Anyone can travel in a bus to visit the museums and battlefields of Normandy, but to get a true sense of what it was like for a paratrooper on D-Day and the days that followed, you have to fully immerse yourself in the experience. While we provide our guests from start to finish with comfortable lodging, warm showers and hearty fare, we also provide an authentic look into what it was actually like for those brave men who dropped into history, including taking a reconnaissance flight to view the drop zones from the air. With more than 110 years of combined relevant experience, our battlefield historians execute a meticulously planned itinerary laced with history, adrenaline, sweat and above all, FACT.
The three guiding principles of Normandy Drop Zone Tours are Authenticity, Respect & Remembrance, and it is these principles that set the stage and theme for each and every tour experience. We go to great lengths to ensure that our tours are as authentic as possible, from the uniforms we wear, to the equipment and weapons we carry and the vehicles in which we travel. In conducting our tours, we emphasize respect for both the men who fought and died in Normandy and the French people who lived under Nazi occupation. We schedule each tour to conclude with a trip to Normandy American Cemetery so that we can remember and pay respects to the heroes who liberated Europe.
We Travel Together
Our tour begins and ends in Ste Come du Mont, Normandy. For those clients flying into Paris for a connection to Normandy, your transatlantic flight will offer you plenty of time to think about the experiences that await you. As day breaks and you find yourself approaching the Normandy coast on your commercial jet, you can't help but look out the window and imagine what it was like back in June 1944, seeing the coast as they did while trying to process all of those thoughts and emotions. You haven't even touched down and the adrenaline rush has started.
Ground Transportation
Once you arrive in Normandy, you will use multiple modes of transportation, including small vans, a twin-engine turboprop airplane and authentic US Army World War II vehicles. Transportation in the evening hours (or when you have "down" time), will be via the smaller, more comfortable vans; during all operations around Normandy, you will be transported in the Army vehicles.
Comfort is not the name of the game with these weapons carriers; however, we know of no better way to immerse you than to offer you the same uncomfortable ride that the GIs and paratroopers experienced (when the paratroopers were lucky enough to commandeer a vehicle). Fully restored and ready to go, the Army vehicles transport you back to June 1944 as we travel through history. If these vehicles could only talk and share their stories!
Normandy Air Reconnaissance
What sets Normandy Drop Zone Tours apart as "fully-immersive" is its focus on providing the entire paratrooper experience, including the critical airborne component. You will see it all from the ground as you walk and crawl through the fields, ditches and hedgerows, but to fully comprehend the enormity of what occurred, you will take to the air with us for a fully-customized air reconnaissance flight. Your comfort is our priority as we offer you a low-level look at the villages, drop zones, landing zones, beaches and landmarks that ARE history. To see these sites from the ground is impressive enough, but to view them from the air provides an entirely new perspective. First class is the only way to describe your experience, and the only way to fully appreciate the tactical operations that you will undertake during your stay.
Boots on the Ground
We haven't forgotten the number one mode of transportation for the paratroopers in June 1944: your own two feet! Throughout your tour, you will experience the weariness and aches of marching, running, walking and jumping through or over fields, hedgerows, bushes, streams, roads, trails, farm lanes and walls. Remember to have those jump boots broken in. You will be walking a lot on a daily basis, just as the paratroopers did.
Accommodations
Ste Come du Mont, Normandy. From the time of your arrival in Normandy until you depart, you will call this sumptuous manor house home. You will live in the buildings where actual fighting took place and in the room in which a German sniper wreaked havoc on members of the 101st Airborne Division. Heavy fighting occurred in the courtyard, backyard and hedgerows adjacent to the buildings, and you will see it much like it was and be able to visualize and walk where men on both sides fought and gave their lives. Look closely, and you will find bullets still imbedded in the rock walls.
No matter the theatre in which they served or the battlefield on which they fought, our veterans shared a strong camaraderie. During your travels with us, you will have the opportunity to bond with the other members of your "stick" and begin to experience the trust and camaraderie that was commonplace in 1944 but is unheard of today. Normandy Drop Zone Tours is committed to providing you with a once-in-a-lifetime experience that is "as accurate as possible without getting shot at" - one that will change your perception and appreciation of D-Day forever. Dropping Into History™ with Normandy Drop Zone Tours.
TOUR TERMS & CONDITIONS >>
PAYMENT SCHEDULE >>
PRICING >>
SINGLE SUPPLEMENTS >>
CANCELLATIONS & REFUNDS >>
TRANSFERS >>
LIMITATION OF LIABILITY >>
TOUR MEMBER'S RESPONSIBILITY >>
2012 Pricing: $8,495*
Single Supplement:
- Normandy: $500 (if available)
*Click
HERE for our Pricing Policy
Reserve a spot in your "stick" now. It's easy! Since our immersion tours are of limited size and airlines often sell out their best fares many months in advance, early reservations are a must.
Simply download and complete a
Tour Application Form, (in PDF format) and return it to us by mail with your deposit. Deposits and tour payments can be made by credit card using Google Checkout (
Note: you will not receive the 3% cash discount for any payments made in this manner), or by sending a check or money order with your completed Tour Application Form.
Once we receive your deposit and completed Tour Application Form, one of our staff will be in touch with you within 24 hours to confirm your tour. Once confirmed, we will send you a complete equipment and packing list, relevant health information forms and general information needed to prepare for your trip. Final travel documents and tour materials for fully-paid tour participants, including itineraries, will be mailed or emailed approximately 30 days prior to departure.
Our staff is ready to answer any questions or concerns you may have. Please do not hesitate to contact us at (954) 464-3878 from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (Eastern), seven days a week.
A good trip could be defined as one that offered good accommodations, insight, relaxation, laughter and the opportunity to see new things. A trip that exceeds all expectations (or as we call it, "a once-in-a-lifetime experience") takes it much further; it offers all of the above, but we feel it also offers additional attributes such as a trip that: taxes your psyche, pushes you to your fullest, makes you rely upon yourself as much as others, places you in a realm of insecurity and tests all of your senses with an element of fear, a touch of helplessness and lifetime of memories.
An example of this is found in the trust you must have in your fellow troopers. As you approach the opening in a field or hedgerow, there must be trust -- trust that you can rely on the other members of your "stick" to assist you or guide you in the proper and safest way to cross that field or navigate past that opening in the hedgerow. Today in civilian life, as you walk by the opening in a field, you may take a brief nonchalant look at your surroundings and keep on walking. Back in Normandy in 1944, a haphazard approach to walking through a field or past an opening could get you killed.
Through training, the proper use of hand signals and gaining the necessary trust in the paratroopers who are by your side, you will experience something that will exceed all expectations. This experience is simply "off the charts" -- unheard of among the "other" tour companies.
