WinterTravel

Thanks so much to all who have given their advice on our trip to Croatia. We are headed out this week. Our only remaining issue is how to book a ferry ticket from Split to Ancona. We've literally been trying to find a way for a couple of weeks with no luck. Has anyone out there done an advance booking for the Italian ferry Adriatica Navigazione or for SNAV. Jadrolinija is fully booked, but nobody can seem to give us information on the two Italian lines (we've tried emailing, faxing, calling...). We're desperate for advice as we really need to book the ferry before we leave this week. A thousand thanks for any help!

offwego

I purchased SNAV tickets on this website:

traghettionline.net/eng

WinterTravel

Offwego -

Thanks so much for the reply. It seems that everything must be booked up, as traghettionline.net/eng indicates "no tickets available." We really appreciate your help, however! I guess we live and learn ... next time we'll book our ferry passage first!

alohatoall

You might try europebyair.com to see if there are any $99 fares from Split to Rome on the day you need.

rasta

WinterTravel,

How was your trip to Croatia? My husband and I are trying to plan a trip for August and are beginning to fear we picked the wrong time of year for playing things by ear. We wanted to do some exploring, but everyone seems to want 1-week stays for accomodations. Did you encounter these kinds of difficulties?

WinterTravel

Rasta -

Our trip was fine -- not fantastic, to be honest. Croatia was very crowded in August given that it is popular with Italians, Germans and Poles on their summer holidays. We had not counted on the hordes of cruise ship passengers who are dropped off for the day in places like Dubrovnik, making it even MORE crowded. We tend to like to see places "as they are," and unless you get up very, very early it is hard to get any sense of that in Croatia in August. We ended up departing early, which we've never done on a trip before, just because we wanted to get away from all of the crowds.

We did not have hotels asking us for week-long stays, but perhaps things have changed since last summer (or perhaps it is different if you are seeking beach places, which we were not). Croatia is definitely very popular with sun-seeking Europeans, as the euro is strong. That may be part of what you are encountering.

linawood

We purchased Jadrolinja tickets from Split to Rijeka in 2002 through Atlas Travel, www.atlas.hr. We picked them up at an Atlas office when we got to Croatia.

rasta

Thanks for the info WinterTravel. Now I am scared. We knew there would be crowds, but we had not even considered cruise-ships!

WinterTravel

Rasta - Did not mean to worry you ... you can still have a great time -- just plan to walk the walls in Dubrovnik right when they open in the AM (before the cruise ship passengers come into town) or before they close in the afternoon (after the cruise ship passengers have returned to their boats). The cruise ships were only an issue in Dubrovnik last summer.

GeoffHamer

SNAV does not run to Croatia out of season: their services start in June. Have you tried Blue Line (www.bli-ferry.com)?