Croatia holiday

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Audrey

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There are some posts on Croatia, but I don't think they answer my question, so here goes. I'm looking at Croatia (Dubrovnik) for summer holidays this year and have requested brochures from Concorde Travel and Croatia Tours. The Concorde brochure has arrived and looks good. The best value they have (hotel, not apartment) is about €1k per person, B&B, for mid season (departure up to mid June). Just thought I'd check and see if anybody has been on holiday to Dubrovnik and what you thought of Croatia for a summer holiday. We're looking for pleasant weather, nice scenery/atmosphere, acceptable food & drink (don't need any mad night life) and reasonable value.

The hotels we're looking at are Kompas, Grand Park, Adriatic, Komodor, Vis, Spendid and Neptune.
 
We went independent last summer. A small town called Milini, south of Dubrovnik. Paid under €500 for a week in self-catering sleeping three. Taxis are shockingly expensive (take the Croatia Airlines bus to the city). Food and drink are no bargain as most foodstuffs have to be imported. Beer is cheap enough (and strong >5%) and often in plastic litre bottles! Local wines are dire. Most beaches in south Dalmatia are shingle so bring 'aqua sox', padded beach mats, and a pole umbrella. Maestro cards work everywhere (even in supermarkets). The locals seem to flock to the beach after 2PM. Never found out why that is. The 2-laned coast road to the airport is treacherous with the aged vehicles tearing about and the ever present, clapped-out, Soviet-era, diesel lorries.

We had a blast! Booked accomodation through Adriatic.net with no problems (well, the map could have been a bit more accurate). And bone-up on your German because English is rarely spoken outside of the cities.
 
Andrewa said:
have requested brochures from Concorde Travel and Croatia Tours. The Concorde brochure has arrived and looks good.
Click to expand...
Please benefit from my bad experience and avoid Concorde Travel, Capel Street, D1 at all costs.
 
It could have been an unfortunate once off bad experience but they really dealt with it badly and I resolved (and informed them) that I would make sure to discourage anybody else from dealing with them on the basis of it. I would definitely recommend a trip to Croatia though. Beautiful place, great food and still not that expensive.
 
ClubMan said:
It could have been an unfortunate once off bad experience but they really dealt with it badly and I resolved (and informed them) that I would make sure to discourage anybody else from dealing with them on the basis of it. I would definitely recommend a trip to Croatia though. Beautiful place, great food and still not that expensive.
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I understand. Your reason for discouraging me is the same reason that I would think twice about using them, ie the way they dealt with the issue once it arose. Anybody (any company) can have an unfortunate once-off bad experience, but I would expect the agency to have dealt with it properly, and they didn't.
Ta again.
 
We went to Dubrovnik (actually stayed in Hotel Croatia in Cavtat) last May with Croatia Tours and had no complaints (other than sharing a charter flight with a bunch of pilgrims!).

€1,000 per person sounds pretty high, we paid around €600 B&B at the end of May for a 5* hotel.

The locals are very friendly, and very tourist oriented (Ireland could learn a thing or two I feel!). Food is good, albeit not much variety (every restaurant offers the same/similar menus), but not exactly cheap.

Beer is cheap and very good.

Shopping is strange-everything is either designer label at Irish type prices, or imitation tack.

We only came across one guy who couldn't speak English, but we were never outside Cavat or Dubrovnik.

One problem-the lack of 'proper' sandy beaches-everything is rocky.

Beautiful area, friendly people, cheap beer, good weather. A good place to visit.
 
Ccovhich - I should have mentioned we're looking at two weeks. Was your price for two or one week?
 
CCOVICH said:
Aha-Ours was indeed for 7 nights.
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Still, I think that two weeks should cost less than double the price of one week. I'll see what Croatia Tours have to say. Thanks everyone.
 
Went to Dubrovnik last summer.

Stayed in Hotel Excelsior. Fantastic and great location. It's worth it.

