Normandy, Brittany and Chateaux Country Globus tour

[Brian]

I am considering this tour next summer and wonder if anyone has taken it, and what they thought. It is 7 nights (9 days with flights) and a decent price. I want to know how much of the D-Day Beaches you actually Visit/Stop at, they say the American Cementery , but do they go to any/all of the Landing Beaches or do they Drive by and Point with a quick "Photo-op" stop? This is a BIG reason we want to visit France. The rest of the tours sounds good, but would like to hear from people who have taken it. Hotels walking distance from the action? Mont-St-Michel looks Incredible, how much do you get to see- how long did the stay in main stops last? Any help is appreciated, Thanks. BTW we are planning on adding 1-2 days in Belguim and then 2 days in Amsterdam on our own to end the vacation, maybe 2 in London to make it a 2 week trip, so fast paced the first week will be fine.

[us2]

We are considering the same tour.I'll add these questions and hope someone can answer them. What "optionals" were good? How much of the day is spent Driving ? Is there much too do once you arrive at the Hotel (are the hotels close enough to venture out on your own or do you need to find a way to where the action is?). . Has anyone taken this tour or a similar on, if so please give us your viewpoints.

[Gordon]

My wife and I are taking this trip on June 4th during the 60 year anniversary of D-Day. I'll reply after we come back.

My daughter, however, took this same trip about 2 years ago and said it was wonderful. She did indicate at least 3-4 hours at the beaches so it is more than a photo-stop.

[Brian]

Thank You Gordon, I will look forward to your post in late june. I hear they (France) are doing some very special things for the 60th, so Im sure you will have a GREAT time. Enjoy

[JimC]

We are on this tour (July 18) so will be anxious to hear from Gordon when he returns in June. Anyone else going to be on the same tour with us? e-mail me at jamesc5982@aol.com

[JimC]

We have now returned from this great tour and I'll give some random observations. We really enjoyed this tour and highly recommend it. We never felt rushed and had time to walk around towns and shop. We usually stopped for 2 hours in a town for independent lunch, such as in Rouen, Bayeux, and Angers and that also gave time for shopping and looking at the town centers. The tour of Paris on the first day was WAY too short and covered hardly anything- was under 2 hours, but we did have time to get off and as a group go to the first floor on the Eiffel Tower.

The bus was quite comfortable. In general, the legroom was equivalent to that in first class on a domestic flight on a 737 or MD80 aircraft. It looked like someone from a previous tour had messed with one or two rows of seats as it seemed like a couple of rows had more generous legroom at the expense of the people behind them. We changed seats every day (after we left Paris) by moving forward and clockwise two rows each day.
The overhead space is very small height wise so nothing more than about 7" high will fit in the overhead. They were strict about charging for anything that needed to be stored in the luggage compartment. There is space under your seat, however, that is about the size of that under an airplane seat. The tour conductor monitored the luggage each morning to make sure that each piece was in fact loaded on the bus-- you tell him at that start how many pieces you have, they are tagged, and he checked them off as they are loaded from the hotel.

The hotels were Days Inn quality and we were not impressed. Two of our rooms (Sofitel Forum Rive Gauche in Paris and Mercure Porte de la Plaine in Paris on the return) had rather unclean bathrooms; the Porte de la Plaine had wallpaper partially torn off the wall and black marks on the woodwork in the bathroom. The Novotel at Amboise was the best of the lot with a larger room, nice views, and a great restaurant, but far from town with no possible means (not even a taxi) to get there.

Meals were of reasonably good quality, but there was no choice. Everyone eats together and get the same thing. They served one entree one night which I hate, so my wife and I ate in the hotel restaurant at our own expense. We later found out that if we had said something, they would have tried to provide something else. There were several children & teenagers on the tour and for the most part they were VERY unhappy with the meal selections and some just refused to eat. Pizza, chicken nuggets, etc. are simply not options on this tour. While a hotel might substitute chicken in a sauce for someone who doesn't eat pork, they make no accommodations for children/teen tastes. This became a BIG problem for a couple of parents.

We recommend that you bring some toilet tissue or tissues with you as two of our "potty stops" were at places which were not very clean and which did not provide TP. Likewise, none of the hotels provided face cloths, so either bring your own or plan on using a handtowel in the shower.

