Liz Chreist

We thought the commute to the meeting place in Bayaux was inconvenient but we are so lucky to have stayed in Arromanches. The hotel was fantastic. The breakfast excellent (except the day we checked out very early). Having a Sunday without plans worked out well. The 360 movie at the far end of town was excellent and tied together all of the D-Day sites we visited. Big lunches and light dinner was the plan most days.

Fantastic views. Waving to the dinner boats as they went by was fun. Slightly disappointed that they didn’t have our room ready. At 9:30 they promised noon and even advised that the previous guests had already checked out. We napped by the pool and finally were invited to our room at 3:15 PM. Extremely long day as we flew overnight and were in France at 6 AM. Excellent breakfast three days but missed one day because our Champagne tour started early.

Long drive but interesting. (We all slept on the return trip!) Lou was a great guide. She told us good stories and lied to us about just how many more steps! Note; this is hard on 71 year old people with aches and pains already.

This is why we came! Guide was extremely good. Great stories. Enough time at each stop. We cried at the cemetery. And prayed at the chapel. Guide took special interest in helping us find anything to do with the USS Nevada. We located a plaque at Utah Beach saying the ship was 5.6 miles off shore. Great history. The last stop at a church that was used by the medics was a great story/coincidence. One problem was our lunch break was very late and none of the restaurants could seat us. Terrible “club sandwich” was thick stale bread and thin slices of dry ham/cheese.

Long taxi to the meeting play. But the restaurant was open for breakfast. Scope out the others in the group because we split into two groups for the rest of the day. Small winery was absolutely fantastic. Informative and very good quality Champagne. Visit to Reims Notre Dame was good. Big winery was a bit overwhelming. Quick stop at Dom P’s grave was interesting and a scenic stop later on was nice. Very good lunch somewhere. Donna may have pictures to help identify.

Dinner of a lifetime. Note that the ground floor meeting place looks closed until check in time when the blinds rise. Be in that line. Then go up and don’t get off at the first stop. Have a quick look at the second stop and come back down for the dinner reservation. Window view is well worth it.

No rest room at the meeting point. Then long bus ride with many groups. Our guide was talking non stop to others as well as us. The free time in the gardens was good.

Long line at Saints-Chapelle so we skipped it. Long line at Notre Dame but worth it. Again Ed’s knowledge was great. Ed also found us a lovely restaurant for lunch in between and came back to pick us up prior to Notre Dame.

Pricy taxi but once we found Ed, all was excellent. His guidance through the ancient Egyptian displays was top notch. He made sure we saw the “big three”. Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, and a horse with an angel on it.

Big Bus on our own. Pretty good way to see everything in order to plan the rest of the stay.

Caroline was wonderful—she is very nice, fun, and knowledgeable. Unfortunately, the logistics managed by Le Franchaise once again fell short. We ran into heavy traffic entering our first stop, Eze. While the visit there was interesting, we ended up spending too much time in Eze, which forced us to rush through Monaco. We had only about 30 minutes to explore, which was definitely not enough. In fact, one of the guests on the tour was so disappointed by the limited time that she chose to return on her own via Uber just to see more of Monaco. Our stop in Monte Carlo was even shorter, lasting only 15–20 minutes. The constant rushing to make up time and get to meeting points created a stressful atmosphere, which took away from the enjoyment of the day. I had been very excited for this tour, but once again, Le Franchaise’s poor logistics and inadequate time management turned what should have been a highlight into a frustrating experience.

We had a new tour guide, Valentine, and it was his very first tour after only two days of training. Valentine is a kind young man—eager to learn and clearly motivated to do well—but he understandably lacked the knowledge and experience to guide us with confidence. Everyone has to start their career somewhere, and we support people beginning in their roles, but Le Franchaise should be doing much more to properly prepare their guides before sending them out with paying customers. On top of that, logistics once again fell short. Our driver arrived 25 minutes late due to traffic and unclear meeting point instructions, which only added to the frustration. While Valentine showed promise, the lack of preparation and poor coordination from the company left us with a subpar experience.

Theo was excellent and very engaging; however, he did not have all the necessary details about our tour. He seemed unaware of certain inclusions, and when I asked about our visit to Grimaud, he was taken by surprise, as it was not part of the information he had been given. While he managed to adjust the schedule and fit in a quick stop—giving us only a brief glimpse—it was not the complete experience we expected. This once again highlighted the poor logistics and lack of coordination on the part of Le Franchaise.

Rafael was an excellent tour guide—knowledgeable, engaging, and a true pleasure to spend time with. We genuinely enjoyed our experience with him. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we were unable to complete everything that had been planned on the tour. As a result, we had to visit some of the remaining spots on our own, which took away from the seamless experience we were expecting.