Europebyair & Dubrovnik - Help!
 

Help! Will we have enough time to catch our connecting flight? Please read on....

We are going to Italy and Croatia in October 2004. From this forum, I was thrilled to learn about Europebyair and we have booked flight segments from Rome-Zagreb-Dubrovnik (the only option -- there are no direct flights to Dubrovnik). There is only a one hour or so layover in Zagreb between the time we arrive from Rome and the time we depart for Dubrovnik. Will we have enough time to catch our flight to Dubrovnik? Europebyair packages the flights this way, but they called us today to alert us to the risk of missing our connection. Now I'm confused. Has anyone taken this flight? How complicated was customs, etc.? Were you able to make the connection to Dubrovnik? Thanks in advance for any help....

I have never made a connection in Zagreb, and there's always the risk that your flight from Rome will be late, but I can assure you that Zagreb is a VERY small airport. You certainly won't have a problem running from one terminal to another.

Relax, if you miss your flight you may have the pleasure of spending a night in Zagreb.

Two years ago, Europebyair allowed you to change your reservations as frequently as you wanted without penalty. Is that still true?

Grasshopper --
What about customs, though? Since we are coming from Italy, do we need to claim our bags at Zagreb and go through customs there or will they check the bags thru to Dubrovnik? That's my concern... having to wait on a bag to be offloaded and then having to go thru customs and trying to recheck the bag.

You would have to collect your bags and go through customs. Think about the smaller airports you've been to; Pisa? Florence? Linate? It's nothing like the line at CDG or LHR. If your plane is ontime, you will probably be fine.

Thanks. It's been a while since I've jumped from country to country. My last several trips have been within a single country. I'm assuming their call was just a CYA out of an abundance of caution... hopefully we won't have an issue. Thanks again. This is a great forum!

Katia, Be sure to post a trip report! I am looking forward to hearing about your experiences. :-)

Just returned from Croatia and have to second the posts about how small the Zagreb airport is. You really shouldn't have any problems. The luggage carousel and customs are just a few minutes walk from one to the other (if even that). Customs consisted of just showing our passport and being waved through. I am not even sure we got a stamp.

Thanks!

Katia,

This may be too late for you, but the size of the airport at Zagreb may be the least of your problems. We went over on Sept. 19th, and came back on October 6th. Zagreb was fogged in on both those days in the morning all all flights in and out were held up. Another member of our party came in the day before us, and left several days before us. Each of her flights were held up because of fog in Zagreb.

You might want to check with the airline to see what their fog record is as related to the time of year.

Best of luck!