Katarina Cruises

We just got back from a Katarina cruise in Croatia. We took the KL2 from Split between 5th and 12th September 2009. We booked directly with the company via their website and the deposit and payment arrangements worked out fine. We had booked an ‘A’ boat but ended up on the Adriatic Queen – an A+. The cabins were small but fine and cleaned daily. We did get to see the Eos as well and the rooms are certainly of a higher quality on that boat, but as it turned out the Adriatic Queen was just fine. There was air conditioning in the cabin but cold air stopped on the 2nd day – we didn’t bother asking for it to be fixed and just used it as a fan. The temperatures were warm enough for aircon but in the heat of August it would be very useful.

We had our 22+24 yo children with us and we had thought the boat might have too many ‘oldies’ for them but the average age was probably 35 or so as there were young couples from Australia, NZ %26amp; South Africa. This didn’t make it a party boat however and the partying was done ashore, not on the boat. The rest of the passengers included 1 Englishman, 2 Croatian couples and 2 women from the Czech Republic. It was a good group of people and there was a good feeling on the boat. The EOS which is one of Katarina’s best boats mainly had an older age group. We were told that the Adriatic Queen in particular had a higher staff complement and a particularly special cook. I haven’t been on the other boats to test this out but the food was outstanding.

The cruise went Split-Makarska-Mljet-Dubrovnik-Trstenik-Korcula-Hvar-Split. The typical pattern for the day was to motor to a bay on an island by about 10.30, swim from the boat, have lunch them motor again. The evening meal was always ashore.

The swimming was excellent with beautiful clear water. In some of the bays we could have been given a bit more information other than ‘stopping here for 2 hours for a swim’ as after we had swum ashore we found there was a café just around the corner. At night the Katarina boats stack up at the wharf alongside each other so you might have to cross several boats to get off. It didn’t cause noise problems at night and the Katarina travellers were pretty considerate of each other.

If you want a lot of on-board time for swimming and sunbathing, this is a great option. But the sacrifice is that you get less time ashore to explore the lovely towns of Croatia. For example we moored at 10.30am in a bay about 10km from Korcula and were told they could not moor at the town’s wharf until the evening. We sat in the bay all day and finally got to this lovely town at 6pm, about an hour before sunset. In my view it was a wasted day and the town warranted more time than that. The arrivals in Dubrovnik, Mljet and Hvar were also rather late in the day. Apart from that gripe it was a fantastic trip.