NORMANDY LANDING BEACHES

[kctwinmommy]

This is the tour we did...

https://www.overlordtour.com/product/tours-from-cruise-ports-9b/

 

[Adventures ahead]

On 2/28/2019 at 7:11 PM, XPRTSHPR said:

We will be on the Princess arriving in LeHavre on 6/5.  We have booked the Normandy excursion through Princess due to the distance from the ship.  All of the other tours I looked into were fully booked a long time ago as it is the anniversary year and will be very crowded.  Best to be safe on this one.  Our only Princess excursion.

 

We've come to the same conclusion... the 'dreaded' Princess tour, that I think is a bit harsh, even though this will be the only Princess tour we'll be taking on our August sailing. Group tours on the roll call were full. We specifically want to see the Canadian sites and, even a few weeks ago, Overlord could only do this as a private tour that was even more expensive than Princess.  I've read that people sometimes have trouble getting off the ship in LeHavre so... Princess it is. Please post back how the tour went.

[kctwinmommy]

On 5/29/2019 at 11:00 AM, Adventures ahead said:

We've come to the same conclusion... the 'dreaded' Princess tour, that I think is a bit harsh, even though this will be the only Princess tour we'll be taking on our August sailing. Group tours on the roll call were full. We specifically want to see the Canadian sites and, even a few weeks ago, Overlord could only do this as a private tour that was even more expensive than Princess.  I've read that people sometimes have trouble getting off the ship in LeHavre so... Princess it is. Please post back how the tour went.

 

I would personally recommend paying the higher price for the Overlord tour if you can do it. I'm not kidding, it cost us I think like 400 for the 3 of us, which was cheaper than RCI's excursion. But I'm not kidding, I would have paid the 900 for the 3 of us, if I had to. It was so worth it! Overlord does the private small groups, like 9 people, and then they have the larger bus tours, like 60-80 people I'm guessing.

[Adventures ahead]

21 hours ago, kctwinmommy said:

 

I would personally recommend paying the higher price for the Overlord tour if you can do it. I'm not kidding, it cost us I think like 400 for the 3 of us, which was cheaper than RCI's excursion. But I'm not kidding, I would have paid the 900 for the 3 of us, if I had to. It was so worth it! Overlord does the private small groups, like 9 people, and then they have the larger bus tours, like 60-80 people I'm guessing.

Appreciate your reply... you're 'preaching to the choir' : )  Because we booked the cruise late in the game, no luck on our roll call and the several companies/guides I contacted.

 

The private tour with Overlord is $1519Cdn, prohibitive for the two of us, so we'll be going with Princess for less than half that price.  Not our first choice... it will be 'fine'.  Curious for some feedback from others who have recently done the Princess excursion to either the US or Cdn beaches from LeHavre.

[kctwinmommy]

1 hour ago, Adventures ahead said:

Appreciate your reply... you're 'preaching to the choir' : )  Because we booked the cruise late in the game, no luck on our roll call and the several companies/guides I contacted.

 

The private tour with Overlord is $1519Cdn, prohibitive for the two of us, so we'll be going with Princess for less than half that price.  Not our first choice... it will be 'fine'.  Curious for some feedback from others who have recently done the Princess excursion to either the US or Cdn beaches from LeHavre.

 

Yeah, I do get it. That sucks that it's so much. Our would have been like 900 I think. I'm sure you'll still have a good time, you'll get to see some of those sites and they're amazing! We just came back from the WWII museum in New Orleans, we got to see a section of the Atlantic Wall that they  have on display there, so it was cool to have that full circle kind of experience.

[D C]

On 6/2/2019 at 8:29 PM, kctwinmommy said:

 

I would personally recommend paying the higher price for the Overlord tour if you can do it. I'm not kidding, it cost us I think like 400 for the 3 of us, which was cheaper than RCI's excursion. But I'm not kidding, I would have paid the 900 for the 3 of us, if I had to. It was so worth it! Overlord does the private small groups, like 9 people, and then they have the larger bus tours, like 60-80 people I'm guessing.