Dubrovnik is a beautiful place. Has what you are looking for:

"We're looking for pleasant weather, nice scenery/atmosphere, acceptable food & drink (don't need any mad night life) and reasonable value."

Going to go back again.
 
If you can get cheap flights do it yourself. Lovely bright, quiet airport with easy access. The hotels that you are looking at are located in Lapad, a fair distance from the Old Town and very quiet location. The beach is cobbled rather than sandy. A bus runs from Lapad to the old town on a regular basis, no.12 from memory, simple to use. We stayed in Hotel Lero, www.hotel-lero.hr very cheap, great food, a bit 1970's but in great location about 10 mins walk to Old Town. Get the bus from airport to main bus station about €5 per head, then a 10 minute walk uphill to Hotel Lero. A previous poster mentioned Cavtat. Tiny but beautiful place with boat excursion available from Old Town harbour. There is not much to do in Dubrovnik so organise lots of boat trips to the islands and walk the walls of the Old Town.
 
Techman, Can you expand on why you found Excelsior so worth it? It is quite a bit more expensive than some of the other hotels, but if it's very good then we would prefer to spend the extra. Would be interested in hearing exactly what you thought of the hotel.
 
I think Topflight and Sunway also do Croatia. If you are looking at a package job then you might want to check them out too. Having dealt with Sunway several times I can certainly recommend them. At least Topflight and Sunway (and Croatia Tours etc.) had their own reps out foreign unlike Concorde who did everything at arms length leading to terrible problems dealing with issues when they arose with all parties engaging in some frustrating buck passing...
 
Location right beside the old town. 2 minute walk.

Top class leisure centre - pool, sauna, steam room, gym etc.

It's got a nice sun lounge area with bar and restaurants. Excellent service and staff. Really is a five star hotel. Great food.

I know it is more expensive. I booked directly with the hotel - online.

See www.tripadvisor.com for more reviews.
 
Spent a week in Dubrovnik in October, enjoyed it a lot.

Stayed in the Adriatic, which is in lapad like alot of the hotels. A short bus ride into the old town. The Adriatic was very basic (2 star I think), but clean, bathroom was good & the breakfast was excellent. It felt like it was stuck in some time warp from the '70s!
 
I'm back again. Whilst awaiting more brochures, I've been looking at booking the flight and hotel accommodation myself. I've tried eBookers and Expedia. What do people think of these, particularly Expedia. I've never used them before, but they are offering me flights + 2 weeks accommodation (for 2 people) for $1965 (which I figure to be about €1625). The hotel is one that I've seen in a brochure already, and its satisfactory, but the cost per person for the two weeks is a few hundred less using Expedia than it is using the brochures I've viewed so far. Is Expedia ok?
 
I travelled to Croatia at end of August last year. The flights were Aer Lingus and cost 180 return and the accomodation for the week onlyb worked out at 126.

We travelled around alot of Croatia (Dubrovnik, Split, Hvar Island) and Bosnia and stayed in apartments. Most of the travelling was done by fast ferry and car which was also excellent value.

I think the quote you got is very expensive and you could do much better by booking flights and accomodation yourself.

Couldn't recommend the country enough. Fabulous place and excellent value
 
You should price the flights and accommodation seperately and compare prices. Booking the flights with Aer Lingus seperately should eliminate their profit on the flights and therefore you should get a better deal.
Let us know how you get on as I'm trying to book my hols to Slovenia and Dubrovnik at the moment. Flights are cheap, but hotels are pushing the price up. Any suggestions for cheap 5 star hotels in Dubrovnik?!
 
I stayed in the Hotel Excelcior two years ago and agree with techman. Fanatastic hotel in a great location - and if you book, request a sea view - that is worht the money alone!

When I booked, I booked through Joe Walsh Tours (not JWT). They were almost €100 cheaper than Croatia tours, Concorde etc. for the same holiday!
 
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