gentle pace | 7 nights | from $2,450 per person
Dalmatian Coast Vacation Package: 7 Nights at a Gentle Pace
A ship small enough to tie up in the middle of a town rather than at a terminal outside it. You step off, and the town is there.
What the days ask of you
This trip is filed as gentle. Everything below is measured, not adjectives.
- Walking on an average day
- a mile or two ashore, entirely as you like
- Longest stretch without a seat
- an hour, on the one guided town walk that leaves the harbor
- What is under your feet
- polished stone in the old towns, which is slippery when wet
- Climbing
- one bell tower, optional, and a fortress with a long ramp
- Altitude
- sea level throughout
- Heat
- warm from June, and the deck is exposed at midday
- Times you move
- none between towns. The ship moves while you eat lunch
- Who this is not for
- the ladder between decks is steep, and that is the one real constraint
What is included
- Seven nights aboard a small ship of about thirty six berths, cabin with private facilities
- Breakfast and lunch aboard every day, and two dinners
- Swimming stops on five of the seven days, from a platform at the stern
- A walking guide in three of the towns, one hour each, at a genuinely slow pace
- Harbor fees and tourist taxes, which are otherwise collected in cash
- Transfers between Split airport and the quay
What is not included
- Flights, quoted separately
- Five dinners, taken ashore, which is the whole reason they are not included
- Drinks aboard beyond water and coffee at breakfast
- Paddleboard and small boat hire from the stern platform
- Gratuities for the crew
- Any excursion inland, which this trip deliberately does not attempt
What it costs
from $2,450 per person, on two people sharing.
That is the lowest figure we have actually placed this trip at in the last season. It moves with the month, the room or cabin grade, whether you travel alone and how far ahead you book. Flights are not in it unless this page says they are. The figure is confirmed in writing, with the operator named, before you commit to anything.
When this is worth doing, and when it is not
Late May to early October. June and September are the two weeks to want: the sea is warm enough and the towns are not at their fullest. Early May can be cold in the water, and August fills every quay on the coast.
This is not a cruise in the sense most people mean. There is no entertainment, no shows, no formal night, and the ship is quiet by ten. People who want that are better served by a large vessel, and we will say so rather than sell you this one.
What gets settled when you confirm
The deck, since a lower cabin is meaningfully cheaper and meaningfully smaller. Whether you can manage the short ladder between decks, which is steep on ships of this size. The exact departure, because the route reverses on alternate weeks. And whether you want the two nights ashore we can add at either end, which most people end up wanting.