Hotel Tirena Reviews

The hotel is a typical modern concrete hotel which doesn't look very appealing. There is no adjoining beach or garden for relaxation, just a rather depressing, partly occupied 'shopping centre' to the rear. I say shopping centre becuse this is what the signs say, but this is really a small, run down row of concrete boxes, half of which are empty, that provide bars, cafes, a supermart and one or two 'souvenir' shops.

It was expensive - £800 for b&b for two people for a week.

The good points are that it is in a very quiet setting amongst woodland, is about 3 miles from Dubrovnik Old town and is well served by the no.6 bus, which seems to run every 10-15 minutes.

The rooms were very clean and tidy, breakfast was as expected, lots of hot/cold choices, the staff very friendly and helpful...but it still lacked something that would have made it a little bit special.

It's not a bad hotel, but I get the feeling there are better ones for the price we paid.

We would recommend a visit to Dubrovnik to anyone. The area is beautiful, very clean and plenty to do in a weeks visit. The Hotel Tirena is on a headland, about a 15 min bus ride from the Old Town. The area,known as Babin Kuk, has a handful of hotels, all within an area of parkland. It is a very quiet, peaceful area, with a main shingle beach (Copacabana - jelly shoes or something similar needed to make trips into sea less painful (jelly shoes can be bought at nearby shops for approx £3.50)). The beach is nice, very clean and the sea is shelving so is fine for slow ventures into the sea!

At the Hotel Tirena, most of the visitors are French or German. This did not bother us but if you prefer to be with lots of British, the sister hotel, the Argosy, may be more your cup of tea. The Hotel Tirena was very nice. The staff were helpful and spoke good English. We had paid extra for a room with balcony and sea view, which was well worth the little bit of extra cost. The only downside was the fact that our balcony was above the bar terrace which could be a little noisy sometimes.

The food provided is of good quality but might get a bit repetitive if there for more than 1 week. Buffet style dinner and breakfast, plenty of choice and always plenty available. The service was ok, quite fast to clear after you. Drinks have to be paid for, and we only had water but that cost 20 kuna (approx £2). Equivalent in the shops was about 1/4 of that price. Food outside hotel was cheap and tasty. The nearby shopping complex has various restaurants.

There are plenty of facilities provided jointly for the use of the Tirena and the Argosy residents. The Tirena's pool is very nice (if a little chilly in late May!) but you do have to pay for use of the sun loungers (approx 80p a day). Apparently, sun loungers are free at the Argosy but we discovered this too late!! There was mini-golf, table tennis and tennis facilities also but we were kept busy enough with other trips and activities that we didn't test these out. One of the best facilities is local bus service. The bus stop close to the hotel, buses are frequent and easy to use.The tickets are cheapest if bought from the hotel (8 kuna, appox 80p)and you just put them in the manchine on the bus, so no worries about having to speak the lingo to the bus driver!!

We used the bus service a lot, to go into Dubrovnik. The main highlight of Dubrovnik is the walls and although there are a lot of steps at the Pile Gate entrance, it is well worth the climb. There are amazing views all round the walls and it is very good value for money at approx £3.00 It can get very hot up there so an early start or a much later start is recommended. There are plenty of restaurants in Dubrovnik, but as we were on a budget, we visited the self service Express restaurant. This offered lots of choice, at budget prices. Bit like a school canteen but fine for filling up after a tiring walk around the walls.

One complaint about Dubrovnik: It is a popular port on mnay cruises and if a cruise ship is in, Dubrovnik Old Town can get very busy. We did our main day on Friday and luckily there were no cruise ships in and it was lovely and peaceful. The following day, 3 cruise ships were in and it was heaving! We also took a 10 min boat trip to the island Lokrum (approx £3.50) Lokrum is a nature reserve, with an old fort at the top of a very big hill! We did walk it and the views were fantastic, but it was very exhausting in the early afternoon heat! We spent the rest of our time cooling off in the sea (again the jelly shoes came in very handy).

The only First Choice organised trip that we went on was a trip to Mostar in Bosnia. This was a very interesting trip which showed a lot more of the results of the Homeland War. Dubrovnik has rebuilt most of it's damage but Bosnia not so. The famous Mostar bridge has been rebuilt and is the main sight on this trip, but there are other interesting things here too. One tip: if you think you may want to do this trip bring some Euros with you from UK, or use your kunas. They will accept Euros or Kunas here, they just convert them! We were told by our rep that we needed Euros (which we didn't have) but that we could get them from a cash machine in Mostar. This was wrong. Luckily, food is so cheap in Mostar, our 60 kunas (approx £6) was enough to get us both lunch and a drink!

The guides provided by First Choice were very good. It was slightly sobering to see destroyed and abandoned buildings but the positive nature of our guide in Mostar meant the trip wasn't depressing. It was also good to see some of the beautiful countryside of Croatia and Bosnia.

The service provided by First Choice was very good. Check-in at Gatwick was a little time consuming but at Dubrovnik everything was very smooth. All the reps were very cheerful and helpful.

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our time in Croatia and would recommend a visit to anyone!! The weather was hot (approx 25 degrees on average, in last week of May), the people lovely, everywhere very clean (all the toilets put the first one we encountered at Gatwick airport to shame!), and costs cheap for most things.

If you wants something a bit different from the normal, go to Croatia now!!!