Iberostar Albatros Reviews

We have just returned from 2 weeks at the Albatros and I will try and give readers some up to date info for 2006. Firstly, anyone who wants to go to this hotel please look at doing it yourself. We booked the hotel direct with Iberostar for £1000 for 2 of us. The flights I booked with bafrom Manchester for £307 for 2 of us. The previous week the price had been £211 but the hotel prices were not on line at the time. The only downside was that I had to pay for everything in January when booking. Holiday Options and Balkan Holidays both wanted around £1765 for the same deal!!!! I then arranged taxi transfers with taxiservicedubrovnik com or email Tomislav at tomislav @ taxiservicedubrovnik com . The service he provided was great, his driver met us at the airport with a name card. He was in touch throughout the holiday regarding the return transfer which he did personally. The cost was 80HK each way.

Dubrovnik airport is small and well organised. We landed at 11am and were in the hotel foyer by 11.30! The Albatros is as good as everyone says. I had asked for a top floor room as near to the sea as possible. We were in A427 which faced the pool and the sunsets! Marvellous. The bathrooms have a heated towel rail and hairdrier. You get a safe, satellite TV, air-con and mini-bar (empty) all at no extra cost.
You can pay a 100HK deposit for a pool towel card and then get a clean pool towel whenever you like. You get your full deposit back at the end. The sunbeds are mega. They are strong and plenty big enough for my 6ft 3in husband. You also get free mattresses. If you want to swim in the sea you can walk across onto the beach, have a swim and still come back to your sunbed.

Betweeen 4 and 5pm it is happy hour and cocktails are 20HK. Free aperitifs are served on Thursday when it is Dalmation night. The snack bar is very reasonable with a mixed sandwich or toastie being 15HK and Coke 14HK. The tap water is safe to drink - we did with no ill effects. There is a little shop in the foyer selling gifts, sweets, beach goods etc.

I must also mention the Star Friends who are brilliant. They work really hard and not many people were joining in really. Mainly the clients were elderly when we were there and many different nationalities. No chavs. The Star Friends are really good linguists and try really hard. Maya has such an infectious giggle, she was great.
There is all the info you need in the foyer regarding buses to Dubrovnik etc. You have to walk to the village for the public bus No 10 which is 12HK each way. If you look where you are going you can get off the bus just as you are entering Dubrovnik and going down a hill. You can then cross the road and walk down to the Old Town (Stari Grad) through the old narrow streets. It takes 5-10 minutes and all downhill. Saves you having to go to the bus terminus and get a connection. We did this twice and caught a water taxi back (50HK), (80HK return). Buses and boats run frequently. There is also a tourist bus service from the Hotel at 09.15 and 11.15 I think (20HK) which returns at 15.00 but we never tried this.
It now costs 50Hk to walk the walls. Several of the museums and monasteries also charged this.

Cavtat (Savtat) is about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. The road has just been resurfaced (as it has around the Rat peninsula) and the white line has been repainted. Traffic is allowed in only one direction. There are several little bars/shops/ice-cream parlours on the way. Pizzeria Kabaleros is one of the first. I reckon you could get a 2-course meal for 2 there with wine for 20HK but we only had lunch there. We ate at Restaurant Dalmacija twice and Galija once. Really nice food and everything for 330HK - 350HK. Same price to have dinner in Dubrovnik. If you like seafood and wine you will think you've died and gone to heaven. There are several restaurants, bars and tourist shops in Cavtat. There is a mini-market, post-office, 2 banks and 4 ATMs which were easy to use. We found 2 public phones in the village. Get a 50Hk telephone card from a tobacconists shop and you can just phone straight through to home and get quite a long call. There are some beautiful old buildings in the village and a lovely bay where you can watch the yachts. The cheapest and friendliest bar we found was about half way round, called Zino's. A large draught beer was 12HK, 18HK for a small bottle of wine and free nibbles. At other places large beer was anything from 12 - 17HK. There are a lot of pizzerias in Croatia, with small pizzas starting at about 30HK. Ice-creams are about 10Hk for 2 big dollops.

