lariyasui   Lari's Travels

I found a wonderful cruise on Travel Zoo in Sept 2021. It was good for the whole 2022 season on a luxury yacht, that holds only 30-36 passengers, for one week sailing between Split and Dubrovnik. I had been to Croatia in 2005 and always wanted to return to the islands so this was perfect. Zantium Travel is a Croatian Travel company and their prices are great! Website: https://www.zantium-travel.com/en/cruises/
Cliff and I planned our cruise from Split to Dubrovnik on Sept 17-24. We flew to New York and stayed with Yvette, Erik and Marlowe for one night. (Noakai started college at UCI).

The next afternoon we flew from New York to Dubrovnik. We had a cab take us from the airport to Dubrovnik Old Town. We had a little apartment rented but it was up several stairs to get there and up on the 4th floor, so more stairs. We walked around the Old Town for 2 days and on the second day, we walked The Wall. Dubrovnik is an ancient walled city and one of the most popular things to do there is to walk around the old city high up on the wall. On Saturday, we took a 4-hour bus to Split and found our yacht. Our cabin was below deck at the front of the ship. We rested, and got ready for the Welcome Dinner. Ines, our cruise director, introduced the crew. We had a lovely dinner with 2 couples from Louisiana: Tony & Shannon and Minnesota: Paul&Sandi. We hung out in the dining room with Phil & Jan (Melbourne) joining us. The 8 of us hit it off and spent much time together. Every night after dinner we stayed up in the dining room chatting, laughing and drinking.

Two meals a day were included -every morning a buffet breakfast is served from 8am to 9:30am and lunch around 12:30 or 1pm. The cruise included 3 dinners and the rest were on our own to try at different ports. There was swimming almost every day in the clear, clean Adriatic Sea. The food was delicious and the service crew were excellent. Our waiter Neno was my favorite. At every port, there were many other yachts and many sailboats. On the island of Hvar, we had a lovely peka dinner at a farm with olive trees, lavender and wine grapes. The island of Vis had many military bunkers, tunnels all over the island. That evening we took a cab to Konoba Jastozera in Komiza for a fabulous lobster dinner. We also stopped on Hvar, Korcula, Mljet and Slano. Each island is unique and beautiful. Korcula has a walled city similar to Dubrovnik. Mljet was a national park and we walked around the little lake to ride a boat to Angel island in the big lake. One night we took a small ferry to an oyster farm and tasted fresh oysters and mussels. The Captain’s Dinner was special with 4 courses and a party with dancing after dinner.

The beautiful scenery, the friendly people and our cruise crew as well as our travel friends made this trip so wonderful. After the cruise, we spent 3 more days in Dubrovnik and signed up for two all-day tours… one to Montenegro and the other to Mostar, Bosnia and Kravice Falls. This time, we had a much better, more convenient apartment rental that was close to the Stradum (main street) and no stairs to climb except one floor up to our room. Sadly, I caught a cold and missed the last two tours that we had booked. Cliff got to go and enjoy them while I rested in bed. But we did go by ferry to the nearby island of Lokrum where we walked around and saw a salt water pool called the Dead Sea. The flight home was quick and easy, Dubrovnik to Newark. Overnight near the Newark airport and home to Honolulu on the nonstop the next morning.

Post cruise, Cliff worked on his photos and posted them on his Flickr account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ctkhi/albums/with/72177720302708185
He separated the photos into several albums for you to enjoy.