Nature and travel:
This is probably the strongest impression of the time spent. Some kind of crazy mixture of the Balkans, Crimea, Africa and everything, as they say, in one bottle. When they talk admiringly about the local nature - believe it is so. You can talk about the sea for a long time, it's really cool, the only thing that still bothered me was the objects lying near the shore. For lovers of diving, there will be many surprises in the form of bottles, bags and even pipes lying at the bottom (I personally saw it). I highly recommend to visit there. I also advise you to take a walk from the hotel to Dubrovnik along the paths (stone) along the sea. It will take 30-40 minutes which fly by almost unnoticed. Very amazing views and scenery. And in Dubrovnik itself there is something to see. I think you can figure it out yourself. The only thing that bothered me was to constantly carry a decent amount of money with me, which, in principle, will be discussed further.
Money and purchases:
I must say right away that the country is unreasonably expensive. Everything that is more or less decent costs money. Travel from the hotel to Dubrovnik - 10 kunas - about 2 dollars, though you will get there quickly and with air conditioning. It is better to buy tickets at the hotel, they cost 12 from the driver. The local beer is very tasty. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. But it costs about 30 kunas....for a bottle of 0.3. This is in a hotel, it is cheaper in stores, but it’s better not to show it in a hotel, but I’ll tell you why below. Be sure to bring slivovich, krushovitsa, olive oil with you - everything is very high quality and tasty, and in general buy gifts for how much money is enough, I still regret that I brought so little with me.
Food and drinks:
As I said in terms of beer, they have no equal. I really liked the beer "Lasko", as I understand it, "Gentle" in translation. I advise. The hotel often gives seafood - mussels, crabs (there were 2 times), squid. Meat, fish in the restaurant is always in abundance, though you have to come to the beginning of the meal to understand what food is today. The waiters try to regulate the amount you serve yourself, but nothing prevents you from coming back with a new plate. This is especially true for mussels. One plate holds no more than 10-15 unpeeled. And in general, they have no problems with products. In this regard, everything is great with them, they, like us, love to eat deliciously, I’ll say the Croats know a lot about this. So you won't go hungry. They sell local wine in stores in 5-liter plastic bottles (I saw it myself), although we didn’t need such a volume. The wine is wonderful and for every taste. I myself do not like white dry, but in the heat in the cold it helps a lot. Just do not get carried away! ))) Drinks in restaurants and bars of the hotel are mostly diluted juices, although I will say that it’s very personal. Wine and beer at the hotel are provided free of charge only for breakfast, lunch and dinner and only in the restaurant. The rest of the time it's about money. Do not collect in containers. This applies to everything else as well. Separately, I will say about the water. Yes, about the most ordinary water. I was told and I read that the water that even flows from the tap is unusually clean and tasty. I did not believe this until I saw how the bartenders drank this same water from an ordinary tap. Believe it or not, I drank water from a fountain in Dubrovnik!! ! I will tell you, the water is the real spring. A similar saw from a spring in the Crimean mountains. So if it gets hot, you can safely join the "fountain" water. Try local drinks made with local water. Because of it, even Coca-Cola has a different taste, some soft.
About the hotel and service.
Here I want to disappoint you a little. Not everything is so good with them in this area. The fact that the hotel is purposefully designed for people of retirement age and married couples is not so bad. But the fact that they have people working in the service staff who should have raised their grandchildren and knit warm socks for a long time, this was annoying, and there are about 50% of them. From time to time it was read in the views: "they came here, they litter, clean up after them here", "the dishes cannot be cleaned up after themselves. " I didn’t see smiles or any kind of greetings from them all the time (except for the receptionist - they are supposed to work). stone faces. If young people are still trying to match the European service (believe it is not cheap), everything is running here. I still think that the Soviet era hit them hard. I'll tell you one case. Since from lunch to dinner you need to take drinks somewhere, and the same bottle of cola at the pool bar costs 20 kunas for 0.3 liters (4 dollars !!! ), we bought a liter bottle or several from a store in a nearby hotel, which was 2-3 times cheaper. And I’ll say that after dinner, usually everyone moved to the pool, and now the manager of this bar watched this “ugly drinking of other people’s drinks” for several days and, in the end, could not stand it, ran in with a contorted face, began to PULL out a bottle of cola from his hands, shouting something angry in our address, like here you can only drink what is sold in the bar, and what you bought somewhere else, you must drink outside the hotel or in the room so that no one sees. We were shocked!! ! Not only did he almost get hit in the face (they barely reassured the person who was being pulled out), he also spoiled the whole impression of the rest. I have his photo, if someone needs this face, I can send it.