Having been to Normandy on my own 3x without a tour group, I'm curious about the tour. Can you express what the tour provided that you wouldn't otherwise have experienced? 

[kctwinmommy]

27 minutes ago, D C said:

Having been to Normandy on my own 3x without a tour group, I'm curious about the tour. Can you express what the tour provided that you wouldn't otherwise have experienced? 

 

Well I have never been to Normandy before, so I can only talk about our specific tour. I couldn't say how it compares to being on your own. I do know that seeing the big tour buses filled with people meant they couldn't take the smaller roads around the area. Our guide took us on back roads, showed us neat little things further back from Omaha Beach, etc... Then after the beach, on our way to the cemetery, we stopped at a few of the little monuments. It also gave us the opportunity to decided how much time we wanted at places. There was another couple, as well as a woman with her parents, then ourselves with our 13 year old son. The guide was also really good with our son, being younger then everyone, just very engaging. And our son wishes he had been more into this history back then. He loved it, but he knows so much more now. We were able to sit at a cafe in Bayeux and just chat with our guide about things local. Our guide gave us a lot of information about the area. He had also done unique traveling himself, so it was interesting to just hear about his adventures while we ate lunch.

 

The whole trip never felt rushed or pushed. I'm sure it's like that when you go on your own as well, but that wasn't an option for us. Maybe one day we'll get back though and then we'll go on our own.

[D C]

10 hours ago, kctwinmommy said:

 

Well I have never been to Normandy before, so I can only talk about our specific tour. I couldn't say how it compares to being on your own. I do know that seeing the big tour buses filled with people meant they couldn't take the smaller roads around the area. Our guide took us on back roads, showed us neat little things further back from Omaha Beach, etc... Then after the beach, on our way to the cemetery, we stopped at a few of the little monuments. It also gave us the opportunity to decided how much time we wanted at places. There was another couple, as well as a woman with her parents, then ourselves with our 13 year old son. The guide was also really good with our son, being younger then everyone, just very engaging. And our son wishes he had been more into this history back then. He loved it, but he knows so much more now. We were able to sit at a cafe in Bayeux and just chat with our guide about things local. Our guide gave us a lot of information about the area. He had also done unique traveling himself, so it was interesting to just hear about his adventures while we ate lunch.

 

The whole trip never felt rushed or pushed. I'm sure it's like that when you go on your own as well, but that wasn't an option for us. Maybe one day we'll get back though and then we'll go on our own.

That's great. Thanks for the explanation.  We've always made Normandy a stop a part of a land-route, spending the night in either Bayeux or Arromanches.    I would imagine the narration and stories with a tour would be very interesting and would connect the details of those specific spots to history (except possibly to my DW, who said she largely ignores tour guides in favour of her "oh look.. that's pretty" tour strategy :D) 

[kctwinmommy]

13 hours ago, D C said:

That's great. Thanks for the explanation.  We've always made Normandy a stop a part of a land-route, spending the night in either Bayeux or Arromanches.    I would imagine the narration and stories with a tour would be very interesting and would connect the details of those specific spots to history (except possibly to my DW, who said she largely ignores tour guides in favour of her "oh look.. that's pretty" tour strategy :D) 

 

You're welcome! I wasn't sure if that's the info you were looking for! I know some people don't like tours and prefer to do it on their own. But without having a lot of time, it was nice to have someone give us the highlights and points to see. If we ever made it back there, I would probably do it on our own now, and read a lot of books. Although I've read quite a few. LOL!

 

[Adventures ahead]

Has anyone who has recently returned from the Crown Princess done the Normandy Canadian Beaches tour with the ship?

[Turtles06]

14 hours ago, Adventures ahead said:

Has anyone who has recently returned from the Crown Princess done the Normandy Canadian Beaches tour with the ship?

 

It would be good to ask this question in the Princess forum as well.