We booked a boat trip through the Balkan Hols rep although there are plenty of places advertising boat trips. I wanted to make sure it was a big boat. We paid 340HK each but it was worth every penny. It was the Captain's Choice trip on a replica galleon, the Tirena. There were only 11 of us on the trip (all British) and it rained most of the day but we had a fantastic time. The food was great and plenty of free wine with lunch. We were also entertained by Dalmatian musicians.

We hired a car from Rubikon Car Hire which was in the Hotel. Although I had considered doing this online before we went I'm glad I hadn't because the weather was bad. The chap speaks really good English but seems obsessed that you have a Nissan Almera. Maybe that's all he's got. Anyway I think we paid through the nose £188 for 4 days but this was including everything and the extra insurance you need if you are going to Montenegro. He wanted cash so we had to go to the bank to get it (he said we could pay when we returned the car! You have to keep the headlights on all the time in Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia. Ours had inadvertently been turned off and we were pulled over by the police in Kotor. There's loads of police about. He wanted e50 and when my husband said we hadn't got it (we'd only taken e30) after a while he came down and accepted e20 and put it in his back pocket (no ticket). Apparently this is quite a common occurrence and they always try to get more money out of you. Montenegro is lovely, loads of old towns, Budva is really well set up for tourists. Sveti Stefan is good as well. With us going early in the season there was no queuing to get through the customs for Montenegro or Bosnia. If you do not want to drive all the way around the Bay of Kotor there is a ferry which fits about 25 cars on and costs e3.50.

We had a drive up to Mostar as well - lovely scenery -took about 2 ½ hours. It was a bit spooky with a lot of bombed and abandoned buildings. The old Town is extremely commercialised and they will accept euros and I think Kuna.

We also drove along the Peljesac peninsula and left the car in Orebic - another 2 ½ hour drive - and caught the passenger ferry to Korcula. This was a lovely little Old Town but smaller than Dubrovnik.

Plat and Mlini ,the next 2 villages to Cavtat didn't have a lot to offer. There are no signposts anywhere to tell you where to get down to the sea. You just have to guess. The petrol was about 89p a litre. The Croatian drivers are mad. If you keep to the speed limits there is nothing to worry about. We have been on a lot worse roads in Greece but it does take a long time to get anywhere. It's worth it though.

What a super holiday!

Stayed 1st week in September. Fantastic holiday, hotel and location. CAVTAT is so beautiful. Scenery is just fabulous, pretty harbours. Hotel was half board, accommodation, public areas, food buffet style - so much choice. All fantastic.
Lovely pool although does get busy.
pebble beach literally outside hotel. Clean beach and crystal clear sea. Sunbeds and umbrellas £2.00 each.Fantastic views. Entertainment - acceptable, finishes at 11.00p.m. Restaurant next door has live music until 12.00. Several other restaurants by hotel, otherwise a beautfiful 10 minute walk into the village of Cavtat.
Take a boat from the jetty in front of hotel to Dubrovnik - 40 minutes £8 return. Brilliant, stunning city.

No complaints about this hotel or location, can't wait to visit again.

We booked this holiday over the internet with Balkan Holidays. It was easy and we would highly recommemd them.The tour rep was Sanja who was excellent and gave everyone her mobile number so she could be contacted at any time.

We flew with Croatia Airlines for the first time and found them to be extremely professional.Free wine with your meal is a nice touch.The flights from Manchester took 2.45 to Dubrovnik and transfers to the hotel were 20 minutes.

The hotel is spotless and very well presented.All the staff are polite and very friendly.The rooms are a good size, plenty of storage space and have very large beds.The bathrooms have a power shower and towels are changed daily.
The food was superb, cooked breakfast or your choice of omelette cooked to order.Main meals had 5-6 meat and
fish courses or a vegetarian selection.The food was always hot and well presented.
The hotel has is own pebble beach and the cleanest sea thet you will ever swim in.Sun beds cost £2 each for the day.Take a pair of swim shoes or buy them in Cavtat [ about £3-4 ] as it will make it easier walking into the sea.There is a large pool with free sunbeds in front of the hotel but we preferred the beach as it was more relaxing watching the waves.