Here. Of course it's up to you, but my opinion is that this hotel is for seniors and couples. There is nothing for young people to do.
Hope my review helps someone.
Everything! . . The hotel itself does not stand up to criticism - there is no refrigerator in the room, air conditioning with centralized control and below 24 degrees does not work in principle, most rooms do not have balconies (there is no place to dry things), there is no hairdryer in the room (it must be specifically requested at reception), showers are skewed and leaky (I don’t recommend washing for longer than 3 minutes, otherwise there will be a flood), the furniture is old, broken, etc. , etc. Such a “scoop” in terms of surroundings. I understand that there is no dispute about tastes, but for such a stay there should be an honest price, and it is fabulously overpriced in this case. There, in the reviews earlier, the Valamar Club was compared with the Egyptian "five". Strongly disagree!
So just take a closer look at the "price-service" ratio when choosing a hotel. If you are satisfied with the actually Spartan living conditions, nothing will bother you, but if you are determined to relax with decent comfort (not excessive, but reasonably sufficient! ) - look for neighboring hotels.
The pools were great. The child could not be pulled out. The sea was cold for her, plus the pebbles pricked her legs. I will note the animators who occupied children and adults ALL DAY and evening until 23:00. Every day themed evenings. For children - a separate playground with a sports complex, houses, swings . .
Territory well-groomed, green. There are places to walk around. We really liked this hotel. The level is quite sufficient for a relaxing family holiday.
You only need to go to Croatia for May, because everything is still blooming, it’s not hot, but it’s not cold either, it’s quite possible to swim and there are few people on the beach. The rain was, but small and short. My relatives were vacationing in Dubrovnik in August, it was possible to go crazy from the heat.
The hotel is currently worthy of 3 *, but only because of the lack of refrigerators in the rooms. If not for this nuance - then a bold European 4-ka! We knew that there would be no refrigerator, and I was dissatisfied with this fact in advance - but somehow for 2 weeks we did not sharply feel its absence - either because there was enough water and drinks during breakfasts, lunches, dinners, or because didn't sit in the room much. And so the room has everything you need - a very decent hair dryer (1900 W), towels were changed regularly, bedding 3 times in 2 weeks (here, of course, one could argue), gels, shampoos and creams were added regularly (although soap was "squeezed" - limited to 2 pieces - but "we had it with us" : -)), so we were not particularly upset). Apparently there was a renovation not so long ago, so the photos on some sites do not correspond to reality - at least the bathrooms are certainly much better. Cleaned up regularly.
Power - solid "5"-ka! This is not Turkish "All", but the food is more familiar to us - Europeans and very tasty! The fish is varied, several types of meat, mussels and shrimps are fresh and large, there are not many vegetables and greens (compared to Turkey), but believe me, it’s enough. Very tasty dairy products - salted and low-fat cottage cheese, cheeses! And pretzels, croissants, pancakes in the morning - I really have never eaten anything tastier in my life! They say croissants were invented by the Croats, and then the French appropriated the authorship - and I believed that this was so. We regularly filled a bottle with water and took it with us to the beach - and not only we, and only on the last day we were slightly scolded for this - so there is nothing to scare people with the fact that you can die of thirst in this hotel! Wine (especially red) is a worthy thing. White was always at room temperature, and red was cold, which is strange - but it turned out to be good : -)
The beach is really a 3-minute walk from the hotel. A very good Copacabana beach is free, you only need to pay for umbrellas and sunbeds. There is everything for water sports and diving. Several good cafes. True, we didn’t go to this beach so often - there are many wild beaches, cozy coves in the vicinity, that is, there was where to dive and sunbathe away from the people. Although, in fairness, I must say that there are few people at all - the beaches are half empty - and mostly only foreigners and locals - which is very pleasing! The sea is amazing, the water was just right for us - 25 degrees, for the children, of course, the pool was more suitable (I don’t write about the pool in principle - I swim in bleach with a crowd of people - we try a maximum of 1-2 times in all hotels). In the second week of our stay, the north wind "borax" blew and mixed the layers into the sea - this happens very often in the Crimea - and the water became 21-22 degrees - I didn’t want to dive head first.
Animation - I won't even write anything so as not to offend the guys. Who is coming here for this - turn around and go to Turkey! : -))
The only remark for the citizens of Ukraine - we are from Donetsk and I know that this site is popular not only in Russia - it turns out that we are not allowed on excursions to Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc. Even if you have a Schengen visa! That is, 70% of the proposed excursions are not available to us! For us, it was a bummer, but what can you do - as the popular joke says, "what country - such a terrorist attack. " Happy holidays everyone!
We would like to visit Croatia again.