All the stops and tours were great. Mont St. Michel poses some problems. The trip to the top is VERY difficult. Mont St. Michel has only one narrow passageway lined with stores for the first 20 minutes. We were there on a weekday afternoon and there was an incredible number of people-- it was push and shove. To further complicate matters, people come with dogs, baby carriages, small children, and who knows what else - all crammed into this rather narrow passageway. The tour guide told us that this was a "light" day and that many times people have to line up in the parking lot and wait just to get into Mont St. Michel. We were unable to walk all the way to the top, a very challenging walk. We're happy we didn't. Later it started to rain and the cobblestone walkway was slick and dangerous. One woman (not on our tour) slipped and fell and was quite injured. Our tour guide did not go to the top-- you just go on your own. Our only objection here was the amount of time allowed-- you either had 2.5 hours and else you had 45 minutes. 2.5 hours was fine if you were walking all the way to the top, but was WAY too long if you weren't. 45 minutes was way too short no matter what. You could walk to the hotel but it was at least a 30-40 minute walk.

We thoroughly enjoyed the tour and thought it was good value for the money. The hotels are not the quality we are accustomed to, but we made the best of it. By the way, only two of the hotels had individually controlled air conditioning. When someone complained to the front desk, they were told that the front desk controls the A/C for the entire hotel, so your comfort depends upon the comfort of the front desk clerk.

While I won't be checking this message board very often, I will be happy to answer any questions anyone has if you will e-mail me at jamesc5982@aol.com

[Guest]

[quote="Brian"]I am considering this tour next summer and wonder if anyone has taken it, and what they thought. It is 7 nights (9 days with flights) and a decent price. I want to know how much of the D-Day Beaches you actually Visit/Stop at, they say the American Cementery , but do they go to any/all of the Landing Beaches or do they Drive by and Point with a quick "Photo-op" stop? This is a BIG reason we want to visit France. The rest of the tours sounds good, but would like to hear from people who have taken it. Hotels walking distance from the action? Mont-St-Michel looks Incredible, how much do you get to see- how long did the stay in main stops last? Any help is appreciated, Thanks. BTW we are planning on adding 1-2 days in Belguim and then 2 days in Amsterdam on our own to end the vacation, maybe 2 in London to make it a 2 week trip, so fast paced the first week will be fine.[/quote]

[twb]

[quote="Anonymous"][quote="Brian"]I am considering this tour next summer and wonder if anyone has taken it, and what they thought. It is 7 nights (9 days with flights) and a decent price. I want to know how much of the D-Day Beaches you actually Visit/Stop at, they say the American Cementery , but do they go to any/all of the Landing Beaches or do they Drive by and Point with a quick "Photo-op" stop? This is a BIG reason we want to visit France. The rest of the tours sounds good, but would like to hear from people who have taken it. Hotels walking distance from the action? Mont-St-Michel looks Incredible, how much do you get to see- how long did the stay in main stops last? Any help is appreciated, Thanks. BTW we are planning on adding 1-2 days in Belguim and then 2 days in Amsterdam on our own to end the vacation, maybe 2 in London to make it a 2 week trip, so fast paced the first week will be fine.[/quote][/quote]

We did this tour in June 2001 but I doubt if the itinerary as changed much.
We had two teenage (15,17) daughters with us and lack of choice at the group dinners is a bit of a drawback. I would agree with JimC about the hotel rooms, nothing special but you won't spend much time in them. The stop in Normandy consists of an afternoon visit to the museum in Caen takes a couple of hours to go through. The next day you go to the American Cemetary and Omaha beach for about 1 1/2 hours. The beach is a fair hike down from the cemetary so if you want to spend time walking around the cemetary also, plan accordingly. It is a very humbling experience. We also stopped at Point du Hoc for about 1/2 hour. I recommend reading Stephen Ambrose's D-day book before you go. If you want more time at the beaches and are not really interested in the chateaus this may not be the tour for you. However the rest of the tour was very enjoyable. We did walk into Amboise from the hotel although I agree it is a good hike. We had our best meal of the tour in a tiny restaurant across the street from the castle. This was our first excursion to Europe so an escourted tour worked well for us.