Cavtat is beautiful and a short walk from the hotel.There are many small bars and the drinks and meals are very cheap, coffee 70p, hot sandwiche and salad £2 , pasta meal £2-3 , beer £1.80 - £2.
There are many shops,old churches,a chemist and a bank where you can change Sterling into kuna and they do not charge commission.
The harbour is also very beautiful and there are many walks around the coastline which have breathtaking views.
You can get a boat from the beach in front of the hotel to Dubrovnik [£8 return].It takes 50 mins and takes you into the heart of the walled city.The walk around the walls costs £2 and is stunning.Exploring Dubrovnik is an absolute must for anyone visitng Croatia.

Finally this is the first time that I can say that I could not find anything wrong about a holidy.Everything was first class , the travel company and airline superb, the hotel excellent and Cavtat and Croatia beautiful.
We will be returning in 2006.

We booked our holiday with Holiday Options-a specialist company dealing with the Balkans.This gave us a choice of flight times(ie. not the middle of the night) and board options at the hotel not offered with some other companies.We decided on b and b only so as not to be tied to the hotel for our evening meals.We flew with Astreus..food not bad(delish choccy pud on return flight!)and loads of leg room.

The Hotel Albatros was spotlessly clean.The buffet style breakfast was excellent and cocktail hour by the pool in the afternoon much appreciated :-)

Most rooms seemed to have seaviews(ours was lovely)and considering how close to the airport we were-the shortest transfer I've ever had!-disturbance from aircraft noise was minimal.Whilst 'aqua gym' isn't really my thing,the entertainments team were excellent,multi lingual and frighteningly enthusiastic.Children seemed well catered for activities wise.The hotel is in a lovely spot overlooking a bay with fantastic sunsets every night.We also had a spectacular lightning show one evening wilst eating on the seafront.

Go to Dubrovnik and walk the city walls if its not too hot.This is a beautiful city and all the more spectacular if you think of the amount of restoration thats been undertaken since the war.Boat trips go from outside the hotel.Holiday options also had a selction of trips you could do.We took a trip to the Elaphite Islands which was ok...covered quite a bit of history of the area and a meal on the boat was included with time spent on 3 of the islands.

Cavtat is small but pretty with lots of places to eat.Luxury yachts are moored along the quay next to a boulevard of palm trees giving the place a rather up market feel.A good people watching place.

I was very impressed with this tiny bit of Croatia and will probably go back to explore some of the spectacular scenery inland.It was a truly relaxing holiday in beautiful surroundings.Highly recommended.

Hotel Albatros was an excellent 4 star hotel. It lacked luxurious touches, but was spotlessly clean, had terrific food and a superb entertainment team.
The beach was disappointing, but the pool area was good.
The hotel is about a 10 minute walk from the picturesque centre of Cavtat, a stunning natural harbour, unspoilt by development. We lunched most days at a bar called Posejdon on the harbour.
Dubrovnic is a must, we travelled by bus (no 10) and returned by boat (vivado were a good operator) We also used Vivado to take us to Lopud, a lovely island where we spent a day.

We were unsure before booking whether to opt for the five star Hotel Croatia or the four star Albatros, and think with the benefit of visiting that we made the right choice. Whilt the five star was cheaper, we felt the Albatros served us well with the ages of our kids and that Holte Croatia was enormous and much more formal.
We would definately return, and for those thinking of a quiet, unspoilt resort, without many brits, this place is a delight.
First Choice were a good operator and the transfer took minutes.
We had a pool and sea view rooms in Block B on the first floor and these were great. Having read this site before I travelled we emailed in advance requesting rooms as near to the sea
and with pool and sea views and got exactly what we asked for.

Try it, Croatia is a delight although some of the Croats can be a bit morose, but not the hotel staff!