ITINERARY OVERVIEW

Destination: CROATIA
Travel Style: Active/LUXURY
DATES: SEPTEMBER 3-10, 2022
PRICE: $2999 PP (Based on double occupancy)

Day 1: Arrival Dubrovnik

Day 2: Dubrovnik City Tour

Day 3: North Elaphite and South Mijet Island Tour

Day 4 Transfer from Dubrovnik to Split - Evening city tour

Day 5 Full Day Hvar and Pakleni Island Tour

Day 6 Plitvice Day Trip from Split

Day 7 Free Day with optional Krka or Canyoning Tour

Day 8 Departure from Split

DATES & PRICES

September 3-10, 2022| From $2999 pp (based on double occupancy) | All-inclusive package including accommodation, activities, and meals as listed below.

International and intra-country airfare and visa fees not included

Payment schedule:

• $1000 per person deposit due upon booking (Non-refundable 180 days prior to departure)

• Balance due 120 days prior to departure

Optional Add-ons:

• Hotel single supplement (contact for accurate pricing)

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ITINERARY

DAY 1: SEPTEMBER 3RD - ARRIVE INTO DUBROVNIK

After arriving into Dubrovnik. transfer to hotel, Hotel Excelsior Dubrovnik. This will be your home for the next 3 nights.

GROUP WELCOME DINNER PLANNED FOR TONIGHT AT RESTAURANT Dubravka.

• Overnight: Hotel Excelsior Dubrovnik

DAY 2: SEPTEMBER 4TH - DUBROVNIK OLD CITY TOUR

Today we will spend the day getting to know and learning about Dubrovnik.

The tour lasts for about four hours and it begins with a drive to Srdj mountain. This is a place from which you can see the entire city, along with its two-kilometer-long walls and, believe us, it is breathtaking. Srdj is a place of historical importance since, during wartime, that is where the military front was located. It also hosts the Homeland War Museum.

After Srdj, we will begin our descend into the heart of the Old Town where you will see all the most important locations. After that, we will climb the famous walls that encompass the Old Town. During the hour and a half we spend there, you will see the postcard view of Dubrovnik and all its terracotta roofs.

Afternoon at leisure.

• Overnight: Hotel Excelsior Dubrovnik

DAY 3: SEPTEMBER 5TH - NORTH ELAPHITE AND SOUTH MIJET ISLAND TOUR

Private boat tour on the Phantom and Ferratti from Dubrovnik to North Elaphiti and South Mljet Islands .During north Elaphiti islands tour you will visit Island Sipan and it’s Sipanska Luka Bay. Sipanska Luka ( Port of Sipan) is the main port at Sipan, therefore is very popular destination for sailors being well protected harbour. There are numerous architectural monuments from the Middle Ages, vineyards, pine tree woods, crystal clear Adriatic sea.

North from Sipan towards the Island Mljet, we will cruise along uninhabited Islands Jakljan and Olipa. This is where you will discover beauty of the Adriatic and untouched nature. Hidden bays, wonderful rock formations, cliffs and woods. Due to it’s privacy and nature this area of Adriatic often attract Mega Yachts so you might see some celebrities there. After a swim in one of the bays, we will head towards Island Mljet and visit Prozurska Luka.

Prozurska Luka is a small bay on Southern Part of Island Mljet and attracts families and sailors for it’s tranquility. Another stop on your private boat tour is Limuni Beach. Peaceful sandy beach with shallow waters. On your way back, we will stop at the Blue Cave on Island, Kolocep, if you wish to swim inside the cave. Overall, North Elaphiti and South Mljet tour will take you to places where we can truly escape the ordinary.

Drinks, Towels, Snorkeling masks, and Stand up paddle boards included on the tour.

Lunch on your own (Recommend Konoba Tauris)

• Overnight: Hotel Excelsior Dubrovnik

DAY 4: SEPTEMBER 6TH - PRIVATE TRANSFER FROM DUBROVNIK TO SPLIT

After breakfast, we will enjoy a private transfer to Split. The drive is absolutely gorgeous!

Upon arrival into Split, we will get settled into the hotel and then regroup for an afternoon walking and history tour of Split.

Our guided tour will be followed by a group dinner at a local restaurant where you could possibly try the local cuisine “Peka”.

• Overnight: Le Meridien Lav Split

DAY 5: SEPTEMBER 7TH - FULL DAY HVAR AND PAKLENI ISLAND TOUR

Today we will have a full private day boat tour of Hvar and surrounding Pakleni Islands.

Hvar – everyone knows about it – 1h boat ride from Split – you have all the time in the world to explore the old town. After free time for sightseeing, we’ll take you to Pakleni islands archipelago (“Hell islands”). Just 5-10 minutes from Hvar town – amazing archipelago consisting of 16 islands, with numerous bays, beaches, beach bars, etc. – approximately 2 hours of free time.

Drinks, Towels, and Snorkeling masks included on the tour.

Lunch on your own in Hvar

• Overnight: Le Meridien Lav Split

DAY 6: SEPTEMBER 8TH - PLITVICE DAY TRIP FROM SPLIT

Today we will head from Split to Plitvice National Park.

Lose yourself in the UNESCO-listed landscapes of the Plitvice Lakes National Park on this full-day tour from Split. Take a short hike around the magnificent tree-lined Upper Lakes (Gornja Jezera); stand in awe before Veliki Slap, Croatia’s biggest waterfall; and enjoy a thrilling cruise around the Lower Lakes (Donja Jezera).

• Explore the UNESCO-listed natural wonders of the Plitvice Lakes

• Hike around the magnificent Upper Lakes (Gornja Jezera)

• Soak up the scenery with a boat cruise around the Lower Lakes (Donja Jezera)

• Overnight: Le Meridien Lav Split

DAY 7: SEPTEMBER 9TH - FREE DAY WITH OPTIONAL KRKA OR CANYONING TOUR

Enjoy a day at leisure or opt to take a day trip to Krka National Park or Canyoning adventure.

Farewell group dinner.

• Overnight: Le Meridien Lav Split

DAY 8: SEPTEMBER 10TH - INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT HOME

Enjoy your last breakfast at the hotel and then your transfer to Split airport is included.

End of Services

**International flights not included**

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Email me to reserve your spot today!

We just returned from our 2 week babymoon to Croatia. What a wonderful country! From the people to the sites, to the food, it was all-around an amazing experience.

While traveling during normal times can have it’s challenges, traveling during a worldwide pandemic can especially be challenging.

Despite the extra hoops to jump through, my husband and I really wanted to travel somewhere before we welcome our new addition in January. This trip was planned and replanned probably 7 times at least. We started off originally going on safari in Kenya and then ending the trip in Oman. While Kenya reopened to tourists starting September 1, they omitted US citizens coming from Texas and California and a couple other states. Option 2 was Hawaii. I planned a full 2 week itinerary to Kauai as their quarantine was to be lifted on August 31st. Around mid-August, the governor instituted a mandatory inter-island quarantine for anyone traveling from Maui to Kauai. While we were not going to Maui and therefore did not need to quarantine, all the tour companies cancelled our excursions and restaurants began to close.

After planning several extensive itineraries, I began to get discouraged as it didn’t look as if any travel plans that I made were going to come to fruition. I told my husband ok so last ditch effort, we are going to Croatia! If that doesn’t work out, then we’re spending 2 weeks in Tulum in Mexico in a beach house haha. Putting together custom itineraries is a very time consuming process with all the research that goes into it, so as you can imagine, I was getting burnt out.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS:

I began to research the specifics on what we would need to get into Croatia and how we were going to get there. First off - COVID testing requirements. In order to enter Croatia, you can bypass the mandatory 14 day quarantine by getting a negative COVID PCR test within 48 hours of crossing the border OR you can enter the country with an “expired” negative result and retest on arrival. If you choose option 2, then you have to quarantine until the results are available.

This part isn’t super complicated unless you are leaving on a holiday (Labor Day) and all the labs are closed. Due to our flights, which I will talk about next, we had to take a test and have the results on the day of our flight, which was Labor Day. I had to find a place that offered COVID testing for people that are not experiencing symptoms that also had their own in house lab and that was open on a holiday. Are you overwhelmed yet? LOL. Anything is possible though when you really want to go somewhere!

FLIGHTS

With testing figured out, next up was our flights. Due to travel restrictions and lack of travelers, flights were getting cancelled left and right. There are no direct flights from Dallas to Croatia and all the ones with stops had a very long layover (I’m talking 30+ hours to get there) and were also very expensive. A travel hack that I’ve learned is to find a direct flight into a popular European hub (such as London or Paris) and then search for a flight on a local airline such as Easyjet or Ryan Air. Flights intra-Europe can be extremely cheap if you use this option. For example, our flight from Pula, Croatia to LHR was 8 euro! For a flight that was showing as more than 2k on google flights to fly from DFW to Dubrovnik, I got for 70k AA points (~700 dollars) plus an additional 80 dollars pp.

We had originally booked a British Airways flight from LHR to Dubrovnik on the same day (so arriving on September 8th) but the UK re-instituted their quarantine coming from Croatia for their citizens so BA ended up canceling all of their flights to/from Croatia. Luckily, I was able to get a flight on EasyJet that left on September 9th from Gatwick to Dubrovnik. This is why we had to get our COVID tests the day of our flight to London since we wouldn’t be arriving into Croatia until 2 days later.

Excited about our first flight since February!

With flights booked and COVID test appointments made, the next thing to figure out was if we could transfer airports in London and how to do it. As I said, we were landing into LHR and our flight to Croatia wasn’t until the next day out of Gatwick. Gatwick airport is located south of London and there are several ways to get there during normal situations. One reason that we chose to fly into London was that US citizens can actually enter the UK, whereas, places like France and Germany we cannot. This was a contingency plan in case our flights were cancelled or there was a missed connection. If there is one thing I’ve learned from this experience, it was to have a backup plan for your backup plan. In order to figure out if we could transfer airports, I did a ton of research on my own but eventually resorted to trip advisor for some locals input.

UK BORDER CROSSING

In order to enter the UK, you had to fill out a locator form that had where you would be spending your time quarantining and for how long you would be in the UK. We were just staying for 24 hours so I filled out the paperwork with all of our information and submitted electronically 48 hours prior to arrival. The UK’s quarantine rules stated that you shouldn’t use public transportation in order to get to your quarantine location. When we arrived into London, we checked out prices on taxis (150 pounds is the standard rate) and then I checked Uber which was half the price. We ended up taking an Uber from Heathrow to Gatwick once we landed.

We were very nervous about the whole landing process and going through border control and then taxi-ing to our hotel. Concerns were: how strict will they be? how will we get food? what if our flight is cancelled?. The list goes on as I’m sure you can imagine.

Being nervous about everything, I had made and looked into several options if anything did happen. When landing in LHR, the border crossing was so smooth. It was like pre-pandemic except with less people. All the border guards were super chill. They asked if we’d filled out our locator form and to see it. I showed it to them and they asked where we were headed. We told them Croatia and they got very excited and wished us well on our journey. Like I said super easy! We made it through the border, grabbed our luggage, grabbed a quick breakfast, and then hoped in our Uber to head to Gatwick airport.

Hotels, EasyJet flight, and Croatia border crossing, to be continued in Part 2!