usb connections front and rear, drinks holders, with coffee & chilled beverages & snacks on board too), for people of all ages and backgrounds. Last year we guided US Rangers, pilots and tank commanders still on active duty today; veterans too; well-schooled D-Day enthusiasts, and hundreds of international tourists – usually first time visitors to the region (or to France herself).
We deliver enjoyable and visually informative tours – using hi-resolution original D-Day photos – and our customers are obviously very happy. Their positive feedback is simply due to our placing clients’ needs at the very fore of our daily work. In what has recently become largely a fast-food industry run by overly-competitive major operators, where clients are rushed around 16 sites in 8 hours (combined, including first entry + last exit, that’s 34 vehicle entries & exits per person per day!), these good folks often unwittingly finish their tour exhausted but still content it would seem. For many it will be a once-in-a-lifetime visit, therefore ‘that’ tour experience is all they’ll ever know – since they have nothing to ‘compare’ it too…until now.
Since our clients’ satisfaction has been paramount in our company’s ethos from the very off, we decided early to make an even bigger effort. This dedication and attention to detail is reflected in all of our client reviews (below). We prefer quality over quantity. Our sites visited include several major sites on the popular tourist circuit, as well as carefully chosen sites just a little off the beaten track.
Our Private Tours are also very varied, customizable (our half-day tours can even be ‘Mixed & Matched’) and can even be extended up to 10 hours via our specially created multi-lingual Chauffeur-Guide Service (available in our native English, as well as Fr/De/Es/ and Jp for Le Mont St Michel). No other tour company in Normandy offers clients such a high degree of diversity or flexibility.
In June 2019 alone we delivered 28 tours to over 150 people. Unfortunately, not everyone in 2019 has left an online review on Trip Advisor, so clearly we’ll need to ‘push’ just a little harder in 2020 to get those reviews online! Lastly, our communication with clients has been seamless due to our high-end, secure online reservation system. We also accept onboard secure card or cash payments (last-minute tours). For those extendable ‘customizable’ tours (e.g. US 82nd + 101st Airborne Tours, alongside British 6th Paras Pegasus Tours), of for our multiple-day Flagship ‘Overlord-Neptune’ Tour, which often combines a Paris CDG or Carpiquet airport pick-up/drop-off with a combination of Cultural Visits (Cheese & Calvados, Giverny, Le Mont Saint-Michel, La Loire etc) with D-Day Tours and onward transfer options, we often work for several weeks with clients via email, or over the phone, until their Itinerary is as perfect as they wish. Then, when they are 100% satisfied, they proceed to the booking & secure payment page.
In 2019 our tours were competitively priced (from €480.00), and our clients included people from all walks of life: From one UK upcoming pop star and one billionaire Belgian director, who dismounted the coach to lead his busload of 32 employees from Bayeux to Gold Beach Arromanches as a passenger on board our luxury Honda Goldwing Motorcycle (available as a Moto-Guide Service), to surgeons, teachers and mechanics – oh and lots of international students and children too of course!
Regardless of your background, we have something to suit all knowledge levels, tastes, and requirements. We’d also add that we cater to people with mobility issues, including spreading slow-paced full-day tours over two days, carrying *foldable wheelchairs, and on one rare occasion, even practically carrying one partially disabled but very determined individual to the top of the Mont Saint-Michel. Yes, we will literally go to any lengths just to guarantee our quality of service promise: “If you’re less than satisfied we’ll return your fee – quibble-free”.
*We regret but we cannot hydraulically ‘load’ any personal client wheelchairs at this time. This may change in 2021/22.
We also provide high-end Chauffeur Services (without a ‘guide’), for hotel and airport transfers (including Paris, Caen-Carpiquet) and these, again are tailor-made to suit. Whether travelling in style from Normandy to Paris, or Paris to Le Pays d’Auge,we can assist.
NB: In 2021 we will also begin running D-Day Group Tours (max 8 passengers, €110.00 p/p), as well as a Mont Saint-Michel ‘special’ Group Tour service via Colleville American Cemetery, its new 2019 stunning Visitor Centre or nearby Overlord Museum. These 2021 Group Tours will also be available for booking as soon as we are back online.
*They are all available (as with our 2020 Private Tours) as a daytrip from Paris by train.
A selection of our reviews can be found online at: Facebook, Google Business & Trip Advisor
We will be open for tours and services from March 1st 2020.
Our website will be back up and live at the end of January 2020, complete along with our online secure booking system.
Meantime, please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.
Email: admin@normandyontour.com
Tip: Scroll down to see our American Beaches 2020 Private Tour and 2021 Group Tour.
General info (2020):
Private Tours (from €480): Luxury Mercedes, 1-8 clients, and tours are led by a native English-speaker guide.
A full day Day Tour of the American landing zones and D-Day Beaches typically includes:
- Angoville-au-Plain (a little church transformed into a field hospital by 2 American paratroopers)
- Ste. Marie-du-Mont (101st US Airborne)
- Utah Beach (4th US Division). On the way from Utah, we will stop at the monument dedicated to Richard Winters, hero of the series “Band of Brothers”
- Sainte-Mère-Eglise (where the famous American 82nd US Airborne paratrooper J. Steele got snagged on top of the church. This is our lunch stop too)
- Mission Impossible: La Pointe-du-Hoc (2nd US Rangers)
- Omaha Beach: Vierville (29th ID, National Guard Monument)
- The Normandy Colleville American Cemetery.
These are the stops but there will also be a lot of monuments, bunkers and sites to see from the vehicle on the way.
There’s enough time to visit the Airborne Museum in Sainte-Mère-Eglise (at lunchtime) and free-time at stops to explore on your own and take photos. Plenty of rest stops and restroom facilities enroute.
For fixed schedule full-day Private Tours We can provide a Mon-Fri Bayeux station pick up (at 09.16) or Mon-Sun 09:45 Bayeux/Caen Hotel pick up with a full day D-Day tour and drop off at 17:45 (in plenty of time to catch the 18.35 back to Paris). Flexible early-bird options available too.
*Tours & Services also from cruise ship ports of Cherbourg/Honfleur/St. Malo/Le Havre. Half-Day D-Day Tours from Paris hotels for onward transfers to Normandy too. We also organize guided D-Day Tour ‘ride-outs’ for 1-20 bikers, riding free on their own two wheels (multilingual comms via sena bluetooth between our Moto-Guide & the ‘lead rider’).
We look forward to welcoming you on board…
Iain (Owner) with Veteran Joan De Val, Pegasus 2017.
