We were able to enjoy a Sail Croatia Explorer Cruise onboard the Almissa! Here are tips and hints if you would like to follow in our footsteps.
The Background
This trip has been on our bucket list ever since we had a brief visit in Dubrovnik during a Royal Caribbean cruise out of Venice. We didn’t have nearly enough time in Dubrovnik and we were fascinated with the town and the history. Since, we have watched many parts of Dubrovnik and Croatia show up in Game of Thrones, and just had to go back! Unfortunately, the pandemic slowed our return trip by a couple years.
We really like cruises to be able to see lots of an area without repacking every night. There are several cruise lines serving the Dalmatian Coast, and we found it difficult to find much information on any of them. We chose Sail Croatia due to the reviews we were able to find, and the stops that they offered on the cruise. We completely paid for this trip ourselves, so these are our honest thoughts with no bias from accepting anything from the company not available to everyone.
How we chose Sail Croatia, Almissa and the Explorer Cruise
Once we determined Sail Croatia was the company for us, we still had several other options. They offer three levels of cruises. The Navigator level is for a younger crowd and becomes a bit of a party cruise.
The Elegance level is their top experience. It includes more meals, the nicest ships and extra excursions. It also includes the highest price tag and tends to be an older crowd.
The Explorer level is the mid-range option. This seemed to be the best option for us with our activity level, our age, and what we wanted to see! We had 4 boats to choose from including a wide range of age and prices. They also had different itineraries ranging from a round trip from Split to one ways between Split and Dubrovnik. Rene’ really wanted to see the Blue Cave by Vis, so we chose Split to Dubrovnik to include that stop. It was really spectacular, so worth the extra headaches of travel from two different cities! With our dates, we were down to one boat for us. The Almissa is a midrange ship. It first sailed in 2017 and was still in great shape when we went in 2021. More info on the Almissa below.
Even More Choices
Now we knew we wanted the Explorer level. At this level they have different types of cruises that concentrate on biking, hiking, or their more typical swim stop cruises. All three were offered on our dates, so time to think through more options. We decided to take the regular cruise instead of biking or hiking to see more of the islands and make sure we got to the Blue Cave. We did talk to several people on the other cruises and never heard anything bad. They could choose to go on the adventure each day or stay onboard. I don’t think any of the choices are wrong, just depends on the experience you are looking for.
On our cruise, we were the old couple in our mid-50’s. Age ranges varied from late 20’s to us, so a wide variety onboard. We all got along very well, and enjoyed the conversation at meals. One other couple was from the US and the others were all from Europe.
Typical Day
Engines would usually start around 6 every morning. Our cabin was up front, so never heard the engines. We would cruise for a couple hours and breakfast was served around 8. Breakfast was pretty similar, with eggs, bacon and sausage, pastry and bread choices, cheese and lunchmeats and some granola/cereal options. By the time we were finishing breakfast, we would pull into a beautiful bay for some swimming. Water was a bit cold when you first jumped in, but very pleasant quickly.
After a couple hours in the water, we’d head to the top deck for some sun to dry out. We’d grab a drink to enjoy and read, watch the world go by or talk to other passengers. We had a great group on board and enjoyed many conversations! Pretty soon, they would let us know lunch was ready.
We went through lots of the food (with pictures!) on our video if you’d like to see how amazing the meals were! As we ate lunch, we watched the scenery as they moved the Almissa to another swim stop. We would spend another hour or two swimming, relaxing onboard or exploring the island at the swim stop. Eventually we’d head back to our cabins to get ready for the evening. This is just a ballpark of our days. There were usually excursion options offered as well if you were interested in wine tasting, history tours, bike rides and hikes, etc.
Late each afternoon, we pulled into a great town for exploring and to find some dinner on shore. Our Sail Croatia representative had great recommendations each evening and the only sub par meal we had was when we chose on our own instead of following her favorites. Each stop had some nightlife to lots of nightlife, and many choices for dinner. We could stay in the town well into the night, as long as we were onboard for the sail-away each morning around 6.
Overall Impressions
We really enjoyed our time onboard and would love to experience another Sail Croatia cruise in the future! We did have some advantages since it was around the pandemic, so fewer than 20 passengers on the boat. It could get pretty crowded if they were completely full, so might be a different experience at that point. We were very impressed with prices at the bar onboard. Our worry was that they would gouge us on the pricing side, since we were a captive audience. The pricing was extremely fair – a lot of times even better than pricing on shore. Several excursion were not offered due to the lack of tourists. I do think some more options would be a nice change during the days.
Check out our video for more information and take a look to see if this trip is right for you!