Dubrovnick from Bari
 

I hope someone can help me on this one. I was told I could go by train to Bari and take the ferry over to Dubrovnick. If this is true would the ferry be over night or just a couple hours crossing. I know the train about 4 hours to Bari. I will be in the Naples area. Any help would be great
Lulu

Bari-Dubrovnik is normally an overnight journey. Jadrolinija (www.jadrolinija.hr) runs all year (though only once a week in winter) and there are also summer sailings by Azzurra Line (www.azzurraline.com).
There are more frequent ferry services from Ancona to Split by Blue Line (www.blueline-ferries.com) and Jadrolinija.
There are also fast ferries in summer from Pescara and Ancona to Croatia by SNAV (www.snav.it).

ttt

We did the overnight one (Jadrolinija) in August. We had a room reserved months ahead. It was a good thing, as it was the height of Italian holiday season, the boat was PACKED. You could not even get up and down the stairs or through the halls as people were sleeping EVERYWHERE. Coming back was also at night, and not quite so crowded.

NeoPatrick:
We will be traveling to Italy, Croacia and Slovenia in early Spring of next year.

We are looking into taking the ferry from Bari to Dubrovnik with our car and maybe you can help us. How did you make your reservations for the Dubrovnik-Bari ferry? Any information you can provide on the port at Bari and the logistics involved would be very welcome.

Thanks.

It's been several years now so maybe it's easier, but I know I had a hard time finding the information originally. Finally I had to book through the Jadrolinija agency in London. At the time there was no agency in the US. It was charged in pounds. I did it by email, I can tell you that. Have you looked at their website?

What was kind of tricky was that our original intent was to take the car from Bari to Dubrovnik and drive up the coast in two days to Trieste. We even had an overnight stop reserved on the way up. This was during a several month European trip with a long car lease. But while in Italy, several people warned us that driving up the coast from Dubrovnik in August would be a nightmare and take days at creeping speeds. So about a week before we got to Bari, I managed to call and book a return (with the car). It was funny. We took the car to Dubrovnik, parked it for four days, then put it back on the ferry and brought it back. Then we drove up the autostrada to Trieste, spending one night half way.
At one point we tried to cancel the car reservation and thought we'd leave it parked in Bari, but they wouldn't let us keep a cabin if we weren't also taking the car -- so we took the car.

The Bari-Dubrovnik service runs once a week in the spring. Details are on Jadrolinija's web site. They have agents in several countries, including, for example, Viamare in the UK (www.viamare.com).

NeoPatrick and GeoffHamer:

Thank you for your prompt replies. I'm in San Juan so I'll try to find an Agency in the US, if not, I will try through Viomare. Since there is only one weekly sailing, it is very important for us to have reservations.

Thanks again.

lulu:

Be aware that the sea lanes between Bari and Dub are sometimes hit by heavy seas. This happened to us on Easter weekend a few years ago (going from Dub to Bari)...after several hours of delay at Dub Port, the announcement was made that "due to dangerous heavy seas the sailing is cancelled"...we got our money back the next morning, drove up the coast (4 hours) to the Split airport and took a flight to Rome, thanks to our car rental agent in Dub who made the reservation for us, on a very busy weekend..whew! We were told that there are occasional cancellations due to weather. We suspected that the Croatian captain may have wanted a long weekend at home. Just be aware.

Stu T.

The reason why there is only one sailing a week in winter is that very few people use the service. I wouldn't worry about booking far in